Call Me Moby, Episode 1
The Deep
Disclosure: This is Episode 1 of 10 in the planned Call me Moby series. Episodes 1-3 will be available free for everyone. The full journey (Episodes 4-10) will be exclusive to paid supporters of my writing and two upcoming full-length novels.
The cold-water upwelling that signals our approach is felt before we see it, and the temperature drop that registers against our skin may be detected a body length in advance. The water drops ten degrees as we cross into the feeding zone where the deep current rises, and with it, everything that lives in the lightless crush below. The squid accumulate in their spiraling clouds, with thousands of them pulsing in synchronization. The squid’s own clicks and pops are layered on top of our songs in frequency ranges we can understand but not speak, and we dive into the masses of them with our mouths open; the taste of their chemical signatures floods our tongues - salt, copper, and the bitter taste that denotes muscle and viscera, enough calories to allow us to remain alive until the next leg of the migration.
Hunting is efficient because it has been so for generations, with generations upon generations refining the angles of attack and the timing of the descent. The knowledge contained within the songs our mothers sang to us when we were still learning to nurse, still figuring out how long we could hold our breath (more than twenty beats), still so small we nestled into the sides of our mothers when the orcas passed through the waters where the orcas left their acoustic signatures behind, like warning signs for us to detect from possibly sixty body lengths away. We move through the masses of squid using a formation older than any individual memory, and each of us assumes our own position based upon our size and lung capacity. The larger whales dive deeper into the water where the pressure increases to the point that it would cause the lungs of the smaller whales to collapse, the adolescent whales orbit at the middle depths where the squid try to flee, and the calves hover near the surface with their mothers who cannot afford to dive to such great depths, because their young cannot follow and will perish at the surface where the orcas roam in predictable patterns.
The water is approximately 3000 body lengths deep - or perhaps more. We do not measure depth the same as distance; we measure in terms of the time required for our songs to reflect off the bottom of the ocean and return to us; in the pressure exerted upon us from above; in the layers of temperature that we experience as we dive; in the tepid zones that exist where heat from volcanic vents leaks into the abyss; and in the bottom of the ocean, which exists as a field of rocks and silt, and the remains of every creature that has ever died here - whale skeletons, squid beaks, and the flat bodies of fish that have spent their entire lives in darkness. On occasion, when we are sufficiently deep in the water, our songs interact with the remains of the dead and return to us with harmonic resonant echoes that represent the acoustic ghosts of the singers who preceded us. