The Legend of Elsie

Tom sits, pen poised over the page in his new little black notebook. There are several paragraphs written, then crossed out. He pushes the dining chair away from the kitchen table in his short-term rental apartment. "My story has no life in it, and I don't know what to do with it," he thinks, running his hands through his thinning hair. Adam gave me his winning lottery ticket so I could finish this book. I have no more excuses, maybe I've just been deluding myself that all I needed was time and money —"

A new image comes in thought form, from an unidentifiable source.

“Tell MY story, please?”

“Since you aren’t busy?”

Tom opens his notebook to a new page. Letting the pen move across it, he translates:

Gliding through water realm, satiating hunger. Free flow.

Explosive noise, unfamiliar, jarring, not of this realm — above. Debris falls, searing pain, what is this...fire?

An orca, feeling the impact of a vessel exploding off the coast of somewhere cold. An old wooden boat. Tom wonders if this was her first experience with humans.

He sits back and reflects on what he has written and seen. As he does, more images come. It's like movie shorts are playing in his mind's eye, but also like a psychic link — like she's speaking to him. He tries to capture her voice the best he can.

Gliding through water realm, satiating hunger. Easy flow. Nourishing light in sky realm suddenly blocked — dark cloud forming on water. Cannot breathe. Not of this realm. What is this…?

He sees an oil tanker hull breach, pools of oil covering the surface of the ocean. Birds are covered in it, and he hears a whale song paired with the image. It sounds anxious and mournful.

Her name is Elsie.

What must it be like in their realm? How can they protect themselves against the level of destruction us "landwalkers" so unconsciously perpetrate?

Orcas are at the top of the ocean food chain, like we are on land. What if there really is an Elsie out there trying to contact a landwalker that can hear her?

"What if that's me?" Tom thinks. "What if her story doesn't get told if I don't tell it?"

As more visions come, Tom does the best he can to translate the thought-forms into words.

Gliding through water realm, singing songs of grief and mourning. Schools of fish belly up. Fear, and glee in the sky realm, a shark and scavengers pick bones clean. Hunting not good. Pod is hungry.

She is singing songs that sound so mournful. Tom wonders what it must be like to be so large and have so little control over your environment.

Tom gets up to refill his coffee cup, then sits back down to write as more visions come.

Singing songs of destruction. Harm to realm, trash cast off by Landwalkers. Not see what they do. Travel alone, singing songs to the depths — warning.

My young daughter struggles. We glide through water realm, satiating hunger, singing songs — she did not see that landwalker trash was not food.

"I hear Elsie’s song...she mourns for her daughter," Tom thinks with despair. He's never really thought about what life must be like in the ocean. Now he's filled with thoughts, having an existential crisis.

He paces, talking to himself. "Can you imagine being the largest natural creature in the ocean — what must our garbage look like? Do nets look like jellyfish? Can you even see a net around a school of fish? What do the microplastics do to the little ones? How does that work up the food chain?"

Hours have passed. Tom goes out for a walk to let his head clear. His thoughts wander back to Elsie, she is still with him. He can't unsee this now. Even if he doesn't know what to do with what he's writing, he can't unsee it.

How can we allow such careless destruction with so little thought as to the consequences, he wonders. Have we considered the consequences, and decided profit matters more? Who is responsible for making sure we’re asking questions like, "just because we can, should we?" How have we allowed ourselves to unconsciously impact so much? Humans have touched every realm — we are landwalkers, how dare we destroy the land and then the other realms, too?

Gliding through water realm with Daughter, satiating hunger, carefully avoiding trash. Listening to songs water and air realms sing, adding our stories to the chorus. There is fear here. Landwalkers grow, spread — waste follows. Destruction follows. Even far away from land realm. Coral reef, dead. Collapse of ecosystem coming. Do the Landwalkers see?

We sing the song of the great blue whale beached on the shore, stomach full of Landwalker trash. Full, and starving. Do the Landwalkers understand? How can we make them see?

Gliding through water realm, far out at sea. Small pod are we. Daughter gave birth to a daughter. Died before she could sing.

Gliding through water realm, far out at sea. Hungry pod are we. Singing songs of despair. Land explosion drips poison we feel. Whole realm reeling.

Elsie and her daughter joined a small group of other transient orcas. They are in waters that feel unhealthy to be in. Is this interfering with their reproduction? Tom thinks about Fukushima, the disaster was almost a decade ago now. He heads back inside to look up details on it, it's been out of the news for so long he has forgotten. It seems like full clean-up is still decades away.

Gliding through water realm, far out at sea. Daughter has healthy daughter now. Pod stays small. Must travel far to hunt. No songs.

Gliding through water realm, near warm waters. Feel sick. Full, and starving. Diving deep, find landwalker trash — fish eat trash. Clever ones eat fish. We eat clever ones. Landwalker trash in us.

Singing songs of warning, and dying.

Grandcalf is well. Daughter and Elsie are not. Singing songs of starvation and desperation.

Nothing makes Daughter and Elsie well. Can not hunt. Dying. Must make Landwalkers see. Daughter and Elsie fill bodies with all Landwalker trash find, and go to beach to die on land. Landwalkers see with their eyes. Must see.

Tom sits back in his chair and puts his head in his hands. He doesn't know what to do with what he has written, or seen. He has some money now, but not nearly enough to really help...How do you stop "progress"? How can we make individuals see the impact of systemic destruction, and not feel powerless to do anything about it? What can even be done with everyone so divided?

We can't solve the problem with the same level of consciousness that created it, Tom thinks. How many other creatures on this Earth have tried to reach out to us landwalkers for help?

Tom turns the page in his notebook and writes "Elsie's Last Song" at the top. He has a vision for a children's book that will traumatize a whole generation.