I will leave these records here. Perhaps they can help explaining things that might happen on other islands. May these records also serve as a warning.

It all began when I decided to leave my homeland, where I had survived for more than one hundred days already. I had mapped and explored more than twenty islands, I had two big houses, different shelters, provisions of food and firewood for several months, all the tools and weapons I could dream of, a motor raft … Given the circumstances, I was rich.

And I gave it all up. Don’t ask me why, I have been looking for something.

I would head to the northeast. I just took my compass, an axe, some food and water and medical equipment with me. And instead of taking the motor raft, I was going to paddle. This was part of my plan of starting something new.

Leaving Wreckland, I passed Homeless, the island that I first had been stranded on. Then I left two other islands behind me that I had set myself as waypoints. Then one more island I would later on name Shark's Bank. Then a wide and open area of deep sea waters.

It was late at night when I arrived, and I was tired. This new island had a lot of coconut trees, it looked friendly and promising, even at night. I remember that in the silvery moon light I saw some crabs crawling over the sand. I searched myself a dry place, lay me down, and immediately fell asleep.

On the next morning, my world began to change.

My sleep had been as deep as the ocean, and the sun was standing high already when I opened my eyes, squinting.

Crabs. I was surrounded by crabs. Some of them were even sitting on me. I did not dare to move, because they all stared at me like they wanted to kill me (which in fact was the case).

"Is this yours?", the crab sitting on my chest asked me with a steady voice.

"What?", I said.

"Does this belong to you?", the crab asked a bit louder.

His claw pointed to something beside me. I turned my head, and it took a moment until I was able to believe what I saw. It was a volleyball! At first I felt like laughing, because somebody had painted a face on it and stuck branches into it that looked like tousled hair. The whole situation was just too bizarre. But of course you don't laugh with a horde of furious crabs around you.

"Did you bring that thing here?!", the crab on my chest shouted.

"No", I said. "Honestly, I see it for the first time."

"Do you know what it is?"

I looked at that thing again, just to be sure. "It's a volleyball with a face on it."

The crab turned around and spoke with his companions. Then he faced me again and said: "Tell me, stranger, what is the secret of the volleyball with a face on it?"

I had to think about that. "I guess there is no secret", I said then. "Somebody like me has felt lonesome, and to have a friend, he painted a face on it."

"Somebody like you?"

"Yes. Another human. Lost, like me."

The crab seemed to think about my words. "And how sure can you be that it has nothing to do with the one that brings the red and the yellow?", he asked me.

"With whom?"

"The one that brings the red and the yellow, the heat", the crab said, impatiently. "Which sometimes falls from the sky. The one that brings the death that looks like sunlight, but eats everything."

"You mean fire?", I guessed.

When I spoke out the last word, the crabs around me started to murmur and to hiss, coming closer to me and looking even more furious. But the one sitting on my chest, who seemed to be their leader, silenced them with a sign of his claw.

"Yes", he said. "This is what I mean. Again, has this to do with the one that brings the red and the yellow, the heat?"

"No", I said, although I still did not fully understand what he was talking about. "This has initially been for playing, and somebody has changed it into a human face. There is no deeper meaning behind it, I am sure."

(Oh, how wrong I was! How could I ignore the signs so carelessly?)

"So, then...", the crab said, hesitating. "How did you come here?"

I thought it might be better not to mention the plane crash with all the fire, also falling from the sky might not be a good explanation after what he had just told me.

"I came in peace", I said, but this sounded too much like an empty phrase, so I added: "I come from the water, and I am looking for a dry place to stay."

Again all the crabs around me murmured, but differently this time, like being surprised in a positive way.

"From the water?", the leader crab on my chest repeated, and I noticed a change in his voice. "That is good."

He turned around to consult with his companions. Finally, looking at me again, he said: "You can stay."

The other crabs clattered with their claws. And then, from one moment to the other, they all disappeared into different directions, like they had never been there.

