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This spiral was my sanctuary.
The one who built it and lived here is long gone.
The vastness that surrounds me makes me feel smaller still.
I was the first one to arrive here. I was young.
I don't miss those days.
I love what I have now ... and what I know today.
I don't miss the solitude ... the fear I miss even less.
Before arriving here I also lived in shells, but on the floor.
Even sand empty of shells would be better than a shell suspended in the water.
I knew I had to leave this place. The one who put me here knew so too.
But I lacked the courage to act.
In the end we can get used to anything.
What was once frightening, slowly becomes ordinary.
And I was young.
It's not the Great Lake out there.
Neither I, nor my parents and not even my grandparents ever knew the Great Lake.
I am from a long line that grew up in your hands.
You are very dear to me, there are so many things I want to tell you.
I want to tell you not to be afraid, that everything's going to be fine, that your life will be worthwhile.
But who am I to give you advice?
If you weren't the way you are, I wouldn't be who I am.
All the same, I would like to still be brave like you.
Good bye shell.
I didn't know where I was or where to go.
I would have been paralysed, if not for the current.
I looked around, searching for something familiar...
There was no-one to be seen.
Many others in the Great Lake enjoy solitude. But not us.
We, more than any of the others, need a family.
If I were in the openness of the Great Lake, I wouldn't survive for long.
TMany hungry mouths there could swallow me whole.
There are others larger still that would have no interest in me.
But here there are no predators
Just as there are no shells suspended in the water of the Great Lake.
But if being this small has its dangers, it also presents opportunities.
Living in the safety of a shell-bed is one of them.
I crept into a little space between the shells and stayed there, hardly moving, until the next day.
I feel like telling you "Go! Nothing bad will happen."
On the other hand, I understand your reticence, and again, I envy you your courage.
I had never lived alone and was unprepared to deal with fear by myself.
But like the day before, what once scared me, gradually became familiar.
I began to conquer my fears ... and my first territory.
And that is how it was... so many shells and no one to share them with... or fight for them.
I detest rubbish, I always have.
Rubbish ...
In the past, I would never have put this in my mouth.
It was my first and last time.
Rubbish.
Rubbish.
As that first day ended, I had come to know a small part of the network of passages between the shells.
Every one of the shells will be visited.
Until I have chosen my favourites.
In the Great Lake some are satisfied with one or two shells, but we like to have more, many more.
You can never have too many shells.
In the Great Lake there are shell-beds without end.
And there we too are many.
About that time, everything was new and my confidence was growing.
I was dazzled by so many shells.
Why this fascination with shells?
I don't know. It has always been this way.
It is far more than needing a place to hide.
I have always enjoyed entering a shell, exploring the small passages between them, learning their entrances and exits.
I was given a rare opportunity.
We live with our parents until we are grown and generally do not stray far.
When we are adults we have to find our own little space in the shell-bed and fight for it.
And when we fail, there is no other option, but to risk our lives and venture into the open, searching for a place where we can live out our lives.
It is a very difficult decision ... Fortunately, it was not one I had to make.
What do you do ... when you have done everything that can be done?
What do you do when you know that today will be the same as yesterday...
and tomorrow only promises more of the same?
What are you supposed to do when the sun is high and it no longer matters what is going on outside?
Yes, I have had some days like that ... and I am glad they are over.
I used to sleep towards the back of the shell-bed...
I used to sleep towards the back of the shell-bed and in the morning I would venture out front to pass the day.
Watching who was watching me.
Until it became commonplace and I lost interest.
At the Great Lake we catch zooplankton and small crustaceans.
Here I have to forage for food particles carried by the current.
There is not much more.
But I never left this shell-bed. I never strayed too far.
I have never tested the limits of this sand bed, and I have never attempted to leave in search of my own kind.
After all is said and done, we can get used to anything. As time passed I even began to like the life I was living.
You can't enter a shell recklessly. They can be dangerous.
Be thoughtless and you can enter too quickly, push in too deep and become stuck.
Worse still, if a shell has air trapped inside and it is dry, you can suffocate.
This was my favourite shell where I spent most afternoons ... It was my refuge.
I grew up in a large family, with my father, my mother, my aunts, brothers and cousins.
I had to fight with them for everything. But not here.
I would gladly swap this freedom for the company of any one of them.
I missed you very much... and I never got to see you again.
If by chance we were to meet again, I wouldn't recognise you.
Instead, I have come to know these secret passages so well this shell-bed has become a part of me.
I never stopped marvelling at the beauty of the spaces between the shells, the light and shadows that only I knew.
When I lived with my parents, there were places I was not allowed to go.
Here I could go wherever I wanted. There was nothing stopping me from doing whatever I wanted.
I was the queen of this shell-bed.
But what was the point?
Anyway, these day of freedom were numbered.
If these were such difficult times, why do I care to remember them?
I don't know how much time passed by like this... it certainly seemed a long time.
The sand grew old around me.
Time could have flowed on and I would have continued my endless meandering through the passages between the shells.
My afternoons spent relaxing in my favourite shell.
And as the sun set at the end of every day, I would return to my night shell.
That is how it could have been ...
But if we can be sure of one thing, it is change will come.
Even for us, who lead the most organised of lives among all that live or hail from the Great Lake.
Who's there?