Stephen Cosgrove
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CHAPTER THREE
The tides passed quickly, and as the light times became lon-
ger and hotter the pod again began moving in the great migration,
following the sweet taste and tease of the colder waters at the top of
the world. We had done this many times before and each time the
trip filled the song with new verses of the trials of living as a whale.
As we made the journey we rarely slowed during the tides of the
golden light, stopping only to feed at the silverside, the dark times,
when the pod rested, tired from our long travels. After eating, the
others of my age would all gather at the edge of the pod and play.
The play was totally focused around Cacophony’s domination. He
bullied us all mercilessly for every small infraction of his rules that
he felt we had committed. After our verbal punishments, he would
make up a new game with his rules, which we would all play. His
rules unfortunately always ended with “Cacophony wins!”
Early one silverside tide as we gathered away from the
feeding pod, floating idly on the surface telling tales of the day’s
journey, Cacophony, quieter than usual, silently disappeared down
into the sea. Our songs were filled with laughter that infused such
events when, suddenly, the waters erupted and, as if from nowhere,
Cacophony launched himself from below the surface crashing into
our midst in a cascade of water and spray. Moments later he again
breached sending foaming kicker waves over our heads.
Over and over, he leaped high into the air as we sputtered
and complained but still looked on in admiration and envy. Finally,
I followed him below the surface to watch as he dropped like a rock
down into the water. With a mighty flip of his tail and the muscular
pulling of his flukes, he shot straight up through the surface into
the air.
Eagerly, I imitated Cacophony’s moves and found myself
quite unexpectedly launched from the sea. The dryside surround-
ed me as I exploded from the water and for a brief moment felt as
though I was suspended there, my friends looking up in awe from
below. Then my flight came to an abrupt end, and I crashed heavily
back down onto the waves. I vented and dove, breaching again and
again, a little higher each time. Cacophony followed, and the sea
was filled with our laughter.
Our raucous behavior caused the feathered-furies to gather.
Assuming that our frenzy of activity was a hunt, they wheeled about
the dry sky, searching for some opportunistic meal. Suddenly, I
breached so high that I found myself eye-to-eye with one of these
feathered flesh-eaters. Without thinking of the consequences, I
opened my mouth and snapped tightly on this creature whose broth-
ers had caused me so much fear on the day of my birth. For, you
see, I hoped to show this feathery thing the wet side of the world
and to see how well he flew beneath the water. He was of a different
mind and instead, all that remained was a mouthful of tail feathers,
and the rest of him went screeching away.
By now, the whole pod was lurching from the sea, reaching
for the sky. The world was filled with giggles, bubbles, laughter,
and froth. All of the young whales were breaching, save one, the
young fat whale called Adagio. Try though he did, Adagio could
not burst up through the water into the dryside. Soon Cacophony
began to swim round and round berating the chubby whale. But no
matter how hard he tried, Adagio could not breach and finally rested
at the surface, his eyes closed exhausted from the exertion. Then,
without warning, he rose into the air with a “whoosh.” Cacophony
had surfaced just below him, ramming him out of the world and into
the sky above.
Adagio’s eyes, at first wide with fear, squinted in twinkles of
joy, as Cacophony breached beneath him again and again. Over
and over, Adagio was hurled into the dryside.
As we thus played there came a strange ominous tone echo-
ing in the sea, a harsh, metallic noise full of disharmony. It was a
tune, yet not quite a song, a buzzing, a roar. The adult pod urgently
called us down to the deep, away from the surface, “Come away
from the surface!” they called, “Sandwalkers approach on their
shell-sharks!”
We didn’t know then of shell-sharks and sandwalkers but
the call was so insistent that we dropped down into the world and
safety: Melody, Percussion, Metronome, and I. But Adagio stayed
at the surface, for he had not heard the cries of warning and was
oblivious to the danger approaching. He was the slow one and
the thrill of being blasted into the air by Cacophony had dulled his
senses. Soon, even he began to realize that there was danger. But
every time he tried to retreat down into the world and safety, he was
popped back to the dryside by the obsessed older whale. He dove
again and again, but each time, Cacophony shoved him back to the
surface. The game had worn thin, and Adagio’s pleasure turned
to pain as he was rammed over and over. To add to the frightening
confusion of the small whale was the shrilly screaming noise of the
shell-sharks as they raced closer and closer.
Cacophony, obsessed with his brutal play, loudly sang as he
relentlessly rammed the helpless smaller whale, “Nothing to fear,
lump-fin whale. Nothing to fear! Only a puny sandwalker in a shell-
shark. Come, up we go!” As the first of two shell-sharks screamed
across the surface he again rammed Adagio viciously up out of the
water and into their path. The water churned, bubbling to confu-
sion, as one of the shell-sharks ripped across the back of Adagio
and then both sped away, their harsh droning fading to silence.
As quickly as the scare had begun, so was it over. The world
softened once again, and the surface smoothed. Relieved, we sur-
faced, laughing at our escape. Adagio floated nearby; his eyes still
glazed with fright.
But, something was wrong; very, very wrong. Adagio, softly
first, then louder, began screaming in discord, pain. My friends
and I rushed to him and only then did we realize that the sea was
turning red from the deep slices across his back! His song stopped
as suddenly as it started, and he began to fall into the sleep of the
deep. We all pressed close to him, holding his limp form above the
world so he could breathe. Like the clanging of rock on rock, we
sang a song of our fear and panic as the rest of the pod raced to
our aid.
