by Lee Welles
-GAIA TOOK HER BACK I SEE HER SOON I HOPE-
Another long pause filled the air between Goza and Nagoya. Miho repeated the poem.
“The bleat, the bark, bellow and roar.
Are waves that beat on Heaven’s shore.”
She seemed to remember her father raising his sandy eyebrows and giving a knowing look. “Blake,” he would say. This particular poem was swirling through her mind because the waves were bleating and barking and roaring against Goza.
-GOING 2 SEA 2MORROW. UNSURE HOW LONG -
SHOULD I WORRY?
-NO. GAIA LEADER-
-CRAZY AMERICAN TALKING-
-AMA TALKING-
Another long pause.
-BE SAFE!-
Miho smiled and knew she was free. Ironically, just as her Oji was letting her be what she needed to be, Gaia began talking about duty—not duty as daughter or as Japanese, but as a Gaia Girl. Miho smiled the first smile she had all day. Gaia Girl. It sounded good and made her feel brave. She was ready for whatever lesson Gaia was going to teach her. She finally knew where home was. She knew who her family was. She understood.
Miho fell asleep listening to the bleat and bellow and roar of the sea. It was a sweet lullaby, the booming of the waves like a mother’s heartbeat, the hiss of the foam and spray like a mother’s shushing.
In the night, the lightning and thunder and tremendous pounding rain finally showed up. Miho wasn’t afraid of the storm, but she sat up in her futon, afraid she wouldn’t know the sunrise when it was wrapped within such a fury. She sat awake, determined to do her duty, to do exactly what Gaia said.
When the storm finally carried its bluster inland and a hint of gray could be seen within the black, Miho rose and dressed. She paused only to send a quick message to both Ojisan and Mr. Hernandez.
-WISH ME LUCK-
AND UNDERSTANDING- She added, deciding it was more important than luck.
As she walked to the mermaid cove, her heart pounded harder than the waves at the shore. She tried not to be nervous about what was to come next. She would have to take each moment as it appeared. Breathe-enso-breathe-enso. She was trying to remember Sensei’s lessons without worrying about Sensei himself.
A red sun ripped across the frothing cove, making the swells an almost unnatural rosy color. Gaia was waiting, bobbing high and low on the storm-whipped high tide. Miho stared down for a moment. How could it be that this magical creature had so much power to steer her life?
“Jump in, my dear; the water is fine!” Gaia called up. Her voice seemed to flicker on the rays of the rising sun.
Miho hoped she had rested enough to tackle whatever task lay ahead. She took a deep breath and reached into her memory to grab her father’s voice. She raised her arms to the angry, red morning sky and yelled,
“She will start from her slumber
When gusts shake the door
She will hear the wind howling
Will hear the waves roar.
We shall see, while above us
The waves roar and whirl,
A ceiling of amber.
A pavement of pearl.
Singing, ‘Here came a mortal,
But faithless was she…”
Miho stopped there. She knew there were a few more lines, something about kings of the sea. But, darn it, she wasn’t faithless, she was here! She decided to redo the ending of that grand poem.
“Singing ‘Here came a mortal,
powerful was she
A true Gaia Girl
That dove into the sea!”
Miho felt powerful! She did something she had never done before. She spread her arms wide, like wings, and leapt from the cliff’s edge—no climbing down today—then plunged into the crazed, red, morning surf below! When she came up, Gaia was clapping her black paws together and laughing in a way that sounded like the chatter of happy dolphins.
“Wonderful! That was simply wonderful! It never ceases to amaze me how some humans are so deaf and others take what I say and turn it into the most glorious human song! Come, my love, the skin of the sea is whipped, but below, it is a beautiful day.”
Gaia reached up and placed her paw on the back of Miho’s head. At that moment, all the air left Miho, as if she had never needed lungs or air or sunlight, and down they went. Miho equalized her ears and reminded herself to relax. She took a quick peek toward the surface and saw that the blue sky of the day was now the size of a basketball, a softball, a golf ball, a pinprick, and…gone.
