Lobster Dreams by Stephen Spotte is a smart, funny, and esoteric meditation on identity, transformation, and what it means to be human—or lobster! Below is an excerpt from the novel:

1.

Can you sing knowingly of salt and tides, harmonize with whales, suffer a fever though your blood is cold, play mumblety-peg with a razor clam, catch a falling seastar? Since earliest childhood when he developed the capacity to recall dreams his have touched on such fanciful things, but he dreamed while in the guise of a lobster, not a little boy. Even now as a young adult he has never fully experienced the sea, only watched it from the land, intuitively understanding the pitch, roll, and yaw of objects that float on elastic surfaces, and underneath too, a realm of surge, of opaque light and scuttling shadows. In times of cognizance when dream images become unbearably vivid he submerges himself in the tidepool at the base of the hill, feeling the stab of an ancient attachment, a strangely comforting thrill in the susurrous choral voices of restless water.

The land, in contrast, seems only to offer uneasiness and sorrow and the implacable grip and squeeze of gravity. He thinks he ought to somehow remember the sea, although a specific memory never breaks through into consciousness. Each time he eases into the tidepool the sea startles him with its fierce wetness, its ineluctable pressure, the frightening abasement of it scratching against his soul; the demand that he accede to its temporality. And he wonders what, if anything, separates dreams from reality.

When attempting to explain this to Mutha, she says, “Be careful what ye dream, Sonny. Some dreams is more realer than othahs. And anyhow, dreams ain’t healthy fah the mind, nah the body. Someday I’ll tell ye some stuff, but right now ye’re too young fah understandin’.” And that’s how it stayed: dreams that seemed like real life except experienced in a world under the sea, a place he could only imagine but believed he already knew.

One day Mutha said, “When ye metamorphosed out’n larvahood into a crawlin li’l baby lobstah-like creature, I knowed right off that ye was one o’ us — our’n clan, I mean. How it happened that I scooped ye random out’n that tidepool down the hill amongst all them othah larvae was a miracle o’ luck, I reckon. Me biological clock wahnt jist tickin along quiet-like, it had put the hammah down, and I was hopin’ to be a mutha and give it the ol’ hot suppah. I was keenin’ fah a young-un to mutha, nevah thinkin that out’n the millions o’ larvae driftin’ in the ocean I’d chance to seine up one o’ me own. On hatchin’ ye was tiny as a mosquito. Ye rose to the suhface and ye’d a’bin swimmin’ free fah three weeks. And as ye growed ye begun lookin’ like our’n kin and gainin’ the same troubles o’ our’n. But I still seen ye as a blessin’.

“Ye was raised in that li’l aquarium in the conah yondah. Each mornin’ I crept down the hill to the tidepool and drub up two buckets o’ fresh seawatah to change it out so’s ye wouldn’t die swallerin’ the poison o’ ye own excrements. And I pulled a plankton net through the same pool at low tide and caught zooplankton, which I emptied into the buckets and totin’ ’em back up the hill so’s ye’d have somethin’ nutritious to eat. Ah, what a cunnin’ bit o’ larva ye was, practically transparent ’cept’ fah them big black buggy eyes. But ye’re growed now, finished school, and I reckon ye’ll be leavin’ soon. Time’s a’gainin’ on me, and we need to have us a confab. Reach me the octofocals. These ol’ compound eyes is gettin’ wusah by the day.” She adds, “And hand ’em ovah careful. Gotta membah this lobstah-claw syndrome o’ our’n, which tain’t improvin’ fah us neithah one. It’s a bitch pickin’ up stuff without ye hardly got fingahs. And walkin’ is a bummah too when ye got jist a pointy toe on all ye walkin’ feet. But I need to tell ye some things
’cause I reckon ye’ll be leavin’ soon.”

Her words and their tone startle him. “You’ve said it twice now Mutha, that I’ll be leaving soon. Why?”

“’Cause it’s time ye went out inna wuld and found ye place. I’m a’sendin’ ye to the coast Downeast to ye uncle. He’s ovah to Suramoh Island neah the spot me and ’im was raised up. Now, go on and draw me a bahth o’ cold seawatah. I’ll need to get off’n me pins and float a spell aftah the confab. Gravity’s done drove all me joints to weak-kneed oblivion. They ache somethin’ awful, and I’m stove up.”

He half-crawls, half-stumbles to the bathroom and the old porcelain-covered iron tub with its lion-foot legs and turns on the pump. Frigid seawater directly from the Gulf of Maine pours from the spigot. The inline thermometer registers sixty-two degrees Fahrenheit, just to Mutha’s liking.

He shuts off the water and returns slowly and with great effort to the living room. “But what will I do on Suramoh Island? I’ve never been there. I’ve never heard of it, and I’ve never met Uncle. I don’t even know what he looks like. Do you have a picture of him?”

“No pitchah, but he looks a good deal like us, and I figgah ye and ’im kin decide what to do. I’ve barely met ’im meself. He sent me a buthday cahd once, but it was his buthday, not mine. Anyhow, ye turned out a piss-poah chicken fahmah, no aptitude a’tall. Instead, ye went and got educated at that there Downeast Univusity, which tain’t even all the way Downeast, and they taught ye to talk propah, like them summah tourist folk who come-from a’ways, takin’ pitchahs and eaten’ lobstah. I cahnt see why ye should stick around heah. Git out and make ye place in the wuld. I’ll miss ye some when ye’re gone, but it’s fah the best.” A couple of drops of salty water drip down her face. She sniffles and tries to furrow her brow, but it seems to be stuck. “I ain’t so good at fahmin’ chickens meself, bein’ honest with ye. I thought I’d be keepin’ chickens o’ the sea like I seen advahtised on the teevee. Ye know, Charlie the Tuna. Or mebbe I’d be a’growin’ out baby lobstahs to legal-size chicken lobstahs, chix the lobstahmen calls ’em. Then heah come the stock and it wahnt neithah. The damn things is feathahed, ain’t a’one o’ ’em got webbed feet, and they cahnt swim fah spit, all of ’em sinkahs.”

She tries shaking her head but her neck and body are fused. She holds up her deformed lobster-claw hands, a congenital malady that afflicts them both. “Goddammah!” she says with anguish, segueing into an epenthesis, “and this heah authah-ite-us in evah last leg joint, cahnt hahdly walk a step a’fah takin’ a diggah flat on me snout. Ayuh, it aches wicked bad, and I got me a painful crick in the uppah carapace. Sonofabitch don’t swivel. Now, if’n ye got any questions a’fah me bahth, ast ’em.”

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