Language of Crabs

As a child, my mother would bring me to the Asian supermarket to pick up a few essential items. While she didn’t partake in making any obscure dishes (brain, pig feet, etc.), we visited often to obtain a few crabs from a large vat of water at the back of the giant market. My mother would allow me to stick my seven-year-old arms into the container of crabs trampling one another to get to the open top, and choose the one with the biggest claws. I grabbed them by the torso, as instructed, and threw them one-by-one into our bag, where they would continue climbing the plastic, now with less competition. At home, my mother would boil them alive. This was something I knew needed to be done to enjoy the succulent meat of crab claws. I never thought twice. The air would escape their bodies and out would come a high-pitched whistle, like a ready kettle, long and steady and nearly silent, the crabs emptying side-by-side.

And all that time, I always thought it was the sound of them screaming.