If you've ever found yourself trapped by your wrong choices, and then attacked by someone who you thought should be a comrade, this selection from Life Between the Tides by Adam Nicolson may feel a little familiar.
I put a small crab trap in, baited with bacon. Within a few minutes, a green crab was maneuvering towards it, from about four yards away, the smell communicated through the water. It was big, about three inches across, and walked directly towards the trap and then up over its netting, soon finding the inward-reaching, cone-shaped mouth that led towards the bacon. The crab paused there for a good minute, as if questioning the idea of entering this strange, food-rich, unaccustomed place. Was it a trap?
The smell of bacon must have overcome the wariness and it pushed further in. Six minutes after I had first seen it moving, the crab had fallen down into the trap's belly where it would get to the bacon but from which there was no escape. As it started to couch and hold the bait, two other crabs could be seen approaching from the far side of the pool. The first went past the entrance and in under the trap to the point where it was next to the crab that was already in there. The two of them began to grapple with each other through the net, one with access to the food but trapped, the other with no bacon but free.
The third, a little pale green one, bundled itself fast across the floor of the pool. Without pause, a fool rushing in, it flipped down into the trap already occupied by its bigger rival. Perceiving the entrance of the small pale crab, the older one neglected its rival outside and turned towards the newcomer.
Carefully it stirred its bronzy legs, each joint glowing orange like a set of eyes, and greeted the intruder. The drama lasted a few minutes. The little crab retreated to a corner and held its pitiable pale, lime-green claws up towards the enemy. The big crab picked up the little one in a claw and walked back sideways with it down into the depths of the trap, past the bacon, to a point at the far end where the little crab was held there in its attacker's pincers while the young crab's legs flicked and stirred at its undoing.
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Truth is...when lust for what we want overrides our common sense, we needn't be surprised that anyone else as foolish as ourselves would be adversarial. "Honor among thieves" is a myth.
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