“Okay, don’t worry. All we’ll have to do is convince the crabs to stop coming this way, and then you’ll stop eating all of them, which means that no more sailors will be drowned by your great thrashing tentacles as you stuff them into your mouth, and therefore no more ghosts will be floating down the babbling brook on their way to be guided by Baron Samedi to the afterlife, and thus we’ll have no more witches who think they’re being haunted hypnotizing hyenas to create havoc, and as a result no more frightened raccoons hiding in and nibbling on willow tree leaves, causing us to cry and flood the forest, leading to sharks biting Slub Glub’s rump,” Willowmina expostulated. “Only problem is, there aren’t any more crabs left to discuss this with, as you’ve eaten them all.”
“It’s all my fault,” Seamort moaned, wiping his tears with Slub Glub’s nose. “But more crabs will come, they always do.” Just then, as if on cue, the first of a new wave of pink snapping crabs appeared, poking its pincers above the water. It was the first in a long line, extending towards the distant horizon. Seamort got a glazed look in his giant eyes and began frothing at the mouth; his tentacles began to bristle, and it was clear that he was about to go into a renewed feeding frenzy. Willowmina shouted for him to stop.
“Wait! We must find out where they’re coming from, and why!” she yelled, and Seamort snapped out of his trance, relaxing his eight great squid arms. Willowmina addressed the crab, who was pinching the bark of her trunk. “Little pink crab, why are you so far out to sea, in this dangerous place where as you can see you’re about to be eaten by a giant squid?”
“Oh, what’s the difference,” the crab replied in a tiny, whiny voice. We can be eaten by a giant squid, or stepped on by oiled apes, or split in half by pointy planks of wood. All options end the same way.”
To be continued.
Table of Contents: “Slub Glub in the Weird World of the Weeping Willows”
Get the graphic novel from Eraserhead Press.
Illustration & text copyright (c) Andrew Goldfarb