Ten Thousand Friends - Part III

By now the sun had slipped below the line separating earth and sea and we were bathed in the pale light of a resplendent summer moon.  Flashlights clicked on and headlights flickered as we continued down the beach – carefully sidestepping the panoply of single-minded creatures as they scurried and scuttled and clasped and fertilized in a mating ritual that was both silent and frantic.  From time to time we would encounter a horseshoe crab unceremoniously somersaulted on its back by an unexpected wave.  One of us would gently reach down and flip the hapless creature right side up - whereupon it would continue its journey up the sand or back into the waiting arms of the bay.

Each of us moved silently over the sand – occasionally crouching down to watch the circus of arthropods before us or sharing a comment or two with another member of the troop.  Like the constant budding of amoebas, we would divide into small groups of threes and fours and fives, reassemble, and then divide again – carefully observing the “action” on the beach, sharing an observation, or gathering a shell or two for display on the living room coffee table.  Conversation was muted as we listened to the scraping and clatter of shells rubbing against each other in the stilled air.

Around us were hundreds of female crabs, each of whom would scoop out a small hollow in the beach and wait - with their usual evolutionary patience - for the arrival of a male (or two or three or four) to consummate their bond.  While we were temporary, these crabs were part of a permanence of nature, a constant coming and going that transcended all vestiges of time.  We realized that this was nature at its most spectacular – the reproduction of a species. 

For millennia after millennia these crabs and their ancestors have been locked in an eternal embrace – passing their genes and their ancestry from one generation to the next.  Each of us knew we were short-term witnesses to a perpetual spectacle that has been taking place since, well, since almost forever – a spectacle full of awe and mystery and the passion of persistence.

It is, most hopefully, a never-ending story.