[Matt Q]

Whale Song

The man turns out to be a whale. He’s kept it secret all these years, gives it away one night when he’s drunk. He’s walking home in the rain and he’s alone, or he thinks he is, and the street lights are making shapes in the puddles like moonlight rippling on the surface of the sea, and he starts to sing. He sings of primitive wolf-things that live in packs at the ocean’s edge and hunt fish in the shallows and come to spend ever more time in the water and swim further and further out until their hind legs fuse into tails and their paws become flippers and they are lost to the land and can never go home. His song has no words, just notes that glide and rise and dip and have an ache to them because he himself can never go back, or he thinks he can’t as he walks on the land in his land-mammal disguise, in his business suit and his leather shoes and his tie too tight around his neck, kicking through the puddles on the pavement and remembering the vastness of the ocean. But he’s not alone on the street, and someone films him on their phone and uploads it to the internet, and soon the whole town sees it and knows. His wife leaves him and takes the kids. He loses his job and he loses his home. He walks away from it all, leaves town, jumps a train to the coast hoping for solace in the sound of the waves, but the nearness of the sea just makes him feel worse. One night he walks to the end of the pier and strikes up his song and lets the wind carry it out into the darkness, and when the waves bring back only silence, he steps off the edge into the water. He swims away from the land, prays for his legs to fuse back.


2nd sentence: inserted "primitive" before "wolf-things".

Last sentence: "He swims out into the darkness" -> "He swims away from the land"

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Matt—

Very tantalizing story that invites a number of possible interpretations. I read this as a touching story of a suicide. The man is simply not equipped to live in the world of humans, and concludes that he must be a whale forced to live like a human. I wondered why he wants to be a whale. They are big, powerful, free. The fact that they sing could suggest reading it as a parable about the difficulty of being a poet. The story is a kind of inversion of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid.”

I want to see more of him trying to accommodate himself to human life. Could you show him at work? In a bar? Arguing with his wife? Driving his kids to school? What happened when, after keeping his secret for so long, he revealed it to someone? (A friend? A stranger? His wife?). What exactly did someone capture on a phone and upload to the internet? I don’t think it was proof that he was a disguised whale. What was horrible enough to make his wife take the kids and leave him, to make him lose his job and home, and to force him to flee his hometown? Maybe horrible enough to drive him to suicide? I’m guessing some sort of criminal or sexual misbehavior?

Or maybe I’m overthinking it and it’s just a story about a whale that has been secretly living as a man.

Glenn

[John Riley]

I like this. It's a prose poem.

I'll try to get back later for more.

[Richard G]

Hi Matt,
some kind of cousin to the selkie, this tale of yours?

Like Glenn I wonder what so terrible about being a whale, or simply singing like one, that it costs him everything. How much weight should one give to the predatory wolf-things hunting in the shallows? This clue, if it is such, feels a little out of reach.

I wondered if you needed to specify his 'land-mammal disguise'? The suit and too tight tie felt a bit clichéd.
And do you need the last line? I thought there was something to having him step of the edge, but that it was undercut by what followed. I was also distracted by the notion of whether whales pray or not.

Niggled by those two 'or he thinks he ... ' are you spelling things out too much? Also, the second instance, that he can't return to being a whale, seems to apply to him specifically ('he himself can never') begging the question, what has he done to prevent it? Did he do something as a whale that caused him to be condemned to spend his life as a human?

Smallest niggle, anything better (more musical) than 'dip'?

RG.

[Matt Q]

Glenn and Richard and John.

Thanks for your thoughts on this. No revisions yet, but you've given me things to think about.

A question: were any of you troubled by the repetition of "out into darkness" in the last two sentences? Can't find alternatives that I like better in either case, but I wondered if it stuck out.

Glenn and Richard

What's so terrible about being a whale? That's a question I don't really want to provide the reader with an answer to. I just want it to be the case, and for the reader to do with what they will. Find their own answers, try to fit it to a metaphor, or just accept it as story about walking, talking whale. The same with questions like: how and why did he get there, and why does he think he can't he transform back?

Hopefully, it's clear, though, that in the world of this story, being outed as a whale is a terrible thing, something that leads to be shunned, and that being seen singing whale-song is a tell big enough for one to be outed -- that people have ways of spotting disguised/transformed whales. The other thing I'm hoping comes across is that our hero has somehow reversed the evolutionary history of whales (or least that his transformation echoes this) -- at least partially, since he has limbs and can pass for a human. And that having been outed, he wants to become a whale again, to go back: to re-fuse his legs, regrow his tail and return to the ocean -- and that at least some part of him wanted that before the video circulated.

