Sand-Crab and Scarab
By Tim Reed
It was at an antiques store. Or at least I
think it was. Some squat building along the Oregon coast hiding between two
taller nondescript stores, like a sand crab hiding from a gull. I move about,
beneath brown-shell ceiling, sorting through some scattered bones of some
forgotten past. There’s a stale smell in this mausoleum, as though these
objects are being held in a vat of ether. Coke bottles, gilt porcelain, and
flowered postcards seem naked and exhumed under the pale sea-green fluorescent
bars. I am both repulsed and seduced by theses shelves, racks, and buckets of
kitsch – like a child staring at the blackened flesh of a mummy. I too, stare
at that necrotic form, waiting to see if those lids will open. But of course,
they’re only antiques. Only antiques.
Absentmindedly, I flipped through a long
wooden tray of old medicine posters and Norman Rockwell Americana. Some cheap
stereo obscured by jumbled booths plays some cheap radio station filled with
noisy ads and the routine, four-chord anthems. I shifted my weight and stifled
a yawn. Some glitter of blue glass caught my eye, and I glanced up. As I broke
my vigil, the mummy’s lids grated open. Then, he caught me in his gaze – locked
and immobile as stone. Black, hatched lines on a humble lithograph reflected my
soul-face. On a barren field, there I was with knee bent. In my arms, the most
sacred weight. I try, but I can’t see my face – it’s turned away, riveted upon
hers. Two or three feet away, I see the strange fruit of my labor. Six feet by
four feet by six feet, the ground has opened its mouth in a yawn. But the
somnolent dirt is patient and no stranger to grief. Her face is young, but
frightfully pale. How, I do not know, for there isn’t a scrap of color to be seen
on that page. But I know her, and her loss is almost too much to bear. The lids
close, and suddenly I am back under that irreverent paneled ceiling.
I
can see the sandy brown hair of my sister over the top of the next booth. She
rounds the corner. “There you are.” she says “I wondered where you’d gone off
to. Have you seen the old records they have over in the corner?” I look up at
her. “I think, Meg,” I shift my weight and struggle to compose my thoughts in a
way that doesn’t sound absurd. “I think, Meg, that my life will be marked by
some great tragedy.” I can tell she doesn’t quite know how to respond. I don’t know
how to respond. I can tell she thinks it’s absurd. And it is. How could one
lithograph in one squat crab-store in one beach hovel town signify any more
than another grey day on the Oregon coast? But my ears are tuned to the unexceptional
presage, the significance in the ordinary.
Together, we laugh it off and make our purchases. My sister, with some tasteful
sundries, of course. They’re gifts for family and friends. The holidays are
still three months away, but she’s always frightfully efficient. I walk up to
the counter with my scarab from this pharaoh’s tomb, cleverly disguised as a
two dollar-fifty lithograph. Outside, the sun has set and far out in the onyx
night I can hear the disconsolate waves rising and falling like buildings, men,
and civilizations. A soft, cold rain dabs the dirt-stained streets like a
mother cleaning the face of her child. But she can’t remove the crab from the
sand or the scarab from my hand. She can’t remove that prophecy that my heart
clings to with white knuckles. “I’ll need
this later.” I say to myself. Where did I learn my future? It was an
antiques store. Or at least I think it was. But it was more.
