If the mountain won't come to Cuthbert

The waves beat mercilessly upon the shore. In fact, their incessant pounding was giving at least one beachside resident a headache, and he decided that it was time to do something about it.

Cuthbert the crab, who was middle aged, (he'd turned seven last month) was the crab equivalent of well, most humans really. Prematurely balding, prone to acidity and powerfully boring. He'd lived his entire life on one corner of the beach while other crabs had scuttled around looking for excitement.

Cuthbert had been pretty much content to sit in his corner all his life. It was a pretty nice corner, with plenty of sun, and as much sand. If excitement was needed, Cuthbert would dream. He dreamed the kind of dreams that crabs dream, which are not all that different from the dreams that prawns dream. Very different from lobster dreams though.

If there was one thing that ruined his otherwise content crabby continuity, it was the ocean. Despite having grown up next to the confounded thing, Cuthbert had never been able to get used to the sound of it.

And over the years, like the dripping of water, one drop at a time, can wear down mountains, the never ending sussuration of the ocean wore down his patience.

Until, as I said earlier, he decided to do something about it. But what? He pondered the question very seriously, because he was just that kind of a crab. He was a big crab, true, but it was a very big ocean, and he seriously doubted that there was any way by which he could compel it to go away.

"The only solution then," he reckoned, " is to go away myself. If the Mountain won't go away from Mohammed, then Mohammed must go away from the mountain. Or something like that anyway. Maybe I should go to the mountain. What's a mountain anyway? And who's Mohammed?"

Well, it might not have been the most unmuddled reasoning, but he was a crab, and they tend to sidle up to ideas, and after some time, he cleared his head, forgot about Mohammed, and decided to get out of the beach and find that mountain, whatever it was. (Crabs find it hard to let go of some ideas)

And so began Cuthbert's journey, as the crab dug his way out of the burrow it'd made, and proceeded to sidle up the beach. The journey though, would prove to be a difficult one, and many a time Cuthbert could have been heard saying, "Oh why did I leave my comfortable hole? Not for me this life of adventure!"

Cuthbert was a crab, and crabs get eaten by birds and dogs and even cats. And sidling might have its merits, but it's certainly not the quickest way to travel. So Cuthbert toiled slowly, sometimes covering only a few dozen yards before he would have to dig a hole and hide, lest he be eaten. One day though was more harrowing than the rest.

He had scuttled almost halfway up the beach after four whole days of careful progress. He'd have gotten there in two days but he burrowed under the sand and then took a wrong turn when he came out, and got a little lost for a while. On the fourth day though, he was feeling very happy with the progress he'd made, and was just about to burrow under for the night, when a sussurus from below made him look back, in time to see a giant wall of blue behind him.

A huge wave crashed down on his head, and he was pulled up by it, and carried back out by the ocean, dumped unceremoniously back where he had begun!

On another day Cuthbert sensed rather than saw the distant speck in the sky. A hungry bird! He started to dig frantically, knowing he had to get underground before he was spotted. As he was digging, he saw the speck change course and wheel towards him. He burrowed faster than ever before, and managed to get under the sand just in time! The bird flew low, and missed an eyestalk by less than an inch. Cuthbert couldn't believe his luck at the time, and that was one of the many times that he wished he was back in his burrow by the sea. Not for the last time though.

Finally, weeks after he had begun, having seen many hardships, Cuthbert reached the end of the beach.

For the first time in his entire life, Cuthbert saw solid ground. He was overjoyed. It was black and it had a strange smell, but he was still overjoyed. It wasn't sand.

And beyond the black borderlike ribbon, which stretched along the side of the beach as far as Cuthbert's crabby eyes could see, was paradise. Dense shrubs that he could hide in, greenery that must be teeming with food, and absolutely no ocean! It was nighttime, and he couldn't see far, but he knew he had to cross quickly, before he was spotted by any predator.

As he scuttled across the road, he thought to himself, "I don't believe I made it this far. Me! In such a short time I've changed so much. I've become an adventurer! And oh! What adventures! I feel like I have been touched by God. And there must be mountains somewhere here. I wonder what they look like?" (Crabs really have a hard time letting go of ideas, remember?)

It was really the sort of moment to make you religious, to touch your spiritual core, and that is exactly what was happening inside Cuthbert's crabby cranium right now. And then Cuthbert received a vision...

He felt the ground shake and he heard a loud snarling noise, a noise so unlike the ocean that its harsh notes were the most beautiful music he had ever heard. He looked up and was instantly blinded by a bright light moving quickly towards him on the road.

I believe what Cuthbert said next was, "Is that you lord?" but I'm not sure, because the truck was pretty close by then.