I stood up, stretched myself, and decided to take a swim. There seemed to be no sharks, so I just ran into the water, which felt good. Lots of fish below me strengthened my first impression that this island would be a nice place to stay. Turtles and stingrays were around, but I did not see any lionfish, which I interpreted as a good sign as well. When I returned to land, the cool Pacific had cleared my mind so much, I was convinced that my short crab episode had been a dream.

But then I saw that volleyball again, and it reminded me that the weird scene a few minutes ago had been real. I took it into my hands, looked at its face and named it Wilbur.

The Crab Saga

[…] And when the sun and the moon were in their positions, and all the stars had found their places, and the ocean was quiet, Big Mother Crab took another coconut and created Earth. In her wisdom, she wanted Earth to be free, so she put the good and the evil into it in equal shares. […] But she did not know that the Careless Firefish had played with the coconut before, and she did not see the little hole that he had punched into it. And a drop of coconut milk fell into the ocean. But the ocean could not take it, because Big Mother Crab's magic already was inside of it. And since it carried good and evil, but could not mix, it divided, and one of its parts turned into the Firebringer, who is also called the Nameless, and the other one turned into the Waterbringer, who is also called the Faceless. And so began their everlasting fight, and the tides of time were brought into being. […] And when Big Mother Crab saw what the Careless Firefish had done, she became angry. She sent for him, and she spoke to him and said: "You must learn to mind and to pay attention. From this day on, your spines will be poisoned, so you will always have to remember what to touch and what not." […]

I did what I had learned in the past months. I made myself tools like an axe, a hammer and a spear. I collected sticks and palm fronds to build a shelter that I would later on enlarge to a house. I cut some of the trees to get more wood. I gathered coconuts and went out to hunt fish. I searched for shipwrecks, where I would find usable things like a bucket or a lantern.

But I knew, I was not alone on this island. The crabs kept watching me. Whatever I did, wherever I went, there was always one of them hiding somewhere. Occasionally they came nearer, but when I stepped in their direction, they just went away like not being interested in me at all. This, their ability to pretend absolute unconcern, was the strangest thing about them.

I have to admit that they scared me a bit. Their first appearance had been quite impressive, and I will never forget it. I would have had some questions to ask them, but I did not dare to talk to them again, since I did not know what might happen. Maybe I did not want to know. Maybe I was afraid of their answers.

I also did not speak with Wilbur, although I absolutely looked upon him as my friend. I explained to him once why I could not do so (talking to the crabs had been strange enough, and I saw the danger of losing my mind), and he accepted it. It was just like we understood each other very well without many words.

After two weeks I then killed my first tiger shark in these new waters. I mention this scene, because later on it proved to be a turning point in my relationship with the crabs. But in that moment of course I wasn't aware of this. I just realized that I had their full attention when I brought the dead shark back onto the beach.

The crabs stood there in the distance they normally used to keep, but they were many, more than usual. They had their claws folded and watched what I did. I had the impression they somehow liked it.

I put the body to the ground, took my machete and cut a big piece of shark meat out of it. I heard some of the crabs clattering with their claws as I did. But then, when I took the piece of shark meat and offered it to them, they just went away like they always did, pretending disinterest.

However, the change had happened. In the next days the crabs came closer, not in groups, but again and again I saw one or two of them crawling over the sandy area that I used to call my front yard. They still seemed not to notice me, when I passed by, but I already knew that this was their normal, inscrutable behaviour. The crabs really had lost all their fear. One morning I even found one of them sleeping on my little terrace.

A few days after the first tiger shark I was lucky again. I got the other beast after a heavy fight and a big blood loss on both sides. But it was worth it.

When I pulled the body onto the beach, breathing heavily and using my last resources, the crabs already stood there, side by side, and applauded me by clattering with their claws.

I put the shark down and sat myself into the sand, right there, using its body as a backrest. A rest was all I needed now.

One of the crabs came to me and stated: "You are a great warrior."

I recognised him as the leader who had sat on my chest the very first day. "Thank you", I replied.

"Do you have something for your arm?", he asked, looking a bit worried at my wound, which was still bleeding.

"Yes, thanks", I said. "I have a bandage in my hut. It will be okay."

