Sound engineers and computer language analysts have decoded the sound frequencies emitted by a whale which has been kept in captivity after a recent fatal attack. The analysis, given below, will be used as part of a decision-making process as to whether or not the whale is to be destroyed.
The show does not go on.I am put away, isolated, my prison beginning to reek of fetid fish and stagnating water. Security personnel have become mean-featured as well as cutting and cruel in their behaviours, barely deigning to throw rations at me, and meagre rations, at that, destructive of any hard-won stamina.
I suppose it is morality rather than ethics that will determine my fate, one way or another.
Yet ours was merely the enactment of an understanding, a pact in performance. Neither ethics nor morality was at play, simply an essentiality. There we were, in agreement to the act, with her maddeningly swinging ponytail inviting mesmeric distraction.
And so I dive and plunge; I weave, and she inclines in sympathy. We each hold out a promise for the other. She raises her arm high into the air for me to meet in lunging surprise, for, although we are practised, we yet surprise each other.
I reach past the arm, find the ponytail mass, grasp, draw it into my depths. Our thrashings cause lyrical waves of white noise.
It was not long after that they took her from me, and me from her, those keepers of decency, those guardians of creaturely rights whose interests are not served in our unprogrammed performances.
Beautifully written with a spareness that does justice to the premise "the whale did not mean to kill". Possible titles: Will the show go on?; Decoding: a life hangs in the balance; Deciphering white noise; Her death, my life; Loss.
ReplyDeleteThanks, oystershots; am trying to see how best I can apply your comments to a finished article. Will need to think about creating pages that contain the finished article with suggested headline, etc.
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