wolves would dart about, put nose to ground, and cause the humans’ limbs to jerk in whatever direction the wolves chose to move. Whenever the wolves arched their backs to defecate, the humans waited by their sides. At the completion of each defecation, the humans made cooing sounds as if pleased to receive what the wolves had given them. They gathered up the feces in clear skins of excrescence, which they carried proudly in their hands as the wolves led them on a continuation of their erratic journey across the grass.
Why, I wondered, did the humans gather up wolf feces? Did they eat it as snails eat the excretions of fish? Did they lick down the feces of their own kind? That could not be possible. And yet, when it came to humans, almost nothing seemed impossible. I could be sure of little more than the fact that humans collected feces of varying kinds. Perhaps when these collections grew too large, the humans vented some into the sea.
My puzzlement at the humans’ diet caused me to realize that it had been too long since I had eaten. I badly wanted and needed to catch a few salmon or perhaps some more delicious herring. However, the channel through which I swam formed a part of the traditional fishing grounds of the Truthful Word Painter Clan. I felt sure that these distant cousins of mine would not begrudge me a few mouthfuls of fish, but good manners dictated that I first ask permission before indulging in such a feast. I had to wait through many days of rumbling in my empty belly before I had a chance to do so. One clear night, with the moon-silvered waters around me rippling in a soft breeze, the orcas of the Scarlett Tiralee family of the Truthful Word Painter Clan swam into the channel and made my acquaintance.
Only six of them did I greet: Mother Agena and her three children, Diadem, Furud, and Mekbuda, and Agena’s sister Celaeno, who had recently given birth to Baby Kornephoros. When I asked after their health, Agena told me, ‘We are well enough now, though misfortunes have reduced our family, as you can see.’
We spent the rest of night recounting stories and telling of our respective families. I listened with great sadness as Agena described the agonizing death of her mother, who had perished before her time of a mysterious wasting disease. Agena’s first child had died in a collision with one of the humans’ boats while her second had succumbed to a fever. I related similar woes, though I tried to gloss over my relief that my family had prospered in the face of great trials largely due to my grandmother’s guidance. Together we sang songs of mourning and remembrance. Finally just after dawn with the sun red upon a cloud-heavy horizon, I told the Scarlett Word Painters of the white bear and the burning sea, and I explained why I had journeyed so far from home.
‘I have never imagined,’ Mother Agena said, ‘losing my ability to quenge. Would you not be better off dead?’
‘I would be, yes,’ I replied, ‘if I had no hope of regaining from the humans what they have taken from me.’
‘You are a wonder of a whale,’ Agena said to me. ‘You are inquisitive and strong and brave, but you are also prideful and not a little foolish to think that you have been called to speak with the humans. Such hubris, if you persist, will be punished.’
‘How so?’ I asked.
I did not wish to dispute an elder, particularly not a mother of another clan. I waited for Agena to say more.
‘Do you have any idea of how many of the Word Painters have tried to speak with the humans?’ Agena slapped her tail against the water and whistled out into the morning air. ‘I cannot say whether or not the humans have language or might be sentient, but this I know: if you cleave to them too closely, either their insanity will become yours or else they will murder you.’
This warning more or less ended our conversation, for how could I respond to such bitter despair that masqueraded as wisdom and even prophecy? I did not want to believe Mother Agena’s fraught words. I could not believe them. And so when it came time to part, I sang farewells and blessings with all the polite passion that I could summon.
‘Goodbye, Bright One, marked by lightning and beloved of the sea,’ Mother Agena said to me as she nudged the scar over my eye. ‘We will not remain in this unfortunate place, which was once our home. It is yours, if you wish. Therefore, you are welcome to all the fish you might find – if the humans let you take them.’
As she moved off with the Word Painters, I pondered the meaning of her last words. Her voice lingered in the water and broke apart into quaverings of ruin that I did not want to hear. I was hungry, and fish abounded all about me. I made my way into the sea’s inky forebodings to go find them.
For three days of wind and storm, I ranged about the channel hunting salmon to my belly’s contentment. I came across many boats. Most of these, while moving across the greenish surface of the bay, emitted a nearly deafening buzz from their underbellies, near their rear. How could these human things make such an obnoxious noise? An impulse drove me toward one of the boat’s vibrating parts, obscured by churning water and clouds of silvery bubbles. I wanted to press my face against this organ of sound as I might touch my mouth to the swim bladder of a toadfish to determine how it could be so loud. A second impulse, however, held me back. In a revulsion of ambivalence that was to flavor my interactions with the humans, I realized that I did not want to get too near the boat, which was made of excrescence as were so many of the things associated with the humans.
At other times, however, my curiosity carried me very close to these strange, two-legged beings. On a day of gentle swells, when the sky had cleared to a pale blue, I came upon a boat whose humans busied themselves with using strands of excrescence to pull salmon out of the sea. What a clever hunting technique! I thought. I swam in close to the boat to investigate.
One of the humans sighted me, and barked out what seemed to be the human danger cry: ‘Orca! Orca! Orca!’
How could I show them that I posed them no threat? Perhaps if I snatched a salmon from the excrescence strands and presented it to them, they would perceive my good intentions. I swam through the rippling water.
‘That damned blackfish is after our catch!’ A hairy-faced human called out.
His top half nearly doubled over the lower in that disturbingly human way of exercising their strangely-jointed bodies. When he straightened up, he clasped some sort of wooden and metallic stick in his hands.
‘What are you doing?’ his pink-faced companion called out.
‘Just shooting at that damned blackfish!’
‘I can see that – but what are you doing? Do you want to go to prison for killing a whale?’
‘Who would know? Anyway, I’m just going to have a little target practice to scare him off.’
‘Put your goddamned gun away!’
‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill him – unless he tries to take our salmon.’
A great noise cracked out; just beside me, the water opened with a small hole which almost immediately closed.
‘How did you do that?’ I shouted as I moved in toward the boat.
Again the stick made its hideous noise, and again the water jumped in response.
‘Once more!’ I said, taking a great liking to this game. ‘Make the water dance once more!’
I
