A Shellful Loss

I killed a lobster today.

Plunged the sorry creature into a pot of scalding water.

I saw its life seep out through the little chinks of its armour,

and in my head I imagined a pale translucent thing floating up to wherever it wants to go. Maybe I felt bad, maybe I felt good;

a life lost by my hand. Had I set it free?

From whatever it had to endure. One had to guess,

seeing its brothers picked off and chosen every day,

knowing well that one day, it may end up with the same fate.

Or was it clueless,

enjoying its life somewhere else until the devil came and slew it?

These questions popped up in my head,

as the squirming lifeless thing crawled out of its own shell,

brown turning to orange, before everything settles.

A calm before and a calm after a storm.

It was then I realised:

I killed a lobster today.

Jerome Tan