Dan's time in the trap came to a sudden end when the entire trap shook violently and lifted from the rocky ocean floor. On the surface of the sea a lobster boat equipped with a mechanized system of pulleys had arrived to collect another trap. The crew began to hoist the trap toward the surface.
Dan flicked his tail and scurried backward into a corner of the trap to wait. He was about to be harvested like others of his kind…
"Own kind!" Dan stirred the water as his claws flailed in agitation. "I'm not like..."
He didn't finish his thought because the hoist lifting the trap brought the device to the surface and onto the side of a huge boat.
Dan felt a dizzying sensation caused by the intense blend of fear and excitement. He was another step closer to becoming dinner!
A large man in garb designed to protect from the wind and waves reached for the trap with an enormous gloved hand. The man worried at the buoy, detached the location marker, and tossed it into a corner with others.
Only then did he turn his attention to Dan. “Just one,” he groused, seeing that the cage held a lone occupant. “Well, least it’s a nice, fat one.”
He had a practiced eye and didn’t need to weigh Dan to ascertain his plump delectability.
"I'm not a real lobster!” Dan protested, almost by rote, simply to let himself experience the electric jab of finding communication with the fisherman denied him.
The man next detached the cable from the trap in anticipation of removing the catch.
At that very instant, a large wave crashed into the boat just as the man started to unfasten the trap and retrieve Dan. The boat rocked, the man stumbled, and the now unattached trap dropped back into the sea and sank.
Another man joined his clumsy employee at the side of the boat as they both stared into the choppy waves.
“That’s the second trap you’ve cost me,” the boat owner noted. “And that was a harvestable lobster!”
Meanwhile, the ill-fated occupant of the trap remained securely confined as the trap sank back into the depths.