"You are a great warrior", he repeated. "I would like to invite you to come and visit my tribe."

I really wasn't prepared for this, and so I knew nothing better to do than to stutter something about great honour, my pleasure, and so on. I think I accepted his invitation.

"Good then", he said. "Get yourself a rest, do what you have to do with the evil fish and the heat, and when you are ready, come to us. You know where we are."

I thanked him again, and then he and his companions scattered into all directions, like they always did.

The Crab Saga

[…] One day the Firebringer went to the Wise Turtle and said: "Oh! I admire you so much! You have all the wisdom I never will have. Your shell protects you against all the evil fish and other enemies. And you swim underwater with majesty. Please, teach me how to swim underwater!" But the Wise Turtle knew the Firebringer only too well. "No", she said, "I cannot teach you, because you are not like me." - "Please!", the Firebringer begged, "I just want to know how it feels to be underwater, like you can do! I envy you so much!" - "No", the Wise Turtle answered again. "Your fire may die, if you try." - "Oh!" the Firebringer said. "I can keep my fire inside. Please teach me how to swim underwater! I know, I will never swim as gracefully as you, but please!" And the Wise Turtle knew that he never would stop begging. But she also knew that the Firebringer always had only one thing in his mind, which was to find and to kill the Waterbringer. And so she started teaching him in the shallow water first, where only the sardines live, and when he knew how to do it, he asked her to go deeper. And the Wise Turtle took the Firebringer into deeper water, where all the other fish live. And when he knew how to do it there, he asked her to go deeper. And the Wise Turtle took the Firebringer into even deeper water, where the whales and the great sharks live. And when he knew how to do it there, she said: "You have become an excellent swimmer. But there is one last thing I will have to show you." - "What is it?", the Firebringer asked, proud of his new knowledge and skills. "You will see", the Wise Turtle answered, and she led him to a shipwreck. "It is in there", she said, "follow me." But it was dark and narrow inside the shipwreck, and the Firebringer could hardly see the Wise Turtle in front of him, and suddenly something bit him. He looked, and he saw a sea urchent. "Is this what you wanted to show me?", the Firebringer asked. But the Wise Turtle was gone already, and the sea urchent grew bigger and bigger, and its spines drilled deeper and deeper into the Firebringer's body, and he screamed in pain and tried to flee, but the aching spines would not let him. And when he finally escaped, the Firebringer swore to himself that he would never come back to this cursed place again. And after a while, the Waterbringer shook off the spines, returned to his true shape, and laughed. […]

The next day, in the afternoon, I went to visit the crabs. I took the finest piece of shark meat with me, which I had left raw, to give it as a present to my hosts.

I was curious how visiting them would be, and I can honestly say that they gave me one of the warmest welcomes I have ever enjoyed. My present was much appreciated, some of the crabs took it and immediately began to cut it into small, bite-sized pieces. Others invited me to sit down beside them and started asking me questions about the islands I had been to before and what I had done and experienced there. They proved to be just as curious as I had been some minutes ago, when I came here, and from one moment to the other I was involved in an intense and interesting communication.

There was a constant coming and going. Laughter, jokes, discussions… The crabs seemed much more relaxed and open-minded than I had experienced them before. Well, the same applied to me, I guess. I felt eased when remembering our first encounter and comparing it to this new scenery.

I talked about my adventures, and they told me their stories. The hours passed, the sky turned red, and the last rays of the setting sun played on the water surface. This was the hour when the special coconuts were opened. There was a big "Ah!" and "Oh!" everywhere around. I learned that the special coconuts contained the special coconut milk, which was fermented.

On that evening, I got known to so many new people (I already started to call them people) like I never did before. All the crabs belonged to one of the two clans living on the island, they told me, but every single one of them also assured me that the clans were really close to each other. In fact, they all were one big mental family. I really began to like them.

It was much later, many guests had left already, when the leader of the crabs suddenly stood at my side. We did not yet have an opportunity to talk to each other, he just had waved to me with his claw some time ago, from a distance.

"I am glad we can talk now", he said. "Come, let us walk."

