Ah, So That's Why The Ocean Tastes Like Tears

Thursday morning I got a phone call. I was in the internet cafe at the time, sitting next to the air conditioner (which is only one of the reasons I love the place), so I couldn't hear very well.

'Ryan, they have zzxkt. Some fisherman have brought it in. It is snrrrkkktscht. Will you go?'

Now, I wasn't certain what the fisherman had brought in, but I was aware that the anchovies had started running, and that the local people were very excited about this, and also I was very not excited about it.

'Edmund, I'm sorry, I can't hear you very well,' I said. 'And anyway I'm busy right now posting some stupid thing about Dan Brown for some reason,' I could have said but didn't. 'Can I call you back a little later?'

On my way home, I was stopped by two men I hadn't seen before. 'Are you coming from the shark place?' they asked.

It wasn't a question I had been expecting. Did they mean America?

'Excuse me?'

'Some fishermen pulled in a shark. We are going to see it. Have you been there?'

Oh.

Suddenly I wished I had paid more attention to Edmund's phone call. Sharks, for the record, are more exciting than anchovies. A lot more exciting. This is why there is no such thing as Anchovy Week.

I did need to go home for a few minutes, but as soon as I could manage I locked up my room and set out to see the shark. It then occurred to me that I had forgotten to ask where the shark was, and not knowing was inconvenient as a practical matter but it also meant that I was now on a Quest to Find the Shark. Oh, this was going to be an adventure for real!

Shark!

After checking with a few people ('Ah, so, this might be a strange question, but...') I learned that the shark was in the next town over, and I was heading to the roadside to get a car when Dickson spotted me.

'Hebert, where are you going?' he asked.

'Oh, I'm going just down the road to the next town,' I started to explain.

'You are going to see the big fish, eh?'

A shark is a big fish.

I told him that yes, I was going on this exciting quest, and he decided to join me. We took a car and were soon walking down the beach toward a crowd of people gathered by the water.

'They say there were two,' he said.

'Two?'

'Earlier, there was this one, and a bigger one. When this one was trapped the other one was making a noise and trying to help it.'

Waiiiiit a minute, I thought, that doesn't sound very sharkly. Do sharks help each other? Do they make noise? That sort of sounds more like OH NO.

The beached whale was already dead when we arrived. Laughing children were climbing onto its back in groups of five or six to have their pictures taken. Its skin was dried and peeling in places. I walked around to its head, where a man was collecting money for the photos. The whale's tongue lolled out the side of its mouth, looking dusty.

And this just sucks. Maybe I should have been just as sympathetic about the shark, but you know, sharks are inherently kind of unsympathetic. They have rows and rows of sharp teeth and they use them to engage in feeding frenzies. They can hear you struggling and they can smell your blood. They don't even have bones! Essentially, they are scary monsters.

But this... just... awwwww, maaaaaan.

There's a moral to this story, but I have no idea what it is. So I'll just say it's this: sometimes, you think you're going to have a close encounter with nature's most perfect murder machine and then all you get is a big chapped mammal with a dusty tongue and a sad friend. Sometimes, that's how life works out.

Damn it.

Shit.