There's always a third crab
Crab # 1: Here I am, stuck in this stinking bucket, with these two other crabs. I’ve got to get out of here! That is why I am scratching and clawing my way over the back of Crab # 2, to try to scramble up and out. If I climb high enough onto Crab # 2, I just might be able to escape. Fortunately, neither of the others had the idea and opportunity to climb over me first.
Crab # 2: Ouch!
Crab # 1: Meanwhile, Crab # 3 is over there, looking on. I wonder what # 3 makes of this situation?
Crab # 3: What an appalling spectacle! But I really don’t want to get involved.
Crab # 1: Crab # 3 is already involved. In fact, I think that maybe I am being gratuitously crueler to Crab # 2 than is really necessary. See how I am jabbing, needling and mashing down on the poor decapod. I wonder if I am doing this precisely because a third crab is watching? Maybe I am trying to send a related but different message to both of these crustaceans. It's part of how I am doing a good job of figuring out how to take advantage of the structure of this situation. Good for me! It makes me wonder how I would think and behave differently, were there not a third crab?
Crab # 2: Ouch and ouch!
Crab # 3: Crab # 2 and I were always such good friends to Crab # 1. Or so we thought. Now look at what # 1 is capable of! Is # 1 a smart, badass anti-hero to admire and emulate, or an evil monster? I am not sure. Maybe the bucket makes monsters of us all. However, clearly Crab # 1 will stop at nothing to get out of here. Can I learn something from this? Is # 1 an example to follow? As I look on, somehow I can't help but identify with Crab # 1. If # 1 escapes, maybe I too can climb onto Crab # 2 in the same way, and get out of here. Therefore let me be quiet, watch carefully and learn what I can.
Crab # 2: Why me? What did I do to deserve this? However, look at how docile I am being. Perhaps if Crab # 1 does indeed escape with the boost from me, once # 1 is outside, they will remember how kind and helpful I was. Crab # 1 will round up other cancrine allies and return. Perhaps then I and all of us will be free! I could be very useful on the other side of the wall, Crab # 1 surely must see, and loyal. So I will stay quiet. Still – ouch!
Crab # 1: Why are the other two being so quiet and passive? And not teaming up against me? Maybe they enjoy punishment and confinement? Or do they secretly believe that I am the most deserving of freedom? If I escape, will I not have proven them right? Maybe they believe that their proper lot in life is to remain in this bucket? If so, and if that’s their choice and belief system, then who am I to contradict them? Bah. When I’m out of here, I will not be coming back for either of these two losers.
Crab # 3: Wow, Crab # 2 is really taking a pincering. This hurts to watch. Should I intervene? However, if I do, won’t Crab # 1 turn all the violence on me instead? And what violence it is! Crab # 1 seems to be playing up how nasty they can be, almost as if the performance, directed at an audience that includes me, is the point.
Crab # 2: Ouch again! Why doesn’t Crab # 3 do something to stop this? I thought # 3 was my friend. Has # 3 secretly believed all along that I deserve this kind of treatment? Now I see # 3 for who they are. Maybe I should suggest to Crab # 1 that they go over there and use that no good Crab # 3 as their stepping stone instead. I think Crab # 3 might be a little taller and plumper. Maybe Crab # 1 would have an easier time of getting out of here on # 3’s back than on mine. I would even gladly offer to help hold down Crab # 3, in exchange for Crab # 1's promise to come back and help me escape too.
Crab # 3: I am trying to make myself look as small as possible.
Crab # 2: Strangely, the longer that I am in this position and think about it, the more I find ways to identify with Crab # 1. Under our shells, we have a lot of positive qualities in common. By supporting # 1's efforts to lift themselves up, am I not therefore lifting up myself too, in a way? It may hurt, but the suffering is making me stronger - even more like Crab # 1. No wonder Crab # 1 picked me to help them out - and not that weak, rotten, back-pincering Crab # 3. And # 3 and I always used to be so friendly! How my attitude about them has changed.
Crab # 3: I continue to sit here, and to say and do nothing! Or is that a good thing? At least I am not over there actively participating, to pile on Crab # 2 when they're down and out. Doesn't my self-control and restraint amount to its own kind of strength and courage, in a way? I am showing Crab # 2 that I am civilized, not like that barbarian Crab # 1. Won't Crab # 2 be grateful to me afterwards, when this horror show passes, that at least I stood aside and did not join in or cheer on the cruelty? But still, I hardly recognize myself. Where are my standards? I feel so guilty. But also relieved! If not for Crab # 2, the victim would inevitably have been me. What's more, because Crab # 1 knows that I am watching, I think that they are exaggerating their heartlessness to show me how much cruelty they can inflict. I empathize with Crab # 2, but can't figure out what to do. Or is the pain of this whole situation mixing up my mind? I wonder how I would think and behave differently, were I not in the position of a third crab?
