Strange Baby

He locked his doors— the guy who braked at my outstretched thumb. His name was Froggy. He drove in the opposite direction to Georgetown, is the temperature ok? he turned the radio dial, what music do you like? A white crab pearled in his headlights, he got out, knelt on its shell. I could have run at that point, but his car was air conditioned, I had nowhere to be. He pulled a rope from his back pocket, turned its pincers into its own face and bound them there. I’ll cook you dinner, he said, and lumped the salted moon onto my lap. It squirmed against my thighs, this strange baby, looking to me for a mother. I don’t eat animals, I said. It’s not an animal, he drove on in the stink of rockpool fizz. The island only has one road, I told myself we’d loop round eventually. He pulled into a hotel, abandoned mid-construction. Bare cement, windows gaping like mouths. I wouldn’t touch the crab, was grateful when he tossed it in the back. I stepped out into the evening shrill of insects. Dizzied by the delicate racket of wings rubbed together —he took out a knife and cleared a path for me to reach a secret beach. The sunset is pretty, like you, he said. Like me? I smiled. Like you, he said, down on one knee.