The Humpback

‘If I don’t go faster, they are going to kill me.’ Colossal jaws, forests of teeth, surged from the darkness behind it. Soaring just under the surface of the night ocean, the whale raised and smacked its tail relentlessly, propelling it further away from the trail of killer whales behind it. Keeping its wings close to its sides, the humpback flew deeper and deeper into the endless void.

‘There is nowhere to hide.’ With each crash of their jaws in the water behind it, the white spots above the orcas’ eyes flashed under glints of moonlight.

That moonlight was sparse in the thunderous storm of the drier world above them and promised only the sight of the demons behind the fleeing titan. ‘They know I’m weak! They know I’m alone! They always find me!’ Unable to see the bites, the humpback could sense them as explosive shockwaves shuddered through its jaw.

Each gunshot drew a stronger and stronger impulse. ‘Faster! Faster!’ If the leading orca plunged its teeth into the humpback’s flukes, ‘it’d all be over!’ In an endless race of undulating giants, the orcas could never seem to catch this lonely humpback.

Then, without a trace, the void went quiet.

The humpback signaled the ocean, still throwing itself farther and farther away.

Nothing. They were gone. For kilometers, the humpback couldn’t sense an orca. ‘How? Again they’re gone. How do they move like this? I can’t believe it. I have to keep going.’ Beyond exhaustion, the whale continued its flight.

Thrust. Thrust. Thrust. The adrenaline continued to swarm through its body until suddenly, ‘sand!’

The humpback found itself confronted by a steady incline of sand that stretched across the horizon. Deeper and deeper, had the whale thrown itself into waters that couldn’t support its size. ‘It’s too shallow!’ Unleashing its right wing, it swung it to change direction while the momentum it created continued dragging it towards the shore. To be caught in the sand, to stop moving, to get beached, meant death.

Cold air scaled the hump of its back like a million needles. ‘This is too shallow! No wonder they’re gone!’ Finally, the whale slowed its speed and swung itself around to escape the climbing shore. Parallel to the shoreline, the whale caught its breath. ‘Safety.’

Slowly, the whale pulled itself away from the dangerous shore. Into roomier waters, the whale ceased its desperate flight. Motionless, it floated under the flashes just beneath the surface. ‘No orcas.’

Steadily, the whale gazed into the panorama. The roof of its world rippled and hummed under the rain above it. It watched as flashes lit up the water around it. The sky below the whale darkened in a green-black gradient as periodic lightning revealed it.

The adrenaline began to fade. Its heart, having thrashed so hard for so long, began to cool down and thump slower. Its great body ached from overuse.

The rain became distant, the thunder more faint. Unconsciously, the humpback fell into rest. With one eye open, drifting just beneath the torrent, it set half its mind to sleep.

In the haze of half-hemispheric dozing, the humpback began to dream.

‘They always find me.’

‘Why me? I am not a calf. I am big. Bigger than them. Still they come. Always. Always, they come.’

From off in the distance, the flashes of lightning revealed the silhouette of a great floating object. It was smooth and sleek, like the belly of a great fish. Tossed about by the waves, it seemed to cling to the water for dear life. The humpback watched as the dark belly drew steadily nearer, swinging left and right as the wind and rain battered it. The humpback observed without moving.

‘Their teeth are sharp. I can’t bite back. I can’t fight. I can only escape.’

The object hovered closer and closer to the great whale. The lightning revealed furled sails and scaffolding revolving like a gyroscope around the base of the cylindrical object.

‘Ship.’

The waves rose high and crashed violently into the ship’s deck. Yet, the whale saw, water spilling out from the sides and left just as it came.

Again and again, mountains of water swelled up and descended onto the great object. Still, it stood. Rocking back and forth, being battered by the rain, and tossed by the waves, the ship followed the water but never sank.

Standing upright against mountainous waters, the little ship—infinitely small as it was compared to the sea and sky—drifted slowly, committed to a destination beyond the storm. Again, the sea struck it. Again, it rose. Again. Again.

‘It still stands.’

As the ship continued off into the distance ever so slowly, the whale’s waking eye was glued to the hull as it rocked. The mast scraped the sky like an uneven metronome. Continuously, it carried forward whatever was inside of it despite everything outside of it.

‘It endures.’

As the ship vanished from sight, the humpback continued to float, until suddenly—

‘Danger!’ Instantaneously, the whale opened its sleeping eye and thrashed its tail. ‘They’re here!’ An orca surged forward for a bite.

Nothing. Again, adrenaline swept through the body of the whale. Again, the race of titans began. It swung its left wing—up and down, up and down—rotating itself into the path of the ship that had gone by. Thrusting itself forward and away, it followed the path of the ship that endured.

‘I can endure.’

Like a radio wave, the humpback and its trail of killer whales flew just under the ocean’s roof. Its pectoral fins glued to its side, the whale relied on the strength of its immense tail to save its life. Over and over again, the orca just behind it snapped and snapped its jaw, waiting to fill its mouth with the whale’s flesh.

‘They are no storm.’

Hypnotically, the whale fell into a rhythm of flight. Until survival was secured, only then would it stop. Exhaustion is better than death. The ocean around it began to blur. Unconscious motion took over. Then, ‘sand. Too much sand.’

The humpback felt the sand consume its underbelly. As it felt the sand beneath it, it suddenly felt the cold rainy air above.

‘Death.’

It shot water from its blowhole and groaned in desperate fear. Unleashing its pectoral fins, it swung its right, hoping to change course, yet it slammed into the bed of sand.

Waves swept up and slammed into the whale, rotating its body until it was parallel with the shore once again; this time it was too late. The waves began to crash into the whale hard enough to roll it along the bed.

‘Death.’

With one eye, it gazed into the rest of the ocean it couldn’t reach. Out in the distance, the orcas’ black-and-white bodies were revealed by the lightning. They watched. Some were just beneath the surface, their dorsal fins cut off from the surface. Yet as the humpback continued to be pulled into the shore, it saw that those same fins didn’t break the water as they should’ve. In fact, as the whale laid eyes on the world above the water, the orcas’ dorsal fins weren’t were they should’ve been. They weren’t there at all.

‘How?’

Between swells of energy and desperate thrashing, the whale resignedly went limp. The waves continued to push. As it submerged deeper and deeper into the air, a crushing weight fell upon it. For the first time, the whale felt the burden of its own immense body.

Suddenly, it stopped in the sand. The waves crashed upon it, yet it couldn’t move anymore. Its great body lay in the sand at an angle, its left eye looking out at the surface of the ocean.

‘I shouldn’t be here.’

The rain continued to fall. For the first time in the humpback’s life, it watched thunder without the ocean’s frame. The air and sand were cold and the waves that crashed into it were never enough to take it back home. Now it could see what the ripples on the water looked like from the other side. It thought of the ship.

‘I am crushing myself…’

The whale convulsed and blew out excess water.

‘Perhaps, I am not only something to chase.’

Gradually, the waves felt stronger. Water climbed slowly along the shore. This time it stayed. It rose higher and higher. The waves that were crashing into it, that brought it to shore, now had a different effect atop the rising water. The water started to draw it back.

‘I have only seen myself through their eyes. I am more than prey.’

The humpback felt a tug. It was moving again. The water continued to climb. More and more, the whale felt itself loosening from its grave. The ocean was taking it back. So began the rolls—this time to home: A flood.

The sea returned.

‘I am more than something to chase.’