Vesna McMaster - Whale

Washed up ashore here like a stinking pile of blubber, clogging up the very air in your nostrils, obnoxious no matter where you turn, you can’t escape it.

We tried burying the thing but the tide kept washing away the shingle – besides have you ever tried burying a whale, even with heavy machinery? All that water makes it incredibly difficult. You never quite get rid of the smell.

And what happens? People quit coming to the beach, that’s what happens. Then what happens to the locals? The coffee shops close, Granny goes out of business, the nephews she used to keep out of trouble by feeding hot pies wander off onto the streets, they start fighting, , and before you know it you’ve got yourself a single-cetacean crime wave and economic recession.

Disaster. Marine mammals don’t lend themselves to human transport. Stranded up rivers, confused, distresses, whipping up the locals with go-fund-mes and action groups trying to tow them back out to sea. It’s the equivalent of trying to get Bob in the hospice interviewing for a job because it’ll give him a better self-image. He just wants to spend his last days in peace, not being prodded.

The only thing that can save you is the same thing that brought it there in the first place: a freak of nature. One day the sea and the wind whip up a monumental mess, which blows roofs off and floods a suburb. TV crews and underwriters have a field day and historical records and family heirlooms are lost – but – when the surge does down, the carcass has gone. Along with half the beach, but arguably, worth it.  Much like a conversation topic that simply won’t die.