Glenn,

There's definitely a suicide-like feeling to the close. Though I'm hoping the last line leaves also open the possibility (however small, or unconvincing) that he may regain his whale form. I'm going for a short sketch so I don't know that want to give more details of how he lives as man -- and given how the story is structured, this would be backstory that I'd have to try to flash back to, but there might be scope for some more hints. I'll give it some thought.

Richard,

I did wonder about the wolf-things sounding too menacing. Whales appear to have evolved from wolf-sized land-mammals. But I think I'm OK for land-mammals to be associated with less-than-positive, ruthless characteristics. They could be dog-things, I guess, though doesn't sound as evolutionarily raw, if that makes sense, and seems duller somehow.

I do want him hoping his legs will fuse back into a tail. I think losing the last sentence would lose the possibility of a reverse transformation, and makes the suicide reading too strong/definite -- as above, I want to leave open the possibility of a somewhat happier ending -- which isn't to say it couldn't be a better line.

I guess I was using "pray" as stronger word for "hope" or "long". I don't know that it necessarily implies a religious act, or if taken that way, that he's addressing one of the human gods. If the reader can accept that the whale can hold down a job and a marriage, I hadn't forseen praying be an issue, but useful to know that it stuck out or you.

A fair point on the business suit and tie, but I do want him constricted and constrained by his land-mammal existence: job, wife and kids, mortgage -- and the tight tie helps with the constriction aspect. Also, entangled in the modern world, tamed, the opposite of wild and free. But still, it is something of a cliché, or at least, an easy reach. I'll play around with some alternatives.

"dives" might work better than "dips", maybe. More whale-like? I was trying to avoid "rise and fall".


John,

I certainly thought of it as a prose poem. At the same time, very much a narrative too, so I figure I could get away with calling it flash fiction, too. I was thinking of sending it somewhere flashy. If you do get back here it would be good to hear what you have to say.


Thanks again, all

Matt

[Richard G]

Hi Matt.

A question: were any of you troubled by the repetition of "out into darkness" in the last two sentences? Can't find alternatives that I like better in either case, but I wondered if it stuck out.
Yes, though I got distracted by the 'praying'. I wonder if the first 'darkness' might be replaced with 'home' (and 'losing his home' - when clearly he didn't feel much at home there - might be changed to 'losing his house'?)

I did wonder about the wolf-things sounding too menacing.
I didn't think 'too menacing' but they are the only 'clue' as to why whales might be detested/despised. If you're leaving all this to the reader then ... Besides, Pakicetus has something of the hyena about it. Toothy little predator.

The other thing I'm hoping comes across is that our hero
But doesn't he 'hero' status depend on what conclusion the reader makes of whales?
has somehow reversed the evolutionary history of whales (or least that his transformation echoes this) -- at least partially, since he has limbs and can pass for a human.
I was inclined to see this as him having been punished for something (by whale society) and exiled amongst humans. Hence the regret and wanting to return. I assumed the transformation was done to him, not something he had willed for himself.
But if 'self-inflicted' then that's a whole other set of questions for the reader to answer. Perhaps too many?
I do want him hoping his legs will fuse back into a tail. I think losing the last sentence would lose the possibility of a reverse transformation
But doesn't this depend on the reader having reached 'your' explanation? That he achieved his transformation, rather than it being something that happened to him?
Just a note, but him singing and 'kicking through puddles' nudged me towards 'Singin' in the Rain' (and then, inevitably, to the Morecambe and Wise version.)

If the reader can accept that the whale can hold down a job and a marriage, I hadn't forseen praying be an issue, but useful to know that it stuck out or you.
You could simply have a mention of him being 'shunned' or similar from his church when he loses his family and job? I'm not religious so I always find that sort of thing 'sticks out'. I have only just so much disbelief to suspend.

RG.

[Matt Q]

Hi Richard.

Thanks for coming back on my question. Yes, maybe I could do something with "home" or something with a similar meaning. And 'house" instead of "home" is definitely worth considering for the reason you give.

I didn't think 'too menacing' but they are the only 'clue' as to why whales might be detested/despised.

OK. I didn't intend the whales' evolutionary ancestry to be a clue as to why the whales are despised, just wanted it for the idea of leaving somewhere, going far from home, and not being able to go back. But useful to know you see it that way. Maybe I should consider a more neutral term, like "primitive creatures". Or "limbed creatures", or "creatures that walked on land".

But doesn't he 'hero' status depend on what conclusion the reader makes of whales?

I just was using word 'hero' as it's used when speaking of fiction, to mean: the central character, the one with whom we're expected to sympathise. I wasn't intending to imply he was heroic.

I was inclined to see this as him having been punished for something (by whale society) and exiled amongst humans. Hence the regret and wanting to return. I assumed the transformation was done to him, not something he had willed for himself.
But if 'self-inflicted' then that's a whole other set of questions for the reader to answer. Perhaps too many?

I don't think I mind the banished-by-other-whales reading. Maybe the transformation is the result of his actions/choices, maybe an accident, maybe some other being or beings cause it -- the reader gets to decide how they read it. Although, I'd say the parallel with the song he sings would be that he'd left home, ventured too far away, in some sense, literal or otherwise, and now thinks he can't return. And maybe what he thinks is that he literally can't go back or can't be untransformed, that it's impossible, or maybe he just feels that he can't go back, for example for fear of not being accepted back for example, or maybe because he now has commitments in the human world: a wife, a family.

But doesn't this depend on the reader having reached 'your' explanation? That he achieved his transformation, rather than it being something that happened to him?

I don't understand why. He can pray that his legs fuse back, irrespective of how they were un-fused in the first place -- whether by banishment, accident, or by choice. And he can also pray that they fuse back while thinking this won't happen, or thinking it might.

You could simply have a mention of him being 'shunned' or similar from his church when he loses his family and job? I'm not religious so I always find that sort of thing 'sticks out'. I have only just so much disbelief to suspend.

I'm also not religious, and as I said, I didn't intend the word "pray" in its religious sense, I'm using it to mean, to "wish or hope strongly for a particular outcome or situation", as the OED puts it. Having the whale go to church would work against this reading. Anyway, useful to know that you read it in the religious sense.

thanks again,

Matt

[John Riley]

I love the imagination and how the thoughts of the man/whale roll out much like the thoughts of the person writing it. It's as though we can see you thinking. That is something I admire in poetry or fiction. I had no idea whales evolved from wolf-like land mammals. I wonder if that is the knowledge the reader needs to understand the poem's core. It is perhaps not a negative that without that information, it reads more like a desperate, disintegrating man separating himself from others. Not psychosis, but more of what I would call a realization of the aloneness of existence. I know it may sound as though I'm reading too much into it but the ambiguity is there, which may not be a negative. A characteristic of prose poems I like is they often open up the writer's imagination. It's a safe place to put that on display. But it's harder to do than it looks. There has to be a comprehensiveness to the whole and I'm wondering if this has enough. Put in less pontificating terms, I think this one may read as though it managed to slip too much out of your grip.

One aspect I wonder about is when it turns to him losing his family and job. He is going through an astounding devolutionary process, which I assume will take him back to the ocean. That's enough. What would it be like if, instead of moving on to another desperation, he began to imagine the new existence and flowed into it? If at the end we see or feel him move toward the water, or at least imagine what it will be like to be beneath the sea. If there is a secret joy in detaching from the human race. That would avoid the listing of his fears to the end and transition into something new and a little surprising.

It's your poem and I understand you probably want something different. I had this image of him swimming away and thought I'd pass it on.

I enjoyed reading this. I admire your imagination, which is far too rare these days.

[Matt Q]

John,

Many thanks for your thoughts on this, which I always find useful, and my apologies for taking so long to reply. I did read this at the time.

I was quite young when I learned that whales had had evolved from land mammals; it struck me as something wondrous, magical even. Still, I don't know if the reader needs to know the evolutionary history of whales: I'm hoping the poem/flash does enough to show the transformation into whales in a way that, if not understood as evolutionary, would be taken as mythic origin story. However, I've added "primitive" before "wolf-things" in the hopes it makes things clearer.

I take your point that having him look toward his return rather than focussing on what he loses might lead to something more surprising, and I'd agree his losses are a little predictable (house, family). I guess the fact that he doesn't believe he can ever go back might preclude him looking forward to his return, but I could try to focus on his longing for what he's lost -- or once chose to leave behind -- some of which already happens earlier in the poem. I'll leave this thought to percolate and see if anything comes up.

All,

I've tried an edit to address the repetition of "out into the darkness" in the closing sentences that was bugging me.

best,

Matt