I OFTEN CYCLED past the prawn farms with a friend on our way to the school where I teach. There are great ponds on acres and acres of land in this coastal village in the Eastern part of the island. On these lonely roads, in their deep silence, grew my awareness of the life that was evolving in the ponds as the crustacea emerged from the spawn, creating concentric ripples as they swam beneath the water’s surface. A subtle movement seemed to stir the expanse of water, breaking the slivers of light, scattering them on the ponds. I was not able to observe these forms of life minutely but there was this feeling that the ponds were seething, alive, and that the prawns were trapped in their aquatic prisons from which they could not escape until they grew large enough to be caught, netted, packed and sent away to titillate the appetites of the wealthy gourmets who could afford them.

The great expanses of water reflected the stark white light of these arid regions; silvery, sky-reflecting mirrors that trapped the clouds. Light and dark changed the images that floated on the surface. At night, the moon, stirred by the wind, shivered fragmented like the segmented petals of a waterplant. It was on moonless nights that the prawn stealers came to the farms. They crept through the land in stealth, defying the guards, to net the prawns, at the terrible cost of being caught, beaten up, even killed.

To me, the prawns appeared to have an even greater price than that placed on human life. They were being reared for profit. Foreign investors had put a great deal of money into this venture and the prawn farms had to yield a good harvest. The crustacea had first to grow, after which their globules of luscious flesh were carefully packed for export abroad. Sometimes the horrible image of death appeared in my mind—the opaque covering on the prawns like the polythene shrouds which hide the remains of those killed in battle, or in land mine explosions. Those who ate them would not have such disturbing reflections.