A World Within a World...

One of the treasures that we found on the beach earlier today was a knobby, potato-looking shell. When I got home, I proceeded to wash it off. That's when I felt it move. At first I thought it was my imagination. Then I saw another of the little attached shells move and out came a little baby crab. It was ALIVE! Or rather, they were alive. What I held in my hand was a miniature eco-system, a world within a world.

I counted twenty different things that were alive and moving. Probably, countless more on a microscopic level. Only one thing was left to do: return it from whence it came. I thought about dropping it into the East River, but I didn't know if it was salt water and I didn't want to kill the shell community or cause a major environmental catastrophe by adding this new life-form to a different system.

Above: Picture of the shell community submerged in water.

After a long ride during rush hour to Coney Island and having fell asleep on the train a couple times, I found that the beach was vastly different from earlier that morning. For one, the jetties were almost completely submerged and it looked as though a storm was rolling in.

Since it was high-tide, I couldn't put it back exactly where we found it. Instead, I put it as close as possible. I made sure that none of the scavenger seagulls would swoop down at the last second and dash it against the rocks. I watched as the waves carried it away and it disappeared beneath the surf.