Sand & Symphony: A Microscopic Adventure in Glitching Harmony
Inspired by “The Secrets of Sand” by Dr. Gary Greenberg and the glitch music by Sunhaus
Hawaiian boy has caught a crab — Nara — Photo by Charles O’Rear, 1941 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=Hawaii+crab&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image
The inspiration for this short story came from reading the fascinating book “The Secrets of Sand” by Dr. Gary Greenberg, which offers an illuminating glimpse into the microscopic world of sand. As Greenberg explains, sand is ubiquitous, surrounding us in terrestrial environments worldwide. Yet most people never view sand under a microscope to appreciate the dazzling colours, shapes, and textures of each unique grain.
Entering the tiny worlds inside grains of sand is like starting a trip to a magical kingdom, full of surprises and new things to find. More than just understanding with your mind, it touches something deeper inside, showing hidden worlds rarely seen. Each grain has its landscapes, shapes and structures under the plain, everyday surface. Exploring this inner place sparks creativity, imagination and new ways of seeing reality.
Like probes travelling to faraway places to send back pictures of unfamiliar sights, looking at sand under a microscope discovers weird new tiny worlds glowing with brightness and life inside humble, ignored sand. Wandering inward calls up inspiration and creativity waiting to be dug up and revealed. As we voyage through the micro-terrain of each granule, we encounter dazzling colours and intricate topography resembling alien planets filled with possibility. Every grain contains its world where fantasy is reality and the ordinary becomes extraordinary. Miniature mountains rise and tiny canyons plunge into abyssal depths, while particles cluster into vibrant civilizations.
Like adventurers mapping new frontiers, we chart the unknown features and vistas of sand’s hidden domains. Each landscape emerges slowly under the microscope lens, its details materializing like mirages to transport us across novel dimensions occurring at scales beyond everyday perception. What appeared as mundane sand is transformed into something marvelous and awe-inspiring by this miniaturized perspective, as we discover grandeur in the smallest specks of silica.
When observed through a microscope, ordinary sand is transformed into a landscape of tiny jewels, no two alike among the trillions of grains on Earth. Greenberg invented specialized 3D microscopes to capture the hidden beauty of sand and other microscopic specimens. By using oblique lighting and automated focus stacking like a photographer, his microscopes overcome the limited depth of field that normally obscures most microscope images.
Check sandgrains.com by Dr Gary Greenberg:
This approach reveals the stunning radiance and diversity of microscopic life. Like donning diving gear to explore an underwater realm, microscopes unveil a secret universe glowing with vibrant hues and textures. As Greenberg states…
“They open us up to an entirely new world of the brilliant colours, organic shapes, and the stunning patterns of nature.”
In tandem with reading Greenberg’s revelations, I discovered the glitch music of the artist Sunhaus.
As the web magazine cyclicdefrost.com wrote :
“The music of Sunhaus is warm and undulating, filled with shimmering textures and elongated drones. It’s textural ambient music, where the digital waves wash gently against each other, split and become something new. Strangely it feels like a natural process, like the audio equivalent of how sand is created or something. It’s a place where the microtonal has been elevated, where random electrics can be harnessed into a sweet intoxicating dopamine rush, where notes are less about melody or sequence than texture. It feels more like a Japanese garden than an album of composed music. It’s a dense and beautiful world, a gentle bath of glitched-out ambience.”
This serendipitous fusion between Greenberg’s microscopic eye and Sunhaus’ auditory microscopy spawned the concept for this story.
Check Sunhaus on BandCamp:
Immersed in the glistening visual depths of sand and the shimmering audio textures of glitches, I wanted to explore a tiny world of wonder, adaptation, and discovery from an unexpected perspective.
My short story strongly evokes Chapter 3 of the book by Dr. Greenberg “The Secrets of Sand” dedicated to the sands of some of the most beautiful tropical beaches in the world especially those of Hawaii.
So I invite you to read this tale of a small crab’s transformative journey between two beaches, accompanied by the crunchy and bright quicksilver sounds of Sunhaus. Their otherworldly music provides the perfect complementary backdrop to this dive into hidden dimensions.
“Nees” by Sunhaus
Pleng by “Sunhaus”
Kaimana: A Miniature Odyssey
Kaimana, a Hawaiian sand crab with multicoloured reflections, lived a simple life: he dug intricate burrows, escaped the roaring waves, and collected crumbs left by humans with his fast claws. His existence was marked by the salty scent of the ocean, the glare of the scorching sun, the cool bite of the breeze, the rhythmic melody of the waves, and the grainy feel of the sand beneath his tiny paws. But Kaimana felt a restlessness, a grain of sand in his happiness. He wanted to explore, to discover worlds other than his familiar beach.
