30) Crab Corner

One evening as we were driving home from work along the busy Entrance Road a small white van shot out from a road on our right. As he made the turn to his right in front of us in a hurry to get into the stream of traffic the rear door of his van flew open and out fell a large dark thing. As it hit the floor and scurried off we realised it was a crab, a crab as big as a dinner plate. One could almost hear him shouting “I’m free, I’m free, it’s back to the sea for me” as he charged across the road in the path of the busy homeward bound traffic. (He was going in an easterly direction, the direction of the sea.) We slowed down so as not to run him over and before we could think what we should do we saw that the driver of the little white van had pulled up at the side of the road, hopped out of the drivers seat and hot footed it after his unwilling passenger. He scooped up the escapee and with one swift motion had him back in the van and the door closed again before you could say “Crafty Crustacean”. It all happened so quickly and smoothly one could almost imagine that our seafood friend was an old lag with many attempted escapes in his past. As we passed the van we saw the sign on the side proclaimed that the end was surely in sight for the crab as the van belonged to “Fred the Fisho”, and we realised that he would, sadly, soon be being served as crab thermidor in some smart restaurant in Sydney. We often think of him and the corner where he made that brave attempt for freedom has been renamed “Crab Corner” on our maps. But maybe at some other corner between there and the Sydney restaurant he made another break from the white van and maybe he succeeded, found the sea once more and is now living happily with his family in the deep cool water. I hope so!!