The whale and the girl

I am ten years old and I live in a seaside village in India. Mom said we have been living here since she was a little girl and my grandparents decided to move to a quieter place. They said they had had enough of the city, its concrete buildings, its neon lights and the constant cacophony around. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be surrounded by noise like this.

I have always grown up to the sound of soft music playing in my house, or the sound of the sea waves, going whooosh, whoosh.. My mom loves it here. I do too, but sometimes I wonder if there is anything else, other than the few scattered families, living their quiet lives, with their quiet robots.

This morning, like every other morning, I was walking along the beach with my i-bot pet Pluto. He is the closest thing I have to a friend, or a sibling and funny thing is, he isn’t even a living thing like me, or my family. I have seen pictures of many different creatures that used to live when my grandparents were younger. Pluto looks somewhat like a ‘dog’, but not as cuddly. But we did something and spoilt the ecosystem. So all these other creatures suddenly vanished. Only human beings survived with their machines, because apparently, we are machines too- just more advanced. Some people also call us a type of virus, that can adapt and survive anywhere.

As I walked thinking about all this, I saw the silhouette of something dark and shiny along the shore. It seemed huge, even from this distance. I ran up to see what it was. I was really shocked to see something that looked like a fish. Specifically a whale! But the internet said fishes were extinct! They started with the extinction of whales itself! How on Earth did this one survive then? More importantly, what should I do? I had no idea what the whale needed? But I looked into its eyes, and felt the helplessness! I needed to do something to help him..but what? I put a hand on its skin- it was smooth, and wet. This creature was beautiful. I didn’t want it to disappear too. I didn’t want the others to hunt it or find it and destroy it. I didn’t trust us. I didn’t trust even myself.

I tapped on my smart watch and spoke in, “Find, how to save a whale”. Immediately, there were images of whales being washed ashore and dying there, because they were too big to be moved back into the ocean by the human bystanders who had come to enjoy a day out in the beach. There were some theories about whales committing mass suicide too. Why would they want to do that? Did this whale not want to survive either? I couldn’t bear to let it die here. Not something so beautiful. Not if I could help it.

You would think, what could a little ten year old girl do really? Oh, but that’s where you are wrong. I’m just little, but I now have the strength of ten trucks, thanks to my i-bot and the intelligence of the fastest computer, linked with the brains of millions of experts around the world.

I fire a command to my i-bot to transform into a huge pickup boat that resembles a hovercraft. The machine lifts the whale onto it and keeps spraying its gills with water, without blocking its spout. As soon as the next tide comes in, we sail into the sunset, and when we reach the deep waters, I let the whale out. For 10 seconds, nothing happens. I wait in despair. But just then, I am sprayed by a whizz of water, and when I look up, I see the whale, diving into the water, with its tail the last to go out, with a cry of something that sounded like it was saying, “see you soon!” 🙂

I got back home just in time for dinner. I was so excited, I couldn’t wait to tell everyone about my adventure today and what I saw, now that the whale was safe inside the sea again! Then my mom calls out, “Pooja! get washed up soon, dinner is ready!”, and I run to the dining room.

There in the room that I leave, lay open, a book called, “The whale and the girl”…

Things to discuss:

This is a story that I created from a dream sequence I saw once 🙂 Thanks Jina for telling me to listen to my dreams. How did you all find this story? Would you have wanted something to change in this story? Anything I could’ve done to make it better? Thanks for reading 🙂