One day, as the sun painted the sky orange, a storm hit the beach. The rain beat like a thousand drums, the wind howled, and the waves swelled like angry monsters. Kaimana, hidden in his burrow, felt his world shaken. Suddenly, a giant wave tore him from his shelter, dragging him into a confused vortex of water and sand.
The current carried him far, far from his golden sand, towards an unknown beach. When the storm subsided, Kaimana found himself on a black expanse, a beach of volcanic sand. Beneath his paws, the grains were no longer soft and uniform, but rough and irregular, like tiny pumice stones. Some had metallic reflections, others were opaque and porous. Looking closer, Kaimana saw a myriad of dark colours mixed with the dominant black: olive green from olivine fragments, rusty red from iron oxides, and even white specks of calcite from pulverized shells.
The smell was acrid, and pungent, unlike the familiar salty aroma of his beach. It smelled of sulfur and wet earth, a primal scent that tickled Kaimana’s nostrils. Intrigued, he extended a claw and touched a grain: it was hot, almost scorching in the sun. The volcanic sand retained heat differently than his golden sand, a heat that warmed Kaimana’s carapace in a new and strange way.
For the first time, Kaimana felt lost, the security of his home lost in the blink of an eye. But Kaimana was brave. He dug a burrow in the black sand, with a different, harder effort. His claws encountered unexpected resistance, sharp chips, and sudden gaps. Eventually, the burrow was ready, smaller and more irregular than those he dug on his golden beach, but still a refuge.
Finding food was more difficult. Organic debris was scarce, replaced by tiny mineral particles that Kaimana could only nibble on. The taste was strange and metallic, but not unpleasant. Hunger drove him to explore, to dig deeper, discovering layers of sand with different colours and textures. A reddish layer rich in iron, a lighter one with fragments of fossilized shells, and an almost black one with inclusions of smooth and sharp volcanic glass.
The nights were illuminated by a sky full of stars that he had never seen before, clearer and closer than his home. The lack of light pollution revealed a sky dense with bright dots, which seemed to whisper stories different from those told by the stars on his beach. Kaimana felt small and insignificant in the face of that vastness, but also strangely connected, part of something bigger.
Day after day, Kaimana adapted. He discovered other creatures that lived in the black sand, with dark colours and shiny shells, different from his golden beach companions. He learned the rhythms of this new beach, the rustling of the wind blowing differently between the dark grains, the song of the stars telling different stories, and the language of the waves crashing on a shore of stone instead of soft sand. One day, a new storm arrived.
Kaimana felt nostalgia for his golden beach, for the scent of the sea, for the warmth of the familiar sand. But in a corner of his little heart, there was also a pinch of nostalgia for the black beach, for the starry sky, for the metallic taste of food. He was no longer the same little crab that had left. He had transformed, learned to adapt, discovered new worlds and himself.
With the fury of the storm, Kaimana was swept away again. The waves wrapped him like a cloak of foam and carried him in a vortex of water and sand. When he woke up, he found himself on his golden beach. The joy of his return was mixed with surprise. His familiar sand had a more intense smell, the sun was warmer, and the waves were louder. It was the same beach, but different to his changed eyes.
Now, when Kaimana dug his burrow, his claws remembered the resistance of the black sand, a subtle echo in the familiar feel of his golden home. The taste of the crumbs left by humans held a deeper savour, imbued with the memory of the metallic tang on the volcanic beach. Each grain felt richer, each wave held a story whispered by the vastness he witnessed under the black sky. He was no longer just a sand crab of one beach, but a being woven from the tapestry of two worlds.
Gone was the simple life of his past, replaced by the boundless spirit of an explorer. He carried the resilience forged in the black sand, the adaptability learned from the storm’s embrace. He was a survivor, not just of the waves, but of the boundaries that once confined him.
His heart, once defined by golden sand, now held the fire of black lava, a testament to his transformation. It wasn’t a heart divided, but one resonating with the wholeness of his experiences. The strength he carried wasn’t from two different worlds, but from the unified journey that transcended them both.
And so, Kaimana, the little crab with a universe within, continued his dance on the sands of existence. He was no longer bound by a single shore, but a citizen of the ever-shifting landscape, forever changed, forever connected to the boundless tapestry of being.
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