Wispy mists of clouds began to gather on the darkening
horizon of the world as we supported Adagio. Winds from the dry-
side whipped the sea into an angry froth as we rocked on the waves
as one. Cacophony circled about us, laughing, “Let him sink into
the deep! Let him fall into the final sleep!” Though he taunted and
railed, we continued to press inward passing our warmth and life into
the unconscious Adagio. At last, we could hear the mass of the
pod calling for us to hold on. My mother, Rhapsody, broke the sur-
face near us and moved in beside me and offered her bulk to relieve
some of the pressure from Adagio’s dead weight.
She sang in staccato, “How did this happen?”
Melody, Percussion, Metronome, and I all remained silent.
No song did we sing as we watched, waiting for Cacophony to admit
his part in this tragedy. Then, Cacophony began to sing in his
crude, raking voice, “It was the white one, Harmony who wouldn’t
let him swim away!”
I started to object, but was stopped curtly by my mother who
sang, “Silence! We will deal with this later. For now–silence–so the
injured one can sleep. He will live, though scarred.”
It was then that Adagio opened his pain-filled eyes. Haltingly,
he sang a simple song, “It was not Harmony . . . It was the other,
the one called . . .” At that moment, whether by accident or design,
Cacophony, buoyed by a wind-whipped wave, came crashing down
on Adagio’s head, shoving him back down into the world. Cacoph-
ony’s massive body lay passively on Adagio, forcing the life from
his lungs.
I knew what Cacophony was attempting to do, and I rammed
at his side, vainly trying to break Adagio free. I hammered and
hammered, finally bowling the larger whale from Adagio’s still form.
Cacophony, in fear of being further implicated, sounded deep and
soon was lost from sight at the bottom of the world’s gloom. In a
blind rage, I followed him, diving deeper than I had ever dived before.
Finally, near the bottom of the world I found him, or rather
he found me. Out of the murkiness, he lunged, crushing his mighty
head into my side, rolling me over and over. Before I could recov-
er, he attacked again and again. Finally drawing all of my fear into
strength, I twisted my body and lashed my tail out as he passed
smashing him full in the face. He was stunned, and before he could
return to the attack again, I charged and rammed his exposed flank.
Bubbles burst from his mouth, more from shock than pain.
Suddenly, a voice sang out. “Your violence must stop. Ada-
gio is dead!”
All of the pent-up anger within me vented like soiled air, and I
went limp. With a final blow, Cacophony slapped me viciously with
his fluke, and then he, too, was gone. So dazed was I that as a new
form appeared I tensed for battle.
“Anger not for I am Tympani, the singer of the Song of the Sea.”
With a heavy flip of his tail, Tympani began the climb back to
the golden light. Stiffly, I followed remembering my mother teaching
me of Tympani, the Scribe, the recorder — the singer of the Song of
the Sea. The Scribe only watches and remembers.
At this time in my life, how I sorely wished that I could be an
observer, rather than the participant I was.
We broke the surface together, and Tympani began to create
and sing a lament to Adagio, a working verse of the Song of the
Sea. In dulcet tones, he began singing of the first tide, the begin-
ning of the pod. He sang of all the beauty of the waves and the
taste of the tides. He sang of the great whales of the sea. He sang
of the births, deaths, loves, and battles of the pod since the song
began at the beginning of time. Ghosting sounds echoed from the
deep as other whales hesitantly joined in the chorus here and there.
Together they sang through the births of the young whales and
finally of Adagio’s death, the last and latest verse, for now, in the
Song of the Sea.
As Tympani finished, there was a low silence broken only
by the lonely sound of the wind whispering over the waves. After a
time, sure that Tympani was finished and there were no echoes to
the song, I asked, “Why do we sing?”
The old whale chuckled and said, “Singing is the soul of the
thinking creature – its memory is the song. It is the primary differ-
ence between whale and their cousins and the other creatures of
the sea. We remember. Every whale plays an important role in the
song. Symphony is the Director, the leader of the pod who guides
us where we go. He sets the tempo for the song to be sung. Old
Philosophy, the Composer, sets the deep emotional mood for the
song as he challenges the reality of all circumstances. He gives
theme to the music, and purpose to our being.”
From the deep, came the rumbling gastric mumbling of Ca-
cophony, “What a mouthful of carp bile!”
Tympani ignored the interruption and continued, “And I have
the proudest, yet loneliest part of the song for I am Scribe, the
recorder of the song for the pod. For I must stand off and watch,
listen and record all as it is sung. No matter what violence threat-
ened the pod, whether from the waters of life themselves or by the
lowly sandwalkers, I cannot be involved. For, the Scribe must never
interfere. The Scribe must only listen and remember the Song of the
Sea and pass it on before he dies.”
I was caught now in this net of intrigue–captured by the
song and all its melodies. “And who will you pass the song on
to?” I asked.
The old whale paused in the water and floated quietly, “It is
the tradition of the pod that positions of responsibility be passed on
from father or mother to son or daughter. So by what has passed
before, I must pass the song to my son.” He paused, and then con-
tinued, “However, my son carries but one toneless melody. My son
is . . . Cacophony!”
From the deep rolled oily, maniacal laughter.