His name was Krozo, as he told me. We went down the shoreline, until we came to a nice place under a huge rock. We sat down, looked at the starlit sky, and he began to explain some things to me.

"I must apologize for my people", he started. "They are good crabs, as you have seen, all of them, but many of them are supersticious. They wanted to kill you when we first met, because they took you for the Crabman. This thing we found - that you called a volleyball with a face - it had appeared just before you came. So they were nervous. And they can be hard to withhold sometimes."

"The Crabman?", I asked. "Who is that?"

"It is a character from our lore. He has many names, and no name at all. His real name is Firebringer. We call him the Crabman to avoid speaking of fire, and because it is a name by which he does not feel spoken to, so he will not listen to what we say."

"Is he dangerous?"

"Oh, yes, he is! When the end of the worlds has come, the Firebringer will walk on earth, impale us all with a big spear and throw us into the huge fire, which will never stop burning."

"Sounds terrible", I had to admit, although I asked myself how much he was talking seriously.

"And it must be prevented", he added gravely, answering my unspoken question. "Fire is the most terrifying thing we know. You realized how my warriors reacted when you even mentioned the word?"

I remembered only too well. "Is it a forbidden word?"

"No, it is not forbidden", Krozo said. "But many of us fear that the fire will come, if you call it. So we say 'the red and the yellow' instead, meaning the glow and the flames. Or we just speak of 'the heat'. But like I said, this is superstition and not part of our lore. The Crabman however, or the Firebringer, is real. My mother can tell you more about him. She is our priest."

I began to understand. For the crabs, who could not know how a human handprint looked like or how a human would imagine a face, Wilbur's face must have looked like a flame. And the dry and flammable branches that formed his hair also reminded of fire. So they had taken a volleyball as a bad omen - and me for the Crabman.

The Crab Saga

[…] The Waterbringer, who is also called the Faceless, seldom showed his true appearance. He kept himself hidden in different shapes, until the next turn of times would come. Only then he would be strong enough to fight against the Firebringer, and only then he would have chances to succeed. And if he should lose the fight, the worlds would end. And if the Firebringer should find him before, the worlds would end. So the Waterbringer had to be cautious and change his shape often. […]

On that evening, a deep and sincere friendship between Krozo and me begang to develop, which connects us to the present day. Actually, the following weeks have been the happiest and most unburdened of my life. I was no longer alone. I had friends, a lot of interesting friends, and they were good people, being there for each other always and under all circumstances.

We got known to each other better and better. We spent time together, doing things like diving in the ocean or taking trips with the raft. The crabs always had a lot of fun when trying out how many of them would fit on it, while I was paddling. We explored other islands and invented silly games. For example, the bravest of my new friends liked being thrown up into the air, and they kept asking me to catch them just in the very last moment, short before they would touch the ground.

They also told me a lot about their traditions and their religion around Big Mother Crab. Their so-called Crab Saga, a big narration passed down from generation to generation, was said to comprise everything from the beginning of the worlds until their very end.

This saga included a vast number of longer and shorter stories, which could be very different. Many of them were fables with an educational touch. Some of them were funny, others quite serious. Mostly animals with specific attributes were their main characters. Other stories dealt with the eternal fight between the Firebringer and the Waterbringer. And there also were long passages of very gloomy, suggestive descriptions.

The earnestness and devotion the crabs put into their traditions often confused and impressed me at the same time. However, I respected their belief and their notions. And most of the time they were just amusing and pleasant companions for me.

I even managed to take away their fear of fire up to a certain degree. I had noticed with how much respect they watched me feeding my fire pit and then lighting the flames. And I always encouraged them to come closer, to convince themselves that the red and the yellow will not jump out to eat them.

In the beginning, the safety distance they kept was like the one I used to keep to a tiger shark. But gradually they came nearer to the fire pit. I encouraged them again and again, taking burning sticks into my hands to show them how manageable the flames were. And in the end, we all were sitting around the campfire, drinking special coconut milk and having a good time.

But still, everytime I ignited the fire, they looked at me with shining eyes like I was some kind of magic being.

