A Crab's Story

My name is Grumpy Solo (first and last name), I am a 55-year-old old crab, used to carrying out a routine that I follow daily as if it were a religious ritual. For me, I have my cave, which I have tried to dig as deep as possible. In this way, the sun's rays do not enter through the hole, unless I allow it. Well, I have built several air channels through which, if I put enough sheets, the light does not enter.

And if I remove them, then I have oxygen and at the same time the light enters. In any case, this is not something that worries me, because in my cave I have my few things, my personal space, where I have the computer through which I usually listen to music and see the latest hits from The Little Mermaid and the band from the Eel, something that is very fashionable lately and makes me spend my days calmly.

I have my dishwasher in the kitchen area of the cave, with a small refrigerator that I have to admit is already dirty for as long as I've been using it, around 20 years I would say. Beyond is the tray where I usually scrub with my tongs the different snails that I have caught and the occasional bone that I have polished and turned into decorative accessories in my cave.

My cave has two compartments, one where my parents used to live and the other where I usually live, which is where I have my aquatic PC and where I see my eyes reflected in a small mirror every day I wake up. I usually have the habit of smiling and saying to myself "very good morning". Apparently this has worked for me, because the rest of the day if I do this, it's usually calm, content and at peace with happy things.

I am a crab of routine habits. This one, his friend Grumpy, likes to go outside only a few times. I only go out to look for food, do the shopping around the beach. Come on, I always buy the most necessary, some basic foods like vegetables and other things that I like to eat. Because I don't always have the energy or the desire to deal with people. I admit it, I don't like having contact with the rest of the animals, much less with humans, because they have done me too much damage.

I like to live my life in a quiet way and I admit that it is boring, or that it can look like a boring life in the eyes of most people, and I have been told so many times.

Today something curious happened to me that I want to tell you about. I went to the beach to look for food. After buying some seaweed on the beach, in Mr. Pescado Rocos's bodega, a butterfly landed on my shell. It came gently with its little yellow wings with a few specks of purple and landed on my back. He did it so smoothly and with such grace that I thought I was listening to a classical music melody, probably by Mozart.

He looked at me with his rounded, amber-colored eyes and said: "hey, you have very pretty shapes. Your blue shell reminds me of the sea." The truth is that the fact that he told me this seemed very poetic and very beautiful. Comparing this Grumpy Solo, like me, with the sea is something that I have rarely been told in my life. I kindly thanked him and continued my nervous way towards my cave, speeding up my pace, because I really didn't know what to answer him, because I'm not used to this type of situation.

Already being in my cave, I began to wonder if I really am something special, if there really is something in me. I had that feeling like something inside me was waking up, like something was germinating, something was blossoming. I didn't give it much importance, but I lasted the whole day with this idea in my mind.

The next day, when I got up, I went out with the purpose of exploring the jungle. I wanted to venture out, something I hadn't done for a long time, so I decided to go inside and walk among the plants, looking at the huge trees that surrounded me. They were trees 20 or 30 meters tall, perhaps more than on many occasions they prevented the light from being seen, I felt fear, the fear that some predator would devour me.

Perhaps one of these tropical birds from these jungles would see my attractive colors and would surely find it delicious to taste a delicious crab. In addition, there were the cats, the lions and the small jungle cuddlers too, which are very dangerous, not to mention the other large number of predators.

But being within my search, I saw a huge honeycomb of bees in one of the trees. I decided to start climbing the tree the best way I could to try and get closer to the honeycomb. The bees began to buzz very loudly and my animal instinct told me that I was afraid that they were scared, but I immediately told them: "I'm just passing through and I understand that you are afraid to see me around these parts. I'm not used to doing that either. this kind of thing, but I was very curious to see you housed in this tree, living here."

The bees, with great curiosity, decide to go closer to where the crab is. One of them tells him: "well, it's better that we talk at the foot of the tree, for your own safety, so that no bird comes and wants to peck you or wants to eat you. So we went down to the foot of the tree and started talking."

The queen of the bees who came out of the hive to find out what was happening, began to explain to me the different tasks that each of the bees had, how the workers were in charge of going from flower to flower looking for honey to bring it to the hive and feed the the young, how she was in charge of laying eggs every day and the rest of the workers were in charge, inside the hive, with a great job of creating small cavities or behaviors where, in this kind of small communities, they housed the chicks. different larvae and eggs, and fed them.

She explained to me the way in which they made honey, a very interesting process. I began to tell them about my life on the beach, about my cave, about what I have at home and, of course, the encounter I had with this butterfly shared many ideas with everyone. One of the bees told me how she managed to escape from the attack of a crow that voraciously tried to eat her. Thanks to her ability to fly quickly and sneak out of the crow's body, she managed to quickly reach the hive.

She explained to me that as all the members of the hive helped her by readying their stingers to attack and defend themselves from the crow, the crow, immediately seeing that they were a large number of bees, fled cowardly, because it was not going to face thousands of stingers that obviously they could cause death.

We share a lot of things and I think we all enjoy what we do. All these stories that we shared among all of us were very interesting.

I returned home and knowing that I made friends with these little bees, the queen gave me a big hello. The queen was called Dayadam and she kindly told me: "I wish you good luck in all your adventures".

I went very happy to my cave and felt that, from this moment on, I had a new way of seeing life.

I realized that we are all different, also that, despite being different, we all have stories to share. Stories that make us unique and that distinguish us from everyone else. So, with all this that I learned today, I have a new way, a new way, a new vision of life. With this new perspective, it increased and generated more confidence in me.

Now I have more confidence in myself and the only thing I can tell you is that now I am my own way.

This is what I think and now I smile at life.

I want you to know that each one of you, and that you are amazing too, the one reading this post.

I invite you to always offer the best part of yourself, that I know you have and that you have a long way to go and things to offer.

This my tale for today.