Gaia was right; at the depth the light of the new day failed, the sea was calm. Down in the blackness, there were only endless flowing currents pushing the water to the east. Gaia steered them into this current and with one small kick of her little otter feet, they shot off at a speed twice as fast as her dolphin friends!
Miho felt the excited chatter long before Gaia lifted her toward the light and towards her friends. As Gaia brought them up, the lags surrounded them. The images and squeals and clicks and buzzing began bashing Miho from all sides. They all wanted to know what had happened. Miho had no words.
A small snout nudged her ribs. Shinju! The young dolphin sent Miho a fast picture of the bay where the pod had been waylaid. Miho could feel her own heart, and Shinju’s, break with the memory. Ishin denshin. Shinju began to share with the rest of the pod. She was telling the story.
For a long while, one in which Miho never needed to come up for air, members of the pod came to her with images and sound combinations that Miho knew were Dolphinese for, “Is this true?” and “How?” and “Why?” Miho did her best to share what she knew. All the while her heart beat out, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry! I’m sorry! I will help you. All of you, I promise.”
Shinju came to Miho and sent her pictures of the bay where they spent the night, of Agowan, of the yellowtail tuna Miho had brought from Ojisan’s, the mermaid cove, and meeting Gaia. She then sent Miho a pulse that felt like it cooled the heat of Miho’s shame. “Thank you,” was what the small dolphin seemed to be saying.
“Come now,” Gaia said, and began to place her paw on the back of Miho’s head again. Miho didn’t want to leave. She wanted to stay and help her friends, make it up to them. But this seemed to be her life—wanting to go back, but Gaia pulling her forward.
39
Leviathan
Gaia and Miho journeyed along the very pulses of the ocean. Miho waited and wondered where Gaia would take her next. Their pace began to slow and they began to rise into the warmer water, the bluer water, the water kissed by sunlight and alive with the life that loved it.
When they broke the surface, it was a beautiful day. Whatever storm had stomped across the ocean and pounded into Goza was only a memory. All around Miho, nothing could be seen but deep blue swells rising and falling against a lighter blue sky. Far off, toward the impossibly distant horizon, clouds were being born. Miho could see the haze and each perfect puff growing as the day grew warmer.
Miho turned around a few times and saw that she was alone! Gaia’s otter face was nowhere to be found. Miho had a brief moment of panic. But Gaia brought her here and she was certainly here for a reason. Miho floated on her back, eyes up to the fierce blue of the sky. Something was coming. Miho could feel a deep pulse and a building pressure below her. The fear left her completely and she laughed out loud when the whale blew.
“PPHHHHHHHOOOOO—AAAAAAAHHHH!” The blowhole atop the great grey mountain beside her sent a blast of steamy, mammalian breath up into the air. Miho rolled onto her side. Her nose was inches from an eye that was almost as large as her face! Miho could see her own smile reflected in the deep, dark iris of the whale’s eye. They looked at each other as if they were both trying to set the memory in place, every detail.
“Hello, my dear.”The voice sounded like every wave-wish Miho had ever missed making. Gaia’s whiskered sea otter snout appeared up over the rim of the wide, whale face.
“Gaia! Why did you leave me here? Why…” She wanted to know why the whale was with
them. She wanted to know why she should feel fear, but didn’t. She wanted to know…why.
“Well, I had to go fetch our friend here! And, there you go with that question again. Why ask why? Just be and feel the way of water. Haven’t you been listening to Sensei?”
“You know Sensei? How? Does he know you?” Miho couldn’t believe that Gaia had mentioned her teacher.
“You don’t think you are the only one that talks to the earth, do you? A lot of people talk, but few listen and learn. I am the Sensei of every teacher, through all of history. Everything you smart, smart humans know, began with someone learning from me. Wakarimashtaka?”
Miho smiled. Yes, she understood, “Hai.”
Gaia tilted her twitching nose down toward Miho. Miho felt the laugh passing from Gaia to the whale and, from the whale through the water, to her. She couldn’t help it—she began to laugh too.