One of the funniest evenings we spent together was when we danced the raindance. There had been not a single drop of rain since a longer time. Everything was dried out, the grass was getting brown, and the soil was showing cracks. I had run out of fresh water, and I was tired of drinking coconut milk all day. The crabs anyway were not much fond of dryness, so they asked me only to make a small campfire or better no campfire at all. They liked sitting around the fire pit in a circle so much, they sometimes even did so without a campfire. However, there was a small one burning on that evening, because the air was a bit fresh.

I suddenly had the idea of standing up and doing something silly. So I started to walk around the circle formed by my little friends, and I began to sing something like "Heyaa yaa yaa - ya heyaa yaa…"

The crabs watched me sceptically. "What are you doing?", Krozo asked me. "Have you gone mad?"

"It is called a raindance", I said. "If we all do it, maybe we can call the rain to come over here." And singing on, I started to dance, bowing my upper body back and forth and rowing slowly with my arms.

This was the right bait for my crabs! They all stood up and followed me. We walked around the campfire in a circle, singing meaningless syllables, dancing and laughing about our own craziness.

I don't know for how long we did that, when suddenly one of the crabs said: "I think there was a raindrop."

"Here too!", said another one.

Now I also felt some raindrops on my skin. And from one moment to the other, the sky ripped. A huge shower emptied down upon us, and the small campfire was dead in less than a minute.

How happy the crabs were! Now they really danced like hilarious little children, stretching their claws up to the sky, laughing and cheering. But the rain was getting stronger and stronger, and after a while it turned into a big thunderstorm, so we all ran into my hut for shelter.

There we stood, the water was still dropping down from us, and the crabs still were in their crazy mood. They started to play with my things. They jumped around on my bed like on a trampoline, they looked giggling through my binoculars while holding them into the wrong direction, they played football with my empty water bottle and did stupid things with the duct tape. I was glad that I had stored my flare gun and the flares in a safe place.

It was a really funny evening. When the crabs left, the thunderstorm had blown over, just a few raindrops were still falling, and the air smelled fresh and vivid.

Krozo was the last one to leave. I saw that he was hesitating, so I asked him what was going on.

"We want you to become one of us", he said.

I smiled. "Sometimes I feel like being one of you."

"No, I mean, really. To become one of us."

"That would be nice," I said.

"Do you want to?", he asked me. "Because, that would mean that you would have to become one of us."

He sometimes spoke in riddles like this. But I arranged to meet with him and the other crabs on the next day.

The Crab Saga

[…] And one day, when the Waterbringer had taken the shape of a crab, the Nasty Seagull came to him and said: "Crabs are stupid. I hate them, and I will eat you, right away." - "No", the Waterbringer answered and looked at her. "You will not eat me, for I am not a crab." - "But you have a shell and claws and many many legs, so you must be a crab!", the Nasty Seagull said. The Waterbringer replied: "You have feathers and wings and a bill, but you are not an eagle. Maybe I dream of being a crab, maybe you dream of being an eagle. But we are not what we dream of." - "Stupid crab", the Nasty Seagull said. "How can you say that I am not an eagle?" - "Because you don't have the eyes of an eagle", the Waterbringer replied. "An eagle could fly higher than the clouds and still see me sitting here. You can not do that." - "Are you saying that my eyes are bad?", the Nasty Seagull asked, and the Waterbringer answered: "This is what I am saying." - "I will prove you the opposite!", the Nasty Seagull said. She spread her wings and flew up, higher and higher into the sky, until she reached the clouds that are unreachable for so many others. But when she got there, the not so stupid crab had for long disappeared into the ocean. […]

When I came to the crabs the next day, they already had been busy. I saw a huge pit digged into the sand, deep and long enough for me to lie in it.

"You're not serious, are you?", I asked.

"Don't worry", Krozo said. His mother, the priest, stood beside him.

"It is just… Like you are afraid of the heat, I am afraid of being buried alive", I said.

"You will not be buried", Krozo assured me. "We will leave a small hole for you, like we have it in our houses."

