Mercy
What should we do with him, asked first-brother-with-scarred-dorsal.
The subject in question floated mid-channel, shiny wrist tick, tick, ticking until slowing to a stop. First-daughter was supplying an oxygen bubble around his head.
He’ll be hungry when he wakes, said second-brother-with-smooth-dorsal.
There’s not enough fish to nourish us, let alone the human, said third-daughter-with-child.
Second-daughter-with-two-dead-calves replied, he just needs scraps, and they eat Pink not Chinook.
They don’t eat natural things. They burn it with fire first, to change it. They’re always changing things from their good form, said first-brother-with-scarred-dorsal.
Second-brother-with-smooth-dorsal piped up, have you heard about sushi? They eat that natural, but only when wrapped in seaweed.
He stopped dreaming! said baby-brother-not-yet-hunter, poisoned lungs wheezing heavily.
They circled the human, collectively shuddering as they felt his dense blood fill with fear oxygen.
Baby-brother-not-yet-hunter pushed a scrap of Pink wrapped in a tail of seaweed through the bubble, and they expected collective relief, but the human became more distressed.
Maybe we should bring him back to the upwards, said second-brother-with-smooth-dorsal.
He’ll be back with his humpback-sized-noise-maker, filling himself with fermented grains and ramming us as we rest. We’re not releasing him, said third-daughter-with-child.
Maybe after knowing us he will change his mind, said baby-brother-not-yet-hunter. You told me they do that a lot.
We can’t risk that, said third-daughter-with-child.
We could keep him here and feed him more sushi. Maybe he prefers Coho. We could learn more about them and why they ride noise-makers. The other pods could help us decide at Gathering, said second-brother-with-smooth-dorsal.
Mother-Matriarch sighed deep, emerging from the murk, No. We will never do what they did to our kind. He’s not here for us to ogle and feed.
But Mother, said third-daughter-with-child, what will you have us do? We can’t release him. He will hurt us again.
Mother-Matriarch closed her eyes and the pod did the same. Singing in high-pitched sonar pulses, she shared an image with them, and they joined in song.
#
The pod flushed with pleasure as the human, astride second-daughter-with-two-dead-calves, broke from his terror and felt a wonder-love he had only experienced long before learning to hunt-money. They carried him farther and farther away from screeching human noise until, after many hunts, they approached upwards land mass, six humans approaching the shore.
The human made its muted noises, and the pod sensed relief-shock-overwhelm-joy.
Baby-brother-not-yet-hunter was losing too much breath, held up in turns, and asked to be nudged closer to the upwards, intrigued. Woman-rescued-from-giant-noise-maker emitted friendly harmonics and put her arm around new-human. How long will he stay? baby-brother- not-yet-hunter asked.
That depends, said Mother-Matriarch. If, after seven-returns-from-cold-home he has remembered how to be part of natural, we will carry him to his land. If not, he will be of good service to the others.
Before baby-brother-not-yet-hunter sunk back into the ocean, he sensed new-human’s relief turn to the same frequency they felt in seals writhing away from their coordinated hunts. He smelled their burning – not Pink or Coho, but something sweeter and more acrid.
How unnatural the humans are, thought baby-brother-not-yet-hunter as he was lifted to beach-soft-belly-rubbing-stones, pleased at how his family had shown such mercy.
Robyn Thomas is a Canadian writer and filmmaker currently living in Scotland where she’s completing her PhD in anthropology and discovering her love of haggis. Her writing has been published in Orca Literary Journal, Hunger Mountain Review, Marrow Magazine, Carmina Magazine and other publications.