Watch your step

Watch your step!

By Ricky

This is a true story

It was about seven pm as the sun had just set over Luang Prabang. The sky had just been covered in a blueish black blanket and the night market was reaching full swing. This was our first evening at the night market and we were taking in the fresh sights, sounds, smells etc. Children were running around playing and laughing around our feet while their parents were a ways behind bartering and examining their  potential purchases

We had just had dinner and a walk through the night market was the perfect way to finish off the evening. The locals were selling their wares such as bracelets, books, cloths etc. We walked along staring at the stalls and people, when all of a sudden….

CRUNCH!!

I felt my foot step on something about the size of a potato but hard and crunchy. I stopped in my tracks. I knew I didn’t want to know what I had just stood on but in these situations you can’t help but look. Talia had walked a ways ahead as  I slowly lifted up my foot.

And there it was. ….

A crab.

A dying crab.

I was confounded, as I watched this creature twitch in it’s last moments of life, about what the f**k a crab was doing on the main street of a major town in the middle of a night market. And that’s when I saw how it all came together…

…..It was wearing a leash.

It took a few seconds to compute what exactly was going on during which a small crowd had gathered with  a few people already in hysterics laughing. I followed the leash from the crab to a boy, who couldn’t be more than two or three years old, standing there.

Confused.

With one forefinger in his mouth.

I thought I was in serious trouble with someone who would soon realize that I had killed this poor kid’s beloved pet crab, which was still lying in the gutter, upside down, twitching its remaining few legs. When I looked up, and saw the  parents of this kid standing next to him, barely able to stand with laughter.

I stood there for a moment with that dumb look on my face. When the kid simply continued along his merry way with this twitching dying crab dragging along behind him on a little string.

I should really be more careful!