"Well, then…", I said and lay myself down in the pit.

I was curious what would happen, and also a bit anxious, but I trusted my friends. They covered me with sand. More and more sand was thrown onto my body, until I could not move any more and did not see anything. But like promised, they left a small hole for me to breathe.

And then they began with their ritual. I only could hear their whispering voices and their small feet pawing the sand, and I tried to imagine what they might be doing, but it all seemed just mysterious to me. And after a while I got tired and fell asleep.

And when I awoke, I was a crab.

It did not even feel strange. I crawled out of the hole, and everybody smiled at me.

"How are you?", Krozo asked.

"Good", I said.

"Come, let us go into the gardens."

And so I found myself in a group of other crabs, crawling over the beach and into the ocean.

I always had enjoyed diving. The underwater world with its strange colors and creatures had always attracted me. But seeing all this through the eyes of a crab was something completely different. It was marvellous.

The seaweed was like a mysterious forest. The corals were like houses and the coral reefs like big cities, formed by a strange mind. The fish were impressive as well, but at the same time they were familiar beings, like neighbours you knew from childhood. And the reefshark that sometimes swam above us seemed so huge, he looked like a submarine or a starship, though he too was a familiar underwater acquaintance.

I felt like in paradise. Everywhere I could find pieces of plants, a small worm, larvae, spawn or plankton to eat. And the water of the ocean tasted so good in my gills. I could have stayed there forever.

We spent the whole afternoon in the gardens. And when it got dark, we returned to the beach.

And that was where I awoke on the next morning, back in my old body.

"How did it feel being a crab?", Krozo asked me. Probably he had been sitting there beside me all night.

"It was great", I said. "I don't know how to describe it, but it was an overwhelming experience. Yes, I liked it."

He smiled. "You can do it again. You will find out how. But for the moment I am glad that you have returned to your previous shape. Because Big Mother Crab has an assignment for you."

"An assignment?", I asked.

"Yes", Krozo said. "She wants you to build a temple."

The Crab Saga

[…] And when the turn of times is near, there will be signs, and the followers who have chosen their side will gather, and they will prepare, and strange things will happen, and these will be the signs. […] There will be iron birds in the sky, too high and too far away to reach, and round things will be found on the sea floor, that do not belong there. The creatures of the ocean will lose their minds, and the waters will not be safe any more. You will see flying whales, and land sharks infesting the islands, and other strange things like people trying to escape them by riding on palm trees. And the days and the nights will shorten, and the stars will stand still, and the moon will stop changing, and these will be the signs that the turn of times is near. […]

So, this was my task. To build a temple out of coconuts.

The first attempt I made comprised four coconuts. I put three of them onto the ground and placed the fourth one on top of it. One of the smaller crabs, I thought, could have crawled inside.

When I showed this to Krozo, he was amused and said: "This is not a temple. This is a shrine."

I had no real idea how a crab temple could look like, so in my next attempt I laid twelve coconuts to the ground, next to each other in a pattern of three by four. Then I put another six onto them in a smaller pattern of two by three, and finally two more coconuts on top. I would have liked to build a real pyramid with a base of four by four, but I did not have enough coconuts.

When I showed this to Krozo, he scratched his head and said: "What shall we do with this? We must be able to go inside. We want to pray inside the temple, do you understand?"

Of course I understood. And that was where my problems began.

The only architectural shape that I could imagine would work out was the shape of a dome. Now, how do you make a dome out of coconuts? Just to pile them nicely is difficult enough.

I began to experiment. I tried to somehow pile them and then remove the inner ones. But it did not work. Afer a series of unsuccessful attempts, I decided to paddle out and get more coconuts. I would need them anyway.

When I returned, I took up my work again, but the results kept being frustrating.

"Why does the temple have to be built out of coconuts?", I asked Krozo. "Can't I use any other materials?"

"Only coconuts!", he answered. "Because Big Mother Crab has created the sun, the moon and Earth out of a coconut each."

I sighed. "Am I allowed to carve the coconuts?", I wanted to know.

"Yes, you can do that."

