Reggie

So if the secret of life could not be found amongst the flock, nor upon the path of the Good Shepherd, where indeed could it be found?

Everything had seemed much clearer before Heryshaf began asking questions.

Now every answer seemed to contain another question.

He had discovered fragments of things, certainly, but somehow each discovery made the whole mystery larger.

Still, somewhere inside him was a small glow.

I will find it.

Then another thought followed.

And when I do, I shall be the first.

The glow became warmer.

What a genius I am.

Heryshaf stopped.

He knocked himself on the cheek with a cloven hoof.

He had discovered almost nothing.

“In truth, there is nothing new in the world,” he thought. “All remains merely to be rediscovered.”

He had been walking for over an hour when something seized his leg.

“Baaaaaaaaaaaagggghhh!”

Heryshaf looked down.

Attached to him by one enormous claw was what appeared to be a red, six-legged, hard-bodied spider.

“Get off me!” he screamed, shaking his leg wildly. “Get off me, spider!”

The creature released its grip and spun through the air in a bright red arc.

“Ouch!”

It landed upside down.

“I am not a spider,” it said, rubbing its head. “I am a crab.”

“A crab?”

“Yes.”

“What is that?”

“It is what I am.”

Heryshaf stared at him.

“Are you sure?”

The crab froze.

“Am I sure?”

“I've never heard of one.”

“Of course I'm sure! What do you think I am?”

“I don't know. You look like a spider.”

“A spider?” spluttered the crab. “Are you stupid?”

“No!” snapped Heryshaf. “Are you?”

And thus began a great battle between the crab and the sheep.

Later, Heryshaf would wonder why the word great was so often used to describe wars.

There seemed very little great about this one.

For nearly thirty minutes wool flew across the beach and the clap of pincers echoed around the bay.

Eventually both creatures collapsed, bruised and exhausted.

Heryshaf recovered first.

He planted one hoof firmly upon the crab's shell.

A little more pressure and it would crack.

The crab glared up at him.

Heryshaf glared down.

Then, for no particular reason, Heryshaf noticed the sea.

It was blue.

He had always known that the sea was blue, but for the first time wondered why.

Perhaps because it reflected the sky.

Then why was the sky blue?

Heryshaf looked upward.

That brief moment of philosophical distraction was all the crab required.

SNAP.

Heryshaf froze.

The crab had clamped one pincer firmly around his testicles.

“Gotcha.”

Heryshaf did not move.

“Remove your hoof,” said the crab, “or I shall remove your balls.”

“Remove your pincer or I shall remove your life.”

“You first.”

“But if I remove my hoof, you may still snap.”

“And if I let go,” said the crab, “you may still squash.”

A bead of sweat crawled down Heryshaf's face and dropped onto the crab's shell.

The crab smiled.

He now knew something Heryshaf had been trying very hard not to reveal.

Heryshaf was terrified.

The crab tightened his grip very slightly.

“I'm pinching.”

“And I'm squashing.”

“You're about to lose your life!”

“And you're about to lose your ability to father children. Which is the greater loss?”

Heryshaf considered this.

Not for very long.

“Victory always requires sacrifice,” he said carefully, “but this time I am not willing to pay the price.”

He removed his hoof.

The crab removed his pincer.

Both retreated a safe distance.

The crab chortled.

“What's your name?”

“Heryshaf.”

“Heryshaf what?”

“Heryshaf the sheep.”

“Reggie the crab.”

They regarded one another.

“What are you doing here?” asked Reggie.

“I'm searching for the secret of life.”

Reggie burst out laughing.

“A sheep searching for the secret of life?”

“What's funny about that?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. Except that creatures spend their whole lives looking for the secret of life and then die before they find it.”

Heryshaf frowned.

“And everyone knows that, of all creatures, sheep were born to die.”

Heryshaf's stomach tightened.

Perhaps Reggie had a point.

Perhaps there was no secret.

Perhaps the flock had been right.

Don't question.

“If somebody had found the secret of life,” Reggie continued, “don't you think they would have told everyone by now?”

“Maybe.”

“My advice? Stop looking.”

“But what's the point of everything if there is no secret?”

“I've already told you.”

“No you haven't.”

“Children.”

Heryshaf stared at him.

“Children?”

“Children. That's it.”

“That's the secret of life?”

“Life.”

“That doesn't explain anything.”

“It explains crabs.”

Reggie seemed satisfied with this.

“I have fathered a great many children,” he added proudly.

“How many?”

Reggie thought.

“A great many.”

“So life is about replacing yourself?”

Reggie tilted his shell.

“If you want to make it sound complicated.”

Heryshaf thought about this.

“Everything else,” Reggie continued, “comes from creatures having too much time to think. Cheer up. Life isn't that bad.”

Heryshaf looked at him suspiciously.

“You were trying to remove my testicles a moment ago.”

“Yes.”

“And now you're telling me to cheer up?”

“Yes.”

Reggie began crawling away.

“Come on.”

“Where?”

“I know a little rock pool further along the beach. The water tastes terrible, but it has a very peculiar effect on anyone who drinks it.”

Heryshaf followed.

It was surprisingly easy to follow a crab.

After a while, Heryshaf noticed something.

“Reggie?”

“Yes?”

“Why do you walk sideways?”

Reggie stopped.

He had clearly never expected the question.

“Because,” he said eventually, “I don't want to spend my life looking back at the past, and I have no particular desire to stare into the future.”

“So you look sideways?”

“Exactly.”

“That makes no sense.”

“It works for me.”

Reggie continued walking.

“I like it here,” he said. “Now. It's much less complicated.”

Heryshaf followed beside him.

“And I've found that happiness generally prefers a simple life.”

Reggie pointed towards the beach.

“Look at all that sand.”

Heryshaf looked.

“Most creatures would try to understand the whole beach at once. Imagine counting every grain.”

“That would take forever.”

“Exactly. And even if you somehow managed it, what would you know about any one of them?”

Reggie reached down and lifted a single grain.

“I once spent a very long time looking at one of these.”

“What did you discover?”

“The beach.”

Heryshaf frowned.

Reggie held the grain closer.

“If you look carefully enough at a little thing, sometimes the big thing reveals itself.”

Heryshaf looked at the grain.

“Better to know one thing well than a thousand things badly,” said Reggie. “Everyone keeps looking for answers as though they're hiding somewhere far away.”

He dropped the grain.

“Maybe they're staring us in the face.”

Heryshaf remembered something he had thought earlier.

“Everything is already known,” he murmured. “It only remains to be rediscovered.”

Reggie shrugged.

“If you say so.”

They crossed the remaining beach and stopped beside a small rock pool.

“Here we are.”

Heryshaf peered into it.

The water looked entirely ordinary.

“Drink.”

“What does it do?”

“It will blow your mind.”

“What does that mean?”

Reggie considered this.

“It means it will blow your mind.”

“Oh.”

Heryshaf lowered his head and drank.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then space moved.

The beach stretched away from him.

The sky folded.

Light broke into colours Heryshaf was fairly certain had not existed a moment before.

Sounds merged into one another until he could no longer tell whether he was hearing them or seeing them.

He tried to steady himself.

Somewhere, very far away, Reggie seemed to be laughing.

Then Heryshaf heard his voice.

“Let go, Heryshaf.”

The world spun faster.

“Don't fight it.”

Heryshaf tried very hard to fight it.

“You'll have much more fun.”