Crab # 2: The hypocritical Crab # 3 continues to sit there, and to say and do nothing! Pretending not to see what's going on right under their antennae! You coward! Yes, I am learning a lot from Crab # 1. Now I know exactly how to harden your heart when you need to, and how to inflict the right kind of pain, to use another crab as your step stool for upward advancement. That useless, idiot Crab # 3 does not suspect it yet, but I will be the next crab out of this bucket, at their expense. Serves them right for not lifting a cheliped to come to my aid now, when I was the one on the bottom. I will not forget this betrayal. Let me bide my time. My moment will come. For the time being, I will try all the more to appear compliant and of no threat to anyone. Or - ouch!! - is the pain of this whole situation mixing up my mind? I wonder how I would think and behave differently, were there not a third crab?
[The bucket shakes.]
Crab # 3: Hold on a second. I've got to snap out of it. What on earth am I thinking? And doing? This is madness. The violence and cruelty has to stop. What if Crab # 2 and I joined forces and, in a final act of justifiable violence, kicked the crabmeat stuffing out of Crab # 1 with all 20 of our legs? Or better yet, peacefully tried to talk some sense into # 1's thick carapace? If the 3 of us banded together, could we not think of some plan for all of us to get out of here as allies, to safety?
Crab # 2: Hold on a second. I've got to snap out of it. What on earth am I thinking? And doing? This is madness. The violence and cruelty has to stop. What if Crab # 3 and I joined forces and, in a final act of justifiable violence, kicked the crabmeat stuffing out of Crab # 1 with all 20 of our legs? Or better yet, peacefully tried to talk some sense into # 1's thick carapace? If the 3 of us banded together, could we not think of some plan for all of us to get out of here as allies, to safety?
Crab # 1: Who cares about what you pathetic bottom feeders think? Not me. Haven't I demonstrated that enough by now?
[The bucket shakes again.]
Crab # 1: Although . . . What if I've been wrong? Has not the viciousness and brutality that I "demonstrated" been me lapsing into a kind of mindless, robotic, play-acting role, in a performance half-calculated hopefully to influence the positions that you, my former bucketmates, would take towards me? Perhaps I cared all too much or in a wrong-headed way about the stature that I appeared to have in your eyes? Was mutual recognition - your respect, empathy and comradeship - all that I ever really wanted, without knowing how to think through, articulate, ask for, appropriately act on, or get it? Has my time in the hell that is this bucket mixed up my mind? Has our type of collective imprisonment made me and perhaps each of us too blind, jealous, self-absorbed, toxically competitive, hard-hearted yet fragile in our isolation, and frantic with desperation that time is running out, but too scared to admit it? Have we become, each in our own way, a crazed beast, like those in "Attack of the Crab Monsters"?
Crab# 2: Is Crab # 1 experiencing a belated glimmer of self-awareness in their divided ganglia brain?
Crab # 3: Moreover, has Crab # 1 somehow become familiar with obscure, late 1950s Roger Corman movies?
Crab # 2: Are the dynamics of this weird and frustrating, not to mention violent and barbaric, triangular situation about to shift and change?
Crab # 1: But no! Forget about all that! Look where I am! I have scrambled my way to the very edge of the bucket! I can't wimp out now. I am a claw's breadth away from a goal that any crab in my situation would kill to reach. Either of you down there would have done it to me first if positions were reversed, amirite?
Crab # 3: Does Crab # 1 now fancy themself to be a mind reader?
Crab # 1: Anyway, why should I give a damn anymore about what either of you two think of me? Soon I will have escaped, despite your petty and envious efforts to confuse me, your little-minded attempts to undercut me, and to hold me back from achieving all the success that I deserve in this life! After all that I've suffered and all that I've been put through. Now it's my turn. No crab can stop me now!
Crab # 2: Ouch! The most ouch-ful ouch yet!
Crab # 1: I climb higher. I tower above! I am nearly out! Yes, and entirely through my own effort, strength and smarts! I am the cleverest, mightiest crab who ever lived! I owe my rise to the top to no one but myself! I am practically a super being, compared to you fools below me. You can stay down there are rot forever, for all I care!
Crabs # 3: Who is Crab # 1 calling a "fool"?
Crab # 2: Crab # 1's expectation is probably that, even in their absence, we will from now on be in a habit of pointing the claw at each other, to say: "Surely I am not the fool! It must be you, the other crab, who is. The reason that I am stuck in this bucket is you."
Crab # 3: Maybe the most foolish crab is neither of the two of us down here?
Crab # 1: I can see now over the top of the bucket! What do I see? A giant seagull! Yoo hoo! Over here! Bye bye, losers! Ha ha!
Giant Seagull: Ha ha!
Crab # 1: The seagull is looking my way! Ahoy! Truly, you recognize a fellow, mighty and superior creature, such as myself! With that sharp, powerful beak of yours. Come, lift me out of here! Behold me, a fine specimen! We shall rule together! Yes, carry me away! I am free!
Crabs # 2 and 3: We hope you get what you deserve!!
Crab # 1: Yes! Over the rocks we fly! Higher! I rise above all other crabs!
Crabs # 2 and 3: Bye!
Crab # 1: Here come five more giant seagulls. Each with those big, strong beaks. They look as if, with those, they could snap open a mollusk's shell with one crack. That is, if they chose not to open it instead by dropping it from a great height onto a hard surface, then gobble up its meat like an hors d'oeuvre. Yes, and they all look very hungry. Very hungry indeed. Wait -- hungry??
Giant Seagulls: Ha ha!
posted by TiR at 7:01 AM