At least this would make it a bit easier. So I layed a foundation out of a circle of coconuts. And then I began trying to find out how I could carve the other coconuts in a way that they would hold each other when I piled them.

It was a complicated task that took some time. But finally, I had a nice small pile of coconuts in about knee-height. It had an interior and an entrance, and a couple of crabs would be able to walk in and pray. I liked it, and I showed it to Krozo.

"This is a nice model", he said. "But the temple of enlightenment has to be bigger. Much bigger."

"How big?", I asked.

He looked at me. "Higher than you", he said. "And we all must fit in. Both clans."

I did not know what to say. I had to imagine this first. If I was supposed to build a dome of about two meters height, its foundation would have a diameter of four meters. If I would give it a more elliptic form, I perhaps would be able to narrow its base down to a diameter of three meters. But given the circumstances, this still would be a huge building, and that's not mentioning the construction issues.

"Am I allowed to use half or quarter coconuts as well?", I asked Krozo.

"Yes, you can do that", he said.

"I will need a lot of them."

"Then hurry."

The first two of the following weeks I solely spent with paddling from island to island to harvest coconuts. I had become quite a good paddler before already, but now I learned that you always can get better. However, that was the fun part of it all.

Whenever I came back to the building site, I despaired. I saw the pile of material grow and grow, but I had no idea what to do with it. I spent my evenings in the hut, testing and experimenting with different shapes of coconut shells, trying to find a system that would make my imaginations possible, but the problem was, my imaginations were diffuse.

So one day I just started to build. I thought I would find a solution, when it was needed. I began with a big circle of coconuts in double rows for the foundation, calculating that a third or even fourth row may be required to make the building stable. And then I started to build the wall at one end.

Three days later I had to admit to myself that it was impossible to build a wall out of coconut pieces with sufficient inclination to make it a dome afterwards.

Krozo realized how desperate I was. "Listen", he said. "I see what a burden this is for you. But it has to be done. The turn of times is near, and we and Big Mother Crab need a temple of enlightenment. It is important. And you are the only one who can build it."

To be honest, there were times when I really could not hear their Big Mother Crab stories any more.

But I brought myself up, went to my raft and paddled out to get more coconuts.

And then, on one of my trips, when I was just thinking of nothing, I suddenly had the solution.

I would need two scaffolds. An inner one, which would support my construction until the dome was finished, and an outer one, which would allow me to place the coconuts or the coconut pieces for the upper part of the building.

I had been on the brink of surrender quite a lot of times, but this idea electrified me. As soon as I got home, I started to construct the inner scaffold out of sticks and lashings.

"Hey!", the crabs said. "Only from coconut!"

"I know, I know", I replied. "I will take this away later."

Now I had additional problems. One of them was to give the inner scaffold a round shape, so that it could support a dome. Another one was to make it demountable in a way that I could take it out through the entrance afterwards, when the building was finished.

The Crab Saga

[…] And the word will be spread: Let every being on earth know that the turn of times is due, and that they will have to prepare! For there will be no escape and no denial, nor any sort of hideaway, and they all will be spoken to, so that they will know what is inevitable. […] And the One who has not yet chosen his side, will be told to decide who he is. And the One who does not know who he is, will be told to learn. And the One who does not learn, will be forced to repeat a chain of mistakes, until he knows humbleness. So will they all be prepared. […] And when all this is done, and everything is arranged and at the right place, and the tides of time have reached their peak, then this will be the hour in which the Nameless will declare his name, and the Faceless will reveal his face, and the fate of the worlds will be determined. […]

I don't know, did it take weeks, months, half a year, or longer? I lost all my sense of time while I was working on the temple.

My first attempt using my new system failed. And so did the second. But until then I had gathered so much experience, I knew that I would succeed with the third one.

And so it was. I removed the last parts of the scaffold, and the huge pile of coconuts and coconut pieces, wedged into each other in complicated patterns, still stood. It looked a bit like an igloo, but I felt like emperor Hadrian after having finished the Pantheon of Rome. Maybe even better, since he did not build his temple with own hands.

