Lament of a White Whale

Call me There She Blows. At least that’s what they call me. They are an interesting but baffling species. I still can’t fathom why they even come out here to sea, where they are so obviously fish out of water. I suppose that’s why they take the land with them. I can usually hear them from leagues away, their squawks vibrating through the skins of their floating islands, drumming the deep with their relentless chatter, and upsetting everyone’s peace of mind. Then, as their island draws nearer, their trees break the horizon, its leaves billowing white; and on the treetop, there’s always a loud one with a carrying voice; and when he sees me, he calls out my name. That’s their cue to hoot and howl and bumble over each other like a bunch of dopes. They call themselves men, but I call them very entertaining.

One day, after a particularly enjoyable victory over a floating island, I happened to notice a sole survivor clinging for dear life on a piece of wreckage. I’m not sure why I didn’t simply eat the man as I usually do. Actually, I don’t find men especially appetizing— too many bones— but what really gave me pause was the thought that a perfect opportunity now presented itself for me to ask this fellow the many serious and penetrating questions I had about his very curious species.

So I breached next to the man on his flotsam.

“Hey,” I said.

It was obvious from the man’s screams that the memory of his lost island and mates had not faded in the least. Also, my reputation as a humongous murder whale tends to precede me. As such, I’ve grown accustomed to these sorts of hysterics, and they usually pass after several minutes. When the man finally exhausted his cries, his pleas for mercy, and his prayers to his man-god, he settled down, and then I formally introduced myself.

“That’s not what we call you,” the man scolded in a tone not becoming of someone lost at sea and facing a talking sea monster. Then he told me their official name for me.

“What does that name mean?” I asked.

It was an inauspicious beginning, to say the least. I came to understand that my name was hardly a word that one would ever self-apply. In fact, it was a name that men gave to other men, and not in a flattering kind of way.

“I see,” I said, somewhat annoyed. “Couldn’t you think of a better name?”

“It’s as good a name as any,” the man said.

I would have to strenuously disagree, I thought. Off the top of my head, I could easily think of plenty better names. Like Joe. Or Maynard. Or Whaley McWhaleface.

“Is that what I am to you men?” I asked. “Is that what you think of us whales?”

“We don’t call all sperm whales that,” he said.

“Wait. What is a sperm?”

Things did not markedly improve with his next explanation either. Let’s just say my opinion of men suffered another pronounced decline. Still, it did become clear to me that this had not been some ordinary whale hunt for them. I’m hardly a master of symbolic thinking— I’m just an aquatic mammal after all— but there did appear to be other possible meanings for a bunch of grown men trying to kill an enormous surrogate phallus by hurling their own surrogate phalluses. It doesn’t take a stroke of genius to figure out that something just seemed downright fishy about the whole affair. I thought this insight was pretty interesting, and I tried explaining it to the man, but it rather offended him instead.

“Sometimes a whale hunt is just a whale hunt,” he pouted. “Men just like to harpoon things.”

This harpooning appeared to be a singular and peculiar business, so I decided to cut to the chase and ask the man why his kind enjoyed harpooning so much, because on the surface, it seemed a foolish thing.

“Are you calling us men fools?” he said.

I explained: “My issue with you men isn’t that you’re merely foolish. After all, the ocean is full of mouth-breathing fools. Some of them are even my friends. But what really distinguishes you men is this love of harpooning. Every morning, just as I come up for a breath of fresh air, there you are. And you’re everywhere. It’s a wonder that your weight on the water doesn’t flood your land. And day in, day out, it’s always the same with you men, just one big harpoonapalooza. I simply want to know why.”

Silence. It was probable that I was dealing with some type of moron, even by man standards.

“Well? Have you just run out of things to harpoon on land?” I asked.

Finally, he said: “We must sell ourselves.”

“What?”

“To make a living,” he said. What followed I couldn’t entirely grasp, but he explained that his land was not like the sea to me, and I got the strange notion that there were scarier monsters on land than me in the sea.

And then the man wept.

I almost felt sorry for the crybaby. Usually, I have very little sympathy for men. Can you blame me? I seem to be the focus of their special attentions, there’s always a floating island on my tail, and my hide is absolutely bristling with the butt ends of their murder sticks.

Still, I believed the man. From the coast, I’d seen their big islands churning out smoke and doing to the air what I do to the bottom of the ocean. But only now did I know what men were doing: they are harpooning the world.

Suddenly, the man looked at me and wailed: “I wish to be a whale.”

“What?”

“I no longer wish to be a man. Being a man sucks!” he declared.

I couldn’t disagree with him there, but he pressed on:

“I wish to be free like a whale. Call me whale!”

“You’re crazy. I’m calling you no such thing. You’re a man. Be a man!”

“No! I shall be a leviathan! CHARGE!” Then he leapt from out of the water and landed on my forehead.

“Get off me, you silly ass!”

But he wouldn’t listen. Honestly, I could hardly feel him, but I soon realized I couldn’t loosen him either. I’ve met giant squid who didn’t have such a tenacious grip as this little man. I even tried submerging for a long time, but he must have had lungs of iron, because he simply would not let go. Credit where credit's due though: he really wanted to be a whale.

After several more moments of my futile thrashing and head-shaking, I was visited upon by another passing sperm whale. His name was Jasper.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I said.

Looking at the face-hugger attached to my forehead, he said: “Why are you wearing a man for a hat?”

“What? No. It’s stuck, okay? Why would I wear a man hat? That’s not even a thing.”

“Too bad. That man hat looks good on you.”

“Really?”

“No. You look you’ve got a giant vibrating starfish splayed across your forehead.”

“Ugh! Do you think you could just scrape it off, please?”

“Sure,” Jasper approached and then suddenly stopped. “Wait. That man hat isn’t going to get stuck on me, is it?”

“No. Just be careful. Just scrape it off and then swim away real fast.”

“Because I have no need for a man hat. I don’t want to look like an idiot.”

“I’m not giving away man hats! If you say man hat one more time, I’m going to scream! Just ram into the man hat. C’mon, Jasper!”

After a couple head butts, the man finally detached himself.

“Now let’s get the hell outta here!” I yelled to Jasper. And then we swam away.

Looking back, I could see the man paddling back to his flotsam. He bobbed on his sanctuary for a while and then pointed to the horizon. There, the leaf on the tree of a floating island peeked over the edge of the world.

“Ahoy, a sail! ’Tis a ship!” he yelled. “I am saved!” And not a moment too soon, I say.

Overall, the man didn’t seem such a bad fellow, except for that delusional whale episode, of course: seriously, what an obnoxious little creep. Anyway, barring that anomalous blip, I harbor no ill feelings. I hope he and his kind eventually get whatever it is they really want. I just hope the rest of us don’t live to regret it.

But I fear that he won’t be the last man clinging for dear life on his floating island.