Whalefall

by Daniel Kraus

The bones were soft in his hands, a gentle touch he never got from Mitt and therefore never gave back. He slid them against his cheek. He kissed them. He woke up tasting marrow. Funny, it tasted like tears.

He got fired for telling customers how 9/11 had been a godsend for baleen whales. The emergency closings of ports had dramatically lowered whales’ glucocorticoids, their stress hormones. When a customer told Mitt it was unpatriotic to celebrate September 11 for any reason, Mitt got into it regarding which mammals were more worth saving.

I mean...he has a point lmao

What’s the significance of 1,080 versus 4,725 feet per second? The speed of sound in air versus the speed of sound in water.

It holds the pose: a comma in a sentence so large only gods can read it.

Sperm whale clicks are the loudest sounds ever made by a living thing.

The whale’s top jaw is toothless, bleach-white gums pitted with holes for sleeving the lower jaw’s teeth when not in use.

I'm just absorbing all this useless info lol

Gasp: flavor of plastic: the regulator—canned air; swallow, dry: cough—awake, inhale—stench/rotten meat: gag: choke; he slumps, face on softness/softer than water—water; where’s the water: he’s not underwater: must be on land: somewhere dark—a cave/hole/car trunk: he’s been kidnapped; tries to move: not bound—but it’s tight/he’s in a bag, a sealed bag; but warm/slick: from blood?—his blood?—and tries to turn over: bags have openings; his tank catches: he’s still in diving gear; who would stuff him in a bag with all his diving—

Did the author just stroke out? What is this lmao

A dull bang inside his right ear. Crackling sonic fire through his skull and hood. His right eardrum has exploded. Jay smiles, tastes the bitter cherry of collapsing lungs. Everything’s fine.

Let's ignore the current dumpster fire that is your life

If you can’t know what’s right in front of you, you can’t know what’s beyond you.

The whale’s skeleton groans, an old barn against a storm.

With every thrust, the back of the beak bores into the hole in Jay’s right palm. He feels the wound yawn wider. A few more stabs and the hand will be all hole, his fingers popping off. So what? Jay will just spike Beaky into his wrist stump and keep going.

Serious character growth

He lived his life amid a flood. Mistook drowning as sleeping. The whale was the ark he needed: prison, school, church, sickbed, crib.