“Climb aboard, my dear! We have work to do, and you need to travel very far, very fast. Let us sail for a while and we will talk. I think maybe you are beginning to understand. It is time to go further and deeper.”
Miho knew this was a humpback whale. She had seen its bumpy face and now, as it rolled up on its side, an impossibly long pectoral fin rose. Drops of water shimmering in the sunlight dripped off the long fin that was rising higher into the air. Miho grabbed on and was pulled onto the mottled grey skin of the leviathan.
A breeze that carried the smell of land, far off beyond the horizon, began to freshen and whip across the waves. The humpback whale raised its long pectoral fin into the sky and caught the breeze.
Miho leaned back against the fin and felt the push of air move the humpback’s entire bulk through the sea. It was astounding—they were sailing! Miho remembered her mother talking about seeing humpback whales do this. But hearing about it and being a passenger on a whale-sailboat were two very different things!
Gaia began to pace back and forth in front of Miho and Miho knew it was time to settle back and listen. “To truly know the way of water, you must master waves.”
Miho blurted out, “But I already know waves pretty good. I’ve been on boats in the deep ocean and been around rocks and tide pools, and I can even ride the waves!”
“That is but one kind of wave. All the world is waves. Even the hard earth on which you walk and live and feel so steady is moving in waves. The sun that is warming this ocean reaches us on waves, and the sound of my voice is coming to you as a wave.”
Miho thought about that, all the world being made of waves. It was a hard thing to think about when there was something she wanted to know so badly, she just had to ask. “Gaia, I like whale-sailing, but I thought you said we had to go a long ways.”
“First you must listen, deeper than you ever have before. Not only deeper inside, but deeper outside.” Gaia resumed her little roundabout walk and Miho again leaned back against the whale’s fin. “I know you understand a bit of the way of the great whales. You know they are often alone and making such a deep sound most people cannot hear them.”
Gaia paused in her pacing to send her dark gaze deep into Miho. “Most people cannot hear, but you do, yes?”
“I’ve heard them, Gaia, those pings. My mother would slow down the tapes and you could hear the tones. Sometimes I thought I could hear them in the boat, too.”
“You have heard them more than you know. They have been calling you. It is the whales who helped me find you.”
“Will I be able to talk to whales?” Miho asked, her voice a thin whisper that could barely be heard above the sighing wind.
Gaia laughed. “It may be hard for you to talk to them. You simply are not large enough to make the sounds their ears can hear. However, the language of the heart is not lost with whales.”
Ishin Denshin! Heart-to-heart communication! Is this why Sensei wanted her to know this? Miho held her breath.
“The song of the whales is yours to use,” Gaia continued. “The waves of sound they send through the seas will be like the waves you ride to shore. They will get you where you need to be.” Gaia stopped pacing and set her front paws up on Miho’s folded legs. Her broad, black nose flared and twitched, and every whisker on her bushy face had a little quiver to it. Miho sensed that Gaia was scanning her in an almost dolphin-like way.
“Are you ready?”
Miho had as many questions for Gaia as the pod of lags had thrown at her: Why? How? But there was only one thing to say.
“Hai.”
Gaia slid off the humpback and Miho followed her in.The humpback rolled and exhaled a wondrous plume of breath into the sky. It tilted its large whale head downward and rolled its massive weight up and through the balmy air. The tail lifted, glistening and dripping golden droplets of water down on Miho and Gaia.
Whale wishes, Miho thought, looking up at the glimmer of sun passing through the droplets. She watched the tail slip effortlessly into the depths and turned to Gaia. “Is she leaving?”
“No dear, she is preparing to send you, finding layers of warm and cold water and setting the course. Whales have their own talking lines, you know. I hope you don’t mind, but you will need to let our large friend here take you into her mouth.”
“Her mouth? You mean, like, swallow me?” Miho’s own mouth opened in shock and disbelief. Let a whale swallow her? That was crazy!
Gaia said, “She will let you sit on her tongue as she heads to the great shelf of earth. She will take you down to transmission level. You will feel the call coming. Listen deeply. See the wave and grab on. It will be the best wave ride you have ever had.”
