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Whalesong
by The Enigmatic Big Miss Sunbeam
He knew. *I parted flesh with him, and soon soon my flesh will part again and we will not be alone.* He knew. *And I love that one because she's not like the others sing.* He knew. *And you're not like the others sing.* He knew. *What is your song?* He thought: Follow me to a wide ocean of the sinking where you can have peace. *Some have followed that same song and then we heard their cries.* He thought: But none have heard my song before. Feel my truth. *Save us. Save us.* He thought: Feel my will. And she did and he felt the vast tide of her heartbeat wash over him. Living in the dry world had been . . . dry. In the dry world a question had a dry answer, but here in the ocean world of sinking and pulsing and pushing against his very human lungs, he felt something he had not felt since before the fal-tor-pan. Before the fal-tor-pan, the air and oxygen and sensation had the breathless richness of ocean, and then he had died, and, after his death, things were small. Jim. McCoy. Amanda. A small tight dry world. Costumes and small explosions of emotion. But now with her endless sounding song and her vast blood, she reminded him of what he was for, and his blood expanded with her. He thought: I will make this happen. You and he shall have peace. *I trust you.* And he felt her trust in his blood and he was alive for the first time since the fal-tor-pan and his own blood expanded every inch of him and he was intoxicated with life and blood and water and he wanted to stay there to love her forever, to be there for the grand parting of her flesh. Here in the below world he felt her and he was as alive now as before his death. He pressed against the irresistible thunder of her blood. *Save us.* He could have loved her and he felt it and knew it and she knew it and shared with him and her smile was a parting of her flesh, but he knew he could do her good only in the dry world. He pressed against her again: You have brought me truly back to life. *Save us.* Stretching his arms he floated to the top. The dry world was still dry. He got out of the water. After the musical silences of the water, the cacophony of the human world was particularly pointless. He would have preferred to stay in her simple grand wet world. No pointless sharp-pitched sounds. No dusty rush of breath and flesh. None of these stiff layers of cloth, as if his skin were shameful. The bright lights were dry and stabbed his eyes. Jim was coming over with the girl. The air felt as thick to him as the ocean would to them. He regarded them dispassionately as he put on his simple robe. They made noises and then he tried to use their strange exhalations of breath to express to them what he had been told. The sun was too bright and the air too inexpressive for them to notice the wild exaltations of his flesh. Their tiny emotions floated by him and then away. He looked at them without interest. Below the water, she had pulsed *save us*. He had been resurrected and now he knew why. The End |