Stavanger Bay to light a candle is to cast a shadow

The change in the sailor’s demeanor doesn’t go unnoticed but it is a subtle change buoyed only by Miranda’s own intuition — knowing that something had shifted but not quite sure of what. Intuition didn’t fail him often. But at the same time he’s content to pass it by as a little quirk — didn’t all conversations with strangers have this sort of phugoid motion? — and life continues onward.

He enjoys watching Knaven’s gestures which are long, fluid, comfortable, existing only in perfect arcs and semicircles. They exchange a similarly elliptical glance. I may have good taste, but my crab catching skills? Questionable.

The sea is, of course, much louder by the sand, the biggest hydropower plant in the world, and the noise of millions of kilowatt hours per year is nothing small. Not many crabs in the mountains, he says, cracking a grin that falls only millimeters short of shit-eating.

Under the shallow waters, the crabs are dark refractions that half-walk and half-drift across the shore. His shadow falls over them and they immediately hide themselves. Cheeky little things, he thinks. Insects of the sea. He digs through wet sand, and the world of the crab turns upside down when he grabs it, flailing weakly between his teeth.