The whale surfaced again and the BOOM of the blow made Miho jump. Her heart began to beat double-time! The tingling in her arms and legs felt a bit like the fear that had gripped her when she punched the shark.
The whale parted its lips, and the dark space beyond the brushy, hanging baleen looked as large and dark as a garage. Miho parted the baleen, like stiff curtains, and swam on in. She turned to look back at Gaia.
Gaia, in her very sea otter-like fashion, floated belly up on the sea with her feet poking out above the waves. Miho couldn’t stand the suspense any longer. She yelled out through the closing baleen curtains. “Where am I going?” She didn’t remember if she yelled it in English, Japanese, or maybe even Dolphinese, but she remembered Gaia’s answer.
It came on a laugh that sounded like every fun beach Miho had ever played on, “NEW YORK!”
40
Ping
New York? Miho thought she must have misunderstood. But the whale’s mouth was closing; there was just time to catch Gaia’s N last call, “See you on the other side!” It sounded like the last flicker of sunlight before the whale closed its mouth and all went dark.
Miho now crouched in utter blackness. She felt a push in the water and behind her the giant, thick, fleshy whale tongue lifted and pressed forward. Miho was pushed right up against the baleen! She knew how whales used their tongues and baleen, so she wasn’t surprised to feel the water around her draining out through the long bristles.
When the tongue retreated, she was able to ride it down and stand hunched over upon it. She gripped a few strands of baleen and held her mind back from wondering what was coming next.
Behind her, great blasts of air began to pump. She could hear the snap of the blowhole opening and closing. The long, deep inhales and vibrating hollow exhales continued three, four, five times.
She’s gonna dive deep, Miho thought. She had watched enough whales to know when they were priming their lungs for a long dive. Miho was just starting to wonder if she too, should take a deep breath, when the whale, tongue and all, tilted and began to roll.
Miho’s feet lifted right up off the tongue! It was as if she were in an airplane going into a steep dive! She clutched the baleen and squeezed her eyes shut. She opened them again when she realized—whether her eyes were open or not—she saw only the same deep black.
She sensed the pressure outside getting stronger; inside the whale the
re was only a slight change. After a time, the whale leveled off. Miho loosened her grip on the baleen and felt a tremendous pressure building up behind her. She sent all her attention to her ears and waited.
The whale’s ping issued forth! It looked like wild bands of blue around her! She focused her eyes (her ears?) on one waving blue band. Miho grabbed it and held her breath as the whale’s mouth opened. Out into the black realm Miho flew!
She clung to the blue strand with both hands and was pulled violently forward. The cold blackness that rushed by had hints of sounds and creatures, but before Miho’s mind could even begin to wonder, she was miles ahead. She heard the oncoming, rhythmic chugging of a big ocean liner, but it passed overhead and was out behind her before her mind could finish thinking, big ship.
She flew on and on, not hearing the sound, but being borne upon it. She hooked her elbow over the racing blue line and let go with one hand. She relaxed and lengthened her body, streamlining herself as she did when she rode with the pod of white-sided dolphins.
The cold, cold water was rushing past her so fast she didn’t have time to be cold. She flew like this for many minutes; sometimes her blue line—her wave of whale ping—would angle up and bump against the warmer layer of water. Sometimes it angled down and bounced off the colder, denser water below. The bumps and bounces didn’t hurt, but they did make her tighten her grip. She couldn’t imagine what would happen if she bounced off, way down here in the darkest, coldest place of the world!
She sensed a change ahead. She wasn’t sure how she knew. It was like falling asleep in the back of the car and somehow knowing you are close to home. She felt the blue line she was clinging to bend sharply. Miho was rising along a seamount—an underwater mountain. It rose up until it was only a few hundred feet from the surface. Someday, this seamount would lift its face from the sea and become a new island.
But for now, it was still far below. Miho was dragged up its steep side. She wished she could stop at the crest and explore the thousands of creatures that flourished where the warm and the cold of the sea met. But she only had a moment to regard the wondrous whirl of living things around her before she pushed right up against, and then through, baleen.
