| But something strange was happening. It should have been too dark to see anything as he kicked his way below the surface, but he could make out many shapes and colors. A kind of light was beginning to fill him up inside and pout out from his skin, from his fingers, his toes, his elbows and knees, and gradually from all over his body-like a firefly's abdomen. He felt like a swimming flourescent lamp. He looked curiously at his fingers in front of his face, his belly, then his knees and down to his toes which he waggled back and forth-and all was alilght from inside. This made it pretty easy to swim around and look at the rocks, the waving seaweed forests, and all the animals that lived there. It was after midnight, so he thought that all the fish would be in their nests fast asleep, like his farther back at home snoring softly with his peeling sunburnt nose stuck out of the futon. But he could make out something moving on the big round boulders down below him. He slowly slid through the water down close, and he saw a small crab as big as his kneecap, thin as a cracker, with a red fringe around the dark green flat shell, and little pincers all around with pink edges at the points. He came closer, and two eyes stuck out from holes on little sticks glared at him warily as one bigger pincer like a toy crane stuffed a bit of seaweed into the hidden mouth. He could make out the chewing all right, but could'nt see what was chewing that tiny bit of green. It moved sideways very slowly like a thief on a roof at night, afraind of being discovered by the policeman patrolling out on the street below, and when Heitaro waved a finger near the rock, WHAP! no more crab. |