Last Chance to See

by Douglas Adams

I said to Mark, “It must be continuous bedlam under the water.” “What?” “I said it’s hard enough for us to talk in here with this band going on, but it must be continuous bedlam under the water.” “Is that what you’ve been sitting here thinking all this time?” “Yes.” “I thought you’d been quiet.” “I was trying to imagine what it would be like to be a blind man trying to live in a discotheque. Or several competing discotheques.” “Well, it’s worse than that, isn’t it?” Mark said. “Dolphins rely on sound to see with.” “All right, so it would be like a deaf man living in a discotheque.” “Why?” “All the stroboscopic lights and flares and mirrors and lasers and things. Constantly confusing information. After a day or two you’d become completely bewildered and disoriented and start to fall over the furniture.” “Well, that’s exactly what’s happening, in fact. The dolphins are continually being hit by boats or mangled in their propellers or tangled in fishermen’s nets. A dolphin’s echolocation is usually good enough for it to find a small ring on the sea bed, so things must be pretty serious if it can’t tell that it’s about to be brained by a boat