myself that I had never suspected. Although it seemed absurd that the humans’ intelligence could in any way illuminate my own, I came to realize that I had been hiding from the truth that the humans had something precious to give me.
‘O Arjuna, Arjuna!’ I cried out, ‘that is why you have not wanted to believe what you have zanged so clearly!’
Even as I said these words, however, I knew that I was still evading myself, for I had carried through the waters a deeper reason for denying the humans’ obvious intelligence. To admit to myself that humans might have minds anything like those of whales would impel me to want to touch those minds – to need to touch them. How could I allow myself to be so weak? How could I bear the terrible truth that I was desperately, desperately lonely?
I had to bear it. I had to accept it, for my grandmother had also said this to me: ‘If you bring forth what is inside you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is inside you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.’
After that, I renewed my efforts to speak with the two-leggeds and enter their psyches. One day, when the clear cerulean sky almost perfectly matched the blueness of the sea, I came upon the boat carrying the humans I had first met in the bay. They waved their arms and whistled and called out their warning cry, which seemed completely absent of warning or apprehension:
‘Orca! Orca! Orca!’
‘Look, it’s Bobo! He’s come back to us!’
I swam up to their bobbing boat and said hello.
‘Lil’ Bobo,’ the longer of the two males said. ‘We’re sorry we scared you off last time. I guess you don’t like acid rap.’
The shorter of the males, who had blue eyes and golden hair like that of the female surfer who stood next to him, drank from a metallic shell and let out a belch. He said, ‘Who does like it? Why don’t we try something else?’
‘What about Radiohead?’ the longer male said.
The female surfer used her writhing fingers to pull back her golden hair. She lay belly-flat on the front of the boat, and dipped her hand into the water to stroke my head.
‘Let’s play him some classical music.’
‘I don’t have anything like that,’ the golden-haired male said. I guessed he must be the surfer’s brother.
‘I downloaded a bunch of classical a few weeks ago,’ the surfer said, ‘just in case.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know – I don’t really know anything about classical.’
‘Let me see,’ the longer male said.
He bent over, and when he straightened, he held in his hand a shiny metallic thing, like half of an abalone shell.
‘What about the Rite of Spring?’ he said. ‘That sounds like some nice, soft music.’
A few moments later, from another shiny object that seemed all stark planes and hard surfaces like so many human things, a beguiling call filled the air. In its high notes, I heard a deep mystery and the promise of life’s power, almost as if a whale were keening out a long-held desire to love and mate. Soon came crashing chords and complicated rhythms, which felt like a dozen kinds of fish thrashing inside my belly. Various themes, as jagged as a shark’s teeth, tore into one another, interacted for a moment, and then gave birth to new expressions which incorporated the old. Brooding harmonies collided, moved apart, and then invited in a higher order of chaos. Such a brutal beauty! So much blood, exaltation, splendor! The human-made sounds touched the air with a magnificent dissonance and pressed deep into the water in adoration of the earth.
‘What kind of crap is that?’ the golden-haired male said. ‘Turn off that noise before you drive Bobo away again!’
O music! The humans had music: strange, powerful, and complex!
And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the music died.
‘No, no!’ I cried out. ‘More, please – I want to hear more!’
The longer male’s fingers stroked the abalone-like thing for a few moments. He said, ‘What about Beethoven?’
A new music sounded. So very different from the first it was, and yet so alike, for within its simpler melodies and purer beauty dwelled an immense affirmation of life. As the sun moved higher in the sky and the surfer female on the boat stroked my skin, I listened and drank in this lovely music for a long, long time.
Finally, near the end of the composition, a great choir of human voices picked up a heart-opening melody. I listened, stunned. It was almost as if the Old Ones were calling to me.
O the stars! O the sea! They sang of joy!
This realization confirmed all that I had suspected to be true. Although the ability to compose complex music could not be equated with the speaking of language itself, does not all language begin in the impulse of the very ocean to sing?
‘All right, so he likes Beethoven. Let’s try Bach and Brahms.’
As the sun reached its zenith in the blue eggshell of the sky and began its descent into its birth place in the sea, the humans regaled me with other musics. I listened and listened, lost in a sweet, sonic rapture.
‘I think he loves Mozart,’ the shorter male said.
‘I think he loves me,’ the golden-haired surfer said. ‘And I love him.’
To the murmurs of a new melody, the female leaned far out over the boat and pressed her mouth against the skin over my mouth.
‘Bobo, Bobo, Bobo – I wish I could talk to you!’ she said.
‘I wish I could talk to you,’ I told her. I wished I could understand anything of what she or any human said. ‘Can you not even say water?’
I slapped the surface of the sea with my flukes, and carefully enunciated, ‘Water. W-a-t-e-r.’
‘It’s like he wants to talk to me,’ she said.
Having grown frustrated in my desire to touch her with the most fundamental of utterances, I drank in a mouthful of water and sprayed it over her face.
‘Oh, my God! You soaked me! How would you like it if I did that to you?’
Again, I sprayed her and said, ‘Water.’ And then she dipped her hand into the bay, brought it up to her mouth, and sprayed me.
‘So you like playing with water don’t you?’ she said. ‘Well, you’re a whale, so why shouldn’t you? Water, water, everywhere you go.’
Her hand, her hideous but lovely hand that had sent waves of pleasure rippling along my skin, slapped the water much as I had done with my tail. And with each slap, she made a sound with her mouth, which had touched my mouth: ‘Water, water, water.’
The great discoveries in life often come in a moment’s burst like the thunderbolt that flashes out of a long-building storm. I listened as the golden-haired surfer said to me, ‘I
