12:45 a.m. - 2006-04-28
diary of a hermit crab
diary of a hermit crab
summer, 1995. Low tide.
i had a strong urge to disappear today, just now, like the tide.
i live on the beach but life is not a beach. it is full of danger and beached whales commiting suicide in the name of love and reproduction. they are sperm whales, whaddaya expect.
work, love, my life, affecting everything. i affect too much upon myself. like a raw jellyfish all sore and hurting.
i am too scared to crawl out of my shell when i see her. Yet inside my shell, i sit in front of the tv and rant at the football channel.
i bought her a cheesecake yesterday, wednesday. she seemed happy, or touched, when she walked over to thank me. oh so sweet, did you buy this?
i did. but i couldn't do or say anything. i clam up like an oyster fried in a pan of oil, making weird noises with my throat, almost sheepishly i go, "Baaa.... its not my idea. they told me to..." i waved at nearby crabs, breaking myself like the dying tide vomiting on the beach. it never disappears.
whenever i walk near her to the printer to take my papers, i peep at her, hoping she would notice me, but she never does. and i stand frozen till my body does a stiff turn, my neck suddenly stuck, i walk back to my shell like a robot with creaky joints.
i dunno where i find the thing to continue existing. for me, i have no god, no love. i am as empty as the shell i live in. which points to a philosophical pondering of whether my shell is more meaningful than me, since it has a purpose in life, to protect me.
but me, i only live in this shell, hiding myself. i hate this shell i live in, it is the first thing people see about me, the way i crawl with my spindly legs halfway out of the shell, pulling its mass around.
it is heavy, this shell, i open my tiny claw-like mouth and utter a wordless cry of agony simply because i have momentarily stepped out of me to look at me from above, witnessing this pitiful sight. Fry this guy with chili!
he needs some spice in his life. he's been eating rice, plain like it's the cultural revolution again.
i don't know what to do. i have decided to disappear soon. Pack my stuff in the shell. i have also decided to ask her out. but i don't know if it's a wise decision. i seldom make wise decisions. what about my shell? screw this shell!
i must be brave. if i were her, i wouldn't like this always embarassed nervous wreck, like a translucent crab, showing its insides, its beating heart shaped like the mechanisms in a watch.
should i do it?
it's suicidal! be patient.
i am knocking my head at my shell, i am a fucking robot! i wasn't programmed, my movements are stiff, my thoughts jumbled.
hi.
i've been wanting to ask you out for dinner for a long time. are you free on sunday?
i memorise and repeat. and tell myself it is just a chance to know each other. she might not be the one i like in the end. and vice-versa like my pincers with their vice-like grip.
but my shell.
all this while, i've been lugging it around, this shell as i speak to her, my mind on the other crabs staring and chirping. why do i care so much about them?
because we live on the same beach. simply said, like homogenous sand, and sand is sand.
oh great neptune sea god, what should i do? i speak to myself in my shell and hear empty echoes. the next tide is coming in soon. if i keep quiet and shrink, i can catch the wave and disappear. like the cultists on the tail of Hayley. like the ghosts the boy named hayley he sees in 6th sense.
i talk and i talk and i make up worst case scenarios in my mind giving my mind a hard time, you have no hope!
if i take a vacation from the beach, i ought to send her a letter. but i shall always remember her, sitting at the beach with her computer, working in the late hours of the night. The angle of this memory is where i am looking as i stand at the printer, looking at her.
hermit crab. talking crap.
the tide comes and then goes.
i make up my mind, make up things, but what can i really do tomorrow?
be patient!
but i can't, my heart is racing to love her. it beats like a drum. i remember a techno song. no, seriously, i love her with a sadness, and i wonder if she ever feels the same.
yet i don't know anything about her. anything much at all. but of what i know, it is enough for me to like her.
i wonder if i've turned mad. i make fun of myself and my childish feelings. i squeal like a piglet.
no matter, i always make up dead ends in my mind, digging holes for me to fall into; i seem to be happy in a relief when i am convinced i have ended this budding love.
how i summed up:
in 5 weeks of knowing her, i have loved and crashed, and everything in my mind.
fucking hermit crap.
tomorrow u shall see.
