FICTION

Land's End     -      Barbara Applegate                              

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The World Above
​by Barbara Applegate​

A tidal wave is passing overhead as I crawl along the deep bottom of the ocean, oblivious to the tsunami above me. To be clear, I am an elderly crab, inching stiffly along, not some young whippersnapper that abides closer to shore where fishermen lurk with their hooks and where so many crab pots are flung from the pier.                                                                        
 
I am out in the peaceful deep, lurching along in the smooth sand, undisturbed by the tremendous turmoil above me. I wonder about myself. How is it that I can be so calm, so undisturbed by the tsunami? Of course, I haven't watched TV in this lifetime, nor read a newspaper, but, at this moment, I am tuned into the turmoil in the world above.  
 
People are so upset, so worried about tomorrow and the future beyond tomorrow; so scared, so afraid, not only that they may become sick and die, but that they may not be able to feed their children nor keep the roof over their family. I sympathize with the pain of those worries, but they do not affect me personally as I lurch along at the bottom of the ocean.                                                                                                                                                              
 I've put in my time working hard, bearing the responsibilities of caring for my family, volunteering after I retired, and now it is time for leisure. But how can I remain so calm while all this turmoil is happening and people are so worried and frightened and tense and anxious and going crazy? Is it because I don't care? Is it because everyone I know is healthy? Because my loved ones are still working . . ., even if at home?                                                                                                                                                                  
 It doesn't seem right to me somehow that I should remain so unaffected amidst the pain and turmoil that so many of my friends, as well as hundreds of thousands of people I don’t know, are feeling. I do trust in the goodness of the universe. I do believe that Mother Earth is healing some of her wounds that humans have perpetrated upon her. I do believe that compassion is important. Even if I myself am not feeling despair, I do feel compassion for those who are suffering both real pain and imagined future pain.
 
But now, some four months after this tsunami started, my thoughts and feelings have been forced to change. I am no longer so calm nor nonchalant. As I was scrabbling along in my usual manner early this morning, I got confused and turned around (My thinking is just not as clear as it used to be when I was young!) and I ended up in a crab pot! Somehow I had changed directions and found myself in shallower water and, when I saw a chicken leg lying there so tasty-looking, I couldn’t resist putting my claw forward to grab it!   

​And that was it!                  

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​I was hauled up by an excited young fisherman and dropped into a bucket of water. There I was, waiting to be measured to see if I was big enough to be taken home to eat. I was in shock, there in that white plastic bucket. At least the water I was in was my good old homey salt water. But as I stood, scrabbling onto my puny legs to try to lift myself over the edge of the bucket and escape to my watery home, I got one eye above the edge of the bucket. And so I was able to see the San Francisco Chronicle on a nearby bench, opened and folded to reveal large, black print exclaiming the dire situation of the spread of the deadly virus. People were dying in large numbers, I read. People were defying the advice of health professionals and gathering in large groups and not wearing masks out in public. ​​Oh, no! I felt my stomach contract. I felt actual fear for myself for the first time. So this is what had been disturbing people and keeping them in an uproar! I looked around the pier to see the people who were fishing here. It was true; many were not wearing masks. Most were gathered in groups discussing their catch, or lack of it.

Morning Catch - Kathy Gilbert

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Now I was worried. I had to get out of there. I was no longer dreading being dropped into a vat of boiling water; now I was worried that I was going to get the virus and suffer great illness and then die! How was I going to survive all these virus blips floating in the air? What had happened to my peace of mind? Why, oh, why did I read the newspaper? How I longed for my former ignorance!
 
A hand reached for me. I backed away—but not far as the bucket limited my movements. The hand was ungloved! I tried to make myself smaller, but it picked me up easily. Another hand measured with a small ruler across my shell and, with a shout of disappointment ringing in my ears, I was tossed back into my salty, watery, virus-free home! I passed through the waves rolling in, down to my familiar territory: the calm at the bottom of the deep ocean.                                                                                                                                                      
 I would never read a newspaper again! Nor reach for a chicken leg. But maybe I would check in on some old friends I hadn’t seen in a while.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Barbara Applegate received a BA at UC Berkeley, with a major in Spanish, and an MS in Education at CSU, East Bay. As an administrator of Early Childhood Education, she developed a program to teach parents in non-English speaking families the value of helping their children retain the home language while learning English. She is the mother of 3 daughters, a traveler and a contemplative. She loves taking writing classes - not only because she learns from them, but because they give her structure for writing.

Other works in this issue:
Non-Fiction
Absolution
Stillness

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