Three Perfect Things

Preface
This is not really a food post.

Introduction
Today I went walking on the beach past Davenport and I found three perfect things:


Chapter 1
The first was a flat round stone. It looked black when it was wet but then it dried in my hands to a dusty gray. It is extremely circular, which made it stand out. It feels nice to hold and pat back and forth between your palms. It has such a nice feel that your fingers itch to skip it across water, but if you did that you couldn't hold it any more, and plus you're not that good at skipping rocks anyway.

Chapter 2
The second was a crab claw. It is complete (as much as any part divorced from its body can be) and undamaged and the joints are still working. You can pinch things with it, if you felt like it, and bend it around and make it gesticulate. There is no meat inside but it smells peculiar and pungent. The pincers are black, like they've been dipped in ink, and the rest is a lovely beige that merges with salmon-pink. There are charming brown speckles all over.

Chapter 3
The third was a small shiny white fleck of shell, I think from abalone but I can't be sure. It has the iridescent shimmer of mother of pearl. Something about the size and shape of this water-smoothed bit of shell makes you want to put it in your mouth and suck it like a lozenge. One side is completely smooth; the other has indentations that look like the paths worms make through apples and other fruits. Ocean worms? This merits further research.

Conclusion
I'm not sure why I find these things so pleasurable, but I do know that they are more pleasurable together, removed from the too-full beach and the other, less perfect, shells and stones and claws.