The Return of Sylvester the Snail

The Return of Sylvester the Snail
By Marian Fick

Carlos, the Crab, was having a most wonderful dream. Some humans had left a mountain of charbroiled hot dogs -- his favorite junk food delicacy. He even heard a pleasant tune in his dream. The music got louder as he crawled toward the hot dogs.

The hot dogs started to fade. Carlos began to panic in his sleep. “My hot dogs! They’re disappearing! Ahh!” He reached for them. “Wait! Don’t go away! No-o-o-o!”

As the hot dogs faded lighter and lighter, the music was getting louder and louder. Carlos, the Crab, jerked awake.

“OUCH!” exclaimed Carlos. He had pinched himself in the nose. Carlos listened as he rubbed his nose. The music was getting even louder.

“Hold on, here,” he said to himself out loud. “I heard this music in my dream. I know I’m awake. Why am I still hearing this music?”

He climbed to the sand’s surface to investigate. “YOU!!” he exclaimed loudly. His buggy eyes became even larger, but a smile gradually formed on his face.

Gliding on the sand toward Carlos was a herd of snails singing one of their little snail praise songs to the Lord. Leading the herd was his old friend, Sylvester. The music stopped.

“Friend,” said Carlos to himself. He was genuinely excited to see Sylvester alive. “Yes, I am happy to see him. Huh, a happy crab. What an oxymoron!”

“Carlos,” said Sylvester. “You are still here. It’s good to see you again.”

Sylvester’s friend, Simon, asked, “Why are you glad to see that grumpy old crab? All he does is yell and gripe. When we left to find food two years ago, he didn‘t even wish us good luck or say ‘God bless you on your search,’ or ‘Take care.’ He just yelled at us.”

Sylvester turned to his friend. “You’re right. He didn’t say any of those things. But if you remember, he kept yelling at us to come back; that we were going to starve to death. He wasn’t just being grouchy. He was concerned for our lives. In his ‘grumpy old way,’ he was telling us that he cared about us.”

Simon thought about that for a second, then said, “I hadn’t thought of him that way. He just sounded crabby to me.

Sylvester laughed. “He’s a crab. He’s supposed to sound crabby.”

Carlos crawled out to meet Sylvester and the community of snails. “HEY!” Carlos yelled unnecessarily, since he was now within three feet of them. “I thought all of you had gone and starved to death. We even held a memorial service when we didn’t hear from you in six months. Now, two years after you disappeared, you all come sliding back, happy as clams!”

“I’m sorry we couldn’t get word to you that we were safe and well. We wanted to send a message to you, but couldn’t find any one to send one with,” said Sylvester.

“For TWO YEARS!?” asked Carlos thunderously.

“Yes, for two years!” It was Simon who answered this time. “We all asked just about everyone coming and going. No one seemed to be traveling along this stretch of the beach.”

“Yeah, it did get pretty deserted,” mused Carlos. “No one stuck around here but a group of us old crabs for about a year. Come to think of it, there wasn’t anything here to eat except a very limited amount of crab food until about six months ago. All the large crab families had to move. Most of them returned just a few months ago.”

“There was a story handed down in my family,” Sandy Snail broke in. “I heard it from my great-grandfather, Sheldon the Slowpoke.”

“Sheldon, the Slowpoke?” yelled Carlos, laughing. “All snails are slow, aren’t they?”

“To you, yes,” answered Sandy. “But to us… well, we all slide along at close to the same speed. It doesn’t seem slow to us. Except when it came to my great-grandfather. No one ever figured out why he could never keep up with the rest of the community. It wasn’t a very nice nickname, but he just became known as Sheldon, the Slowpoke.”

“Maybe he was never in a hurry,” suggested Sylvester. “You notice a lot of life’s little things that way.” Sylvester thought for a couple seconds, then asked, “Was he the only ‘slowpoke’ in your ancestry.”

“N-no, come to think of it,” said Sandy, “there was Sluggish Stewart, Great-grandpa Sheldon’s great-uncle; and Uncle Stewart’s great-great-grandmother, Slow Salina.”

Carlos’ eyes bugged. “How do you keep track of all that?”

“I have no idea,” shrugged Sandy. “Anyway, the story goes that once every hundred years, the food supply dwindles for about two years, except for crab food, and everyone, even seagulls, moves away from this particular stretch of the beach in search for food.”

“But, how did you know to move back?” bellowed Carlos.

Sylvester shook his head to clear his ears. “One of the seagulls brought the news that there was plenty of food for everyone now.”

“That’s right,” said Sandy. “It was my young niece, Serene Sealie, who brought us the message when she caught up to us. She had notice a seagull with some seaweed in it‘s beak and that the seaweed wasn‘t from that area. She stopped the seagull to ask where he had gotten the seaweed from.”

“Serene Sealie?” questioned Carlos, in a surprisingly quiet voice.

“Yes,” answered Sandy. “Her real name is Cecelia. But she acquired the name ‘Serene Sealie’ because she continuously mozies calmly behind everyone else, sometimes stopping to examine a piece of driftwood or baby crab or something.”

“Hey, I’m beginning to see a pattern, here, I think,” said Sylvester. “Who did you learn all this information from about your family?”

“Oh, it was my great aunt, Smart Shelly,” answered Sandy. “Oh, I think understand what you’re getting at. We all have different gifts. I have the gift of remembering all these historical facts like Great-aunt Smart Shelly and whoever she learned them from. I believe it was my great-great grandfather Sharp Skipper. And maybe those ancestors of mine and Serene Sealie aren’t just slowpokes. They observe things about the environment and pass the information on to others. Like Serene Sealie did, so that we knew it was time to move back home.”

“HEY,” yelled Carlos, “I think I understand, too. Sylvester, you were the one who took the responsibility to find food for your community two years ago and return to lead all the other snails to… well, wherever you went. I remember your grandfather, Seymour. He was a born leader. I was just a little scrapper, then. My cousin, Crazy Crusty, and I used to hide in a sand dune and watch him conduct the community meetings.”

“Crazy Crusty?” asked Sylvester.

“Yeah,” answered Carlos, chuckling. “You should’ve seen the stunts that crab pulled. He didn’t seem to be afraid to do anything. Why, he even once snuck up on Old Whitey, a six-foot white shark, and pinched his tailfin. I thought he was dead, for sure. He had only a nanosecond to spare wedging himself into the opening of a microscopic cave. He was stuck in there for hours until that shark finally got hungry and left to find his dinner. Ha-ha. That tiny cave was so small, he couldn‘t move a pincher. He was so stiff by the time Old Whitey left, we had to pry him out of there. Any way, we all have our special gifts. I think, anyway. I don‘t seem to have anything special.”

“Oh, contraire,” replied Sylvester. “Remember when I left my community to hunt for food? You yelled after me that I was crazy.”

“Yeh, what’s so special about that?” asked Carlos.

“And remember when my entire community left? You yelled after us that we were all crazy?” asked Sylvester.

“So… I have the gift of recognizing insanity?” asked Carlos.

“No, no, no,” replied Sylvester softly. “You, my friend, Carlos, have the very special gift of caring and compassion. You didn‘t just tell us you thought we were crazy. You told us you were afraid we weren‘t going to live. You told us you cared about us and were concerned for our health and safety. You told us you loved us in your own ‘crabby‘ way.”

Carlos thought for a few seconds, recalling the snails leaving and himself yelling after them. “Yes, you’re right. I was concerned that you would all starve to death before you got to the food. Yeh, in my own special crabby way, I told you that I loved you. I do have a gift, just like every one else. Thanks, friend.”

“And welcome home. I still love ya!” he yelled.


The end.