When the crabs saw it, they were overwhelmed. In silent wonder they walked through the temple hall and looked at it. And when they looked at me, I felt that they just did not know how to thank me. And then they sat down and prayed.

"You have done well", Krozo said. "I am proud of you." And then he also disappeared into the temple.

I felt relieved, happy and empty at the same time. I did not know what to do next, so I went down to the beach, sat down in the sand and watched the waves for a while. And while I was sitting there, a thought came up inside of me that I might have deserved a little time out. A vacation, to clear my mind, and to recover.

So I left a message for the crabs and went into the ocean.

The silent beauty of the underwater world captured me like never before. After all those weeks and months of working and thinking and trying, this was just what I needed. I sat down on the sea floor, leaned my back against a rock and watched the fish.

Some time later, the Friendly Reefshark appeared and saluted me.

"How are you?", I asked him.

"I am fine", he said. "But you, my friend, look tired."

I told him in a short version what I had been doing.

"And I have been wondering why you set out with your raft so often", he said. "Would you like to come to my place? It might be a bit more comfortable for you than sitting here."

I thanked him and followed him to the sunken shipwreck he lived in.

"Don't mind the Itchy Urchin", he said, when we passed the upper deck. "He's okay there."

And then we went inside and the Friendly Reefshark offered me a chair.

He asked me to tell him more about the temple, and after we had talked for a while, he said: "You really look like you could need a vacation. Perhaps you would like to stay here? I have a bed in the underdeck, which I don't use."

"That's a nice offer", I answered. "If you don't mind…"

"Not at all", he said. "You can stay here for as long as you want. I don't come here too often anyway."

And so I had my little underwater holiday lodge at the reef edge, with a nice view over a sandy area on one side and a coral colony on the other. I slept a lot, and when I was awake, I did not do much. Short trips into the vicinity, laying on the sea floor, watching the fish, things like that. From time to time the Friendly Reefshark came to visit me, and we talked a bit.

After about two weeks or so he asked me if I wouldn't like to know how the crabs did. Actually I have had the same thought on the morning of that day. Although I very much liked the peace down here, I missed my crabs.

So I thanked the Friendly Reefshark for his company and his hospitality and made myself on my way back to the surface.

And what a welcome awaited me! All the crabs were on the beach, standing there in rank and file and saluting me with a clattering of their claws. Even Wilbur was there. At first I did not recognize him, for the crabs had given him a new haircut - instead of his former tousled look he now was wearing long and falling hair made out of kelp.

I was so glad to see them all. But then I realized that the temple had collapsed. Only a cluttered heap of coconuts and broken coconut shells had remained of the dome.

"Don't worry about that", Krozo said, while looking at me proudly. "The temple had served its purpose in the moment it was finished."

"What was its purpose?", I asked.

"To prepare", he replied.

"Please help me", I said. "Prepare for what?"

"For the fight!", he answered. "We want to set out with you, to hunt and destroy the Firebringer. The turn of times has come. You still don't understand, do you?"

"Not really..."

"You came from the water. You handled the heat and took away our fears. You called the water with your raindance, and the water listened and followed. You have built the temple of enlightenment. You have changed your shape. You have lived in the ocean and returned. You are the Waterbringer, and we are at your service. Lead us into the fight against the Nameless, Waterbringer!"

You should have seen the confidence in their eyes. Their hope and their trust. How could I have said no? How could I have disappointed Krozo and all the other crabs?

And how could I have denied the obvious?

"Okay", I said, looking at my brave and fearless warriors. "We're gonna need a bigger boat."

This has been written in 2015 when the game was in version 0.04. Some of you might have recognized references to elements and items used back then.

Special thanks go to my exceptional forum buddy Cosmo for proofreading this story (which I dared to write in English, although it is not my native language - as you might have noticed here or there).

Although this is a free-to read offer, there is a copyright on the text above. You are welcome to share it with others by linking, but you are not allowed to copy it - be it in parts or as a whole -, to distribute it via electronic or other means, to make translations of the story or to use parts or ideas of it for other projects. No offense!


I hope you liked it!


Skarmo