The Wonderwhale

By Daniel Lyalin

1,000 meters out.

The clipper cut smoothly, silently, through the water—leaving not a ripple on the surface. Inside its shabby cabin, the captain sat still and focused, his energies on maintaining course for the destination ahead. Although confident outside, his thoughts raced and tumbled with every crashing wave. He hesitated to approach a beast undisturbed and undiscovered by humanity for so long; only a small sect of experienced seafarers had even heard tales of it.

For all his years at sea, running routes between the most distant and exotic realms—Kolkata to Aden, Bangkok to Singapore, Lagos to Cartagena—he had never once come upon stories of the Wonderwhale until he visited the northernmost port in the world: Dikson, a quiet hamlet hidden in the snow-covered plains of Russia’s perpetually frozen Siberia.

500 meters out.

It was his tradition to drink at a local pub in every city he visited, to experience the alcohol of foreign peoples as a way of remembering all the many locales he came across; of course, he had sought vodka in Dikson.

Having settled comfortably into his lodgings, he had found the town bar, and on his third shot with a pair of scrawny Russian youths who swore as only sailors could, he first learned the legend of the Wonderwhale. The boys claimed they had seen the so-called “Lord of the Seas and Skies” approximately two kilometers offshore while on a fishing trip several days before.

The captain laughed at the outlandish tale, but the lads stayed solemn, maintaining the veracity of their story despite the captain’s close scrutiny. Unconvinced yet intrigued, the captain had decided to investigate the following day.

300 meters out.

It was early in the morning, not yet six, and the captain sat forlorn on his deck, overcast as the sky above, staring into his empty flask where he, in those remaining dregs, thought he could make out the caricature of his son’s face staring up at him; the boy had been lost at sea—as so many innocent souls are— during a particularly terrible storm. He had been fond of whales. All animals fascinated him, but whales especially. The captain had dreamed of showing him one, yet had never had the chance. Now every passing creature brought memories he drank fondly away.

250 meters out.

Now an island emerged on the horizon; as he neared it, details emerged. It was verdant with tropical flora that could not possibly exist so far into Arctic waters. Palm trees, laden heavy with coconuts, and flowers of brilliant shades of pink and yellow adorned the white sand beaches, beckoning as did Sirens to weary captains desperate for an oasis in these hostile waters.

Suddenly, like a drain becoming rapidly unclogged, a tremendous geyser of water shot up from the island, spouting towards the clouds. The water rained back down onto the boat, sprinkling as showers in the midsummer heat. Shaken yet undeterred, the captain continued his approach. Strange, the temperature arose significantly as he approached—no longer could the captain see his cloudy breath as he exhaled.

No… Not an island: a whale.

50 meters out.

Barnacles, mussels, oysters, clams, and cockles all grew along the rough-hewn skin of the Wonderwhale, pockmarking the monster’s leather hide until they reached the beginning of the sands that delineated the island atop its back.

Each of the creature’s two wide eyes were as large as the captain’s vessel, huge orbs set deep into recesses on either side of the chasm at its front; behind them protruded its flippers, each the breadth and length of an airplane and certainly at least as powerful, their slightest quiver sending tidal waves through the water.

Tentatively, carefully, the captain stepped ashore the static Wonderwhale, his balance inarticulate on its slick, uneven surface, which swelled and sank with each of the beast’s breaths.

He walked inland along the ridges of the fins until he reached the sands of the back, where he continued along a roughly hewn path that led into the forests at the center of the island. He passed lianas snaking over mosses on the trunks of skyscraping trees laden heavy with sickly smelling fruit and pale pink and yellow blossoms. Sickle-shaped ferns and long, thin reeds covered the ground at either side, and rodents scurried away through the underbrush.

The path led the captain to a clearing in the forest near the top of the Wonderwhale’s head, where a small, wooden post stood seemingly sprouting from the scalp. Two long chains were affixed to its top like reins to a horse. Instinctively, the captain approached and grabbed a chain with each hand, giving a solid yank.

The Wonderwhale’s flippers began slowly rising, as if with the intention to take flight. They plunged downward before the Wonderwhale’s head, then torso, then tail bucked and lifted up into the sky.

The captain leaned now at an angle oriented with a full view of the clouds. He whooped and, flapping the reins, instructed the Wonderwhale to fly out of the ocean, its torrential mass floating with the leisure of a feather carried turbulently by the winds.

The Wonderwhale gradually stabilized among the soft, cotton clouds. They drifted slowly through the pale blue currents of the air. The captain looked out over the Arctic waters below him: the sharp peaks of icebergs, crashing waves with white foam cascading like an avalanche from peaks into troughs, the calm and still horizon yet ahead beckoning him forward into the unexplored expanses beyond.

The captain grinned.

What would his son have thought of this? What unbridled joy, undying amazement, did he feel from beyond—what pride in his father? To ride a flying whale!—the novelty, the triumph!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daniel Lyalin is a philosophy nerd with a passion for writing; a fan of Nabokov’s Pale Fire and Borges’ Labyrinths, Daniel’s own fiction blends light adventure stories with florid imagery and more intense thematic contents. When not writing, Daniel can be caught listening to vinyls and playing frisbee with friends.