CHAPTER TWO
The next hundreds of tides were filled with learning and new
experiences so great that now it is difficult at best to remember
them with the passion I experienced then. I learned that by stretch-
ing the muscles of my body I could swim faster and stronger. I
learned to move my flippers to guide me round and round or straight
ahead in powerful bursts and how to sound, to seek the deep cool
waters below.
I learned of being whale.
I learned that I was a rare and wondrous occurrence — for I
was born albino – alabaster shell white. I learned as I listened to
the songs that all whales sing: songs of this and songs of that,
places to go, places that had never been seen before. All was sung
in beautiful melody. This was and is the Song of the Sea.
Long into my childhood one early golden tide I rushed to my
mother to drink my meal, I was offered instead a small silver fish,
long since finished with life.
What fun! What delight! A new toy! I grabbed the fish by
the tail and rushed away on a passing wave. I dove into the deep,
thrashing my head from side-to-side banging myself in the eye with
this new plaything.
On and on I played, until finally I came to the surface, where
I tossed the toy up into the dryside and caught it as it fell. Splash,
roll and crash, I thrashed about the waters shredding it to unrecog-
nizable condition. Finally, I threw it high into the air and leaped
forward to catch it. I waited, but it did not fall. I cast my eye to the
sky and looked about the dryside, but there was no toy falling, fall-
ing to the sea to play with me. There instead were the horrid feath-
ered-furies of my birthing day eating my toy.
I was mad. I was furious. These feathered monsters were
destroying my very first toy. I charged into them as they floated on
the silken seas and panicked they fluttered and squawked out of the
water. As they flapped, they carried my fish away. I gave chase but
soon they were the fatter and the toy was gone.
I rushed back to my mother lamenting my loss. She chuckled
and softly sang. “No, my dear, sweet Harmony, that was not a toy
to be played with. That was food to be eaten, nourishment that will
help you grow and become one with the sea.”
It seemed a bit confusing to me. Food before had always
come from my mother. The toy, or rather the fish, had come from
the mother but was not a part of her. Milk was food; fish were fun,
and now fish were to be food and not fun? Strange to say the least.
Mother rolled disappearing into the deep. In but a moment
she returned with a new toy, or rather food. “Now my Harmony,
don’t play with this, you must eat it!”
“Oh yuck! Eat a fish! Eat a fellow form from the sea?”
“Fear not my son,” she said. “We take from the sea to be-
come part of the sea. The fish live to eat and be eaten. Eat now
and you shall see.”
I closed my eyes, opened my mouth and swallowed this part
of all that was around me. Unfortunately, I swallowed nearly as
much water and coughed and hacked, but surprisingly, this tiny mor-
sel was sweet, and I found myself wanting to taste more.
Mother dove, and I followed. With mighty twists of her body,
she silently glided down near some flickering, flashing forms.
“Wow, look at all the food!” I sang in glee. I rushed into the
shifting mass of fish, but just like that, in an explosion of silver and
blue, they were gone. I looked about and found another flickering
mass and charged, but they, too, scattered.
Mother patiently taught me the delicate ways of hunting the
seas. She taught me to slip quietly into a school of fish and then
quickly to catch that which would be caught. She taught me pa-
tience and waiting so that the fish would come to me. I learned that
the harder a fish is to catch, the sweeter the meat. But the sweeter
the meat, the harder the fish is to catch. I was fast; some of the fish
were faster. But I ate and ate until my belly swelled, ached, and I
could eat no more.
I was so full that I could barely float, feeling as if I were filled
with stones. My mother laughed and left me to my misery singing,
“You must take from the sea only that which you need — no more,
no less! If you take more, there will be less, and eventually nothing
will be left in the sea and you, my child, will be very hungry indeed.”
With that she left me with my lesson, and an aching tummy, soon to
heal with rest in the soothing sea.
The next golden light and the next, I hunted the seas, be-
coming more and more independent of all those things that my
mother provided
With each hundred tides past I grew older and bolder. Now
I often forayed alone into the surrounding waters but always the
adults of the pod were within the call of my still inexperienced song.
Stronger and stronger I became, slowly breaking the ties that bond-
ed me to my mother. Making new rules, writing my own song.
One day as I was swimming, skimming the dryside edge, I
bumped quite innocently into another young whale much larger than
I. Suddenly, without warning, I was flipped unceremoniously onto
my back and buffeted about in the churning waters. Over and over
again, I was tossed and rolled, and though I tried to turn and race
away, this bully of a whale seemed obsessed with my destruction.
He rammed into my sides repeatedly and bellowed, “You will respect
the waters in which I swim. You will not foul the waters near me.
Remember and never forget that I am Cacophony, he that rules
the sea!”
His song was loud and discordant, lacking all form of melody.
The attack was finally broken off when a sweeter song was sung,
“Cacophony! Leave him be! Yours is not the only song of the sea.
He bumped into you quite innocently. I was watching and I did see!”
This calmed somewhat the angry, young bull and after a last
swat of his fluke on my side he swam away. Suddenly I was surround-
ed by other whales my own age and size. They gleefully bumped and
rubbed against me. There was Percussion, noisy and always crash-
ing about the sea. There was Metronome, softly spoken but always
in rhythm and perfect rhyme. Most special was Melody, the one
whose voice had saved me from Cacophony. She was the prettiest
of all — soft of eye and song.
From then and thereafter I spent more and more time with the
others of my age, and we learned together. And as we learned, the
memories of our childhoods seemed to fade away, crowded deep by
new memory — new verses to the song. It was during these tides
that I began to hunt with the others my age.
One tide as we hunted as a pack circling the fish into a tight
circle so one-by-one we could eat, the great bully Cacophony joined
us. “You clacker-claws only hunt the fearsome minnow,” he railed.
“I do not eat a hundred tiny fish in order to make a meal, I eat but
one that fills me full. Come with me and I’ll show you how the mas-
ter hunts.” With that he haughtily ploughed into the murk of the
deep, assuming correctly that we would meekly follow.
Now I don’t think that Cacophony had really hunted bigger
fishes in the sea, but he had opened his big mouth and now he
and we had to see what would swim in. We passed many groups of
sweet-meated fish: tuna-tail, bug-eye, and flat-tail. Cacophony
disdained them as being, “Too small, you foam heads, too small!”
We swam farther and farther from the pod following this great hunter
of the sea as he sought his monstrous prey.
And soon we found a fish that suited Cacophony’s expanded
definition of a meal. Before us was a large, sleek fish that circled
idly in the waters. His snout was neatly pointed, and a large arcing
fin traced a wake on the surface of the water.
“You know,” I sang nervously, “it seems that my mother did
tell me about this fellow creature from the sea. She called it a
sharp-fin.” I was joined by the others as we chorused, “The sharper
the fin, the sharper the teeth; the sharper the teeth, the greater the
bite, the greater the bite the greater the chance a sharp-fin meal may
turn and make a meal of you.’”
“Oh, that’s a floating pool of carp bile!” Cacophony sang
cockily off-tune. “This tall-finned fish shall be my meal this tide.”
With that he began the hunt. There was no finesse, no circling to
confuse his prey. Cacophony charged straight at this steely-eyed
fish and not surprisingly this fish didn’t run like the other fishes.
This fish just stared stupidly as the large whale attacked. But the
finned fish was not so stupid, as he was arrogant. Cacophony swam
closer, his jaws extended, hopefully to kill this fish in one great bite,
but as he drew down, the fish turned and seemed to smile. This
fish didn’t wish to be eaten.
The attacker soon became the attacked, as this finned and
slick-skinned serpent, snaked about and opened his mouth. Rows
upon rows of glistening, jagged teeth lined his upper and lower jaws.
He was quicker than quick and sliced by Cacophony in a flash of
light. The first time, he missed, and Cacophony realizing the error
of his ways turned to escape, but this finned-devil slid silkily by, slic-
ing a cut from Cacophony’s mouth to his eye. The water filled with
red-brown sweetness, and without fear of consequence, we rushed
to the rescue.
I am sure it was not by design that we saved Cacophony. It
was more surprise than fear that shocked the sharp-fin from his
meal as we charged. He saucily twisted his tail, and without con-
cern, as if nothing had happened at all, slipped away into the deep.
We gathered protectively about Cacophony as we swam back
to the main body of the pod lest the sharp-fin return but we were
again alone in the sea. Cacophony uttered not a sound, filled I am
sure with fear and shock. As we swam, the stinging salty waters
of life cured the cut and staunched the bleeding. By the time we
arrived at the outside shadow of the pod, Cacophony was back to
form. He rudely twisted from the center of our protective flotilla
bruising some in the process. “Why did you stop it?” he bellowed.
“I was just letting it attack to get it closer. You jelly fish ruined my
hunt!” With that he swam away from the pod to sulk.
We couldn’t help at first being shocked by our sudden
change from heroes to hinderers, but I think all of us realized this
was Cacophony’s only way of thanking us for saving him from a
slashing death. None of us ever spoke of it again, although it was
recorded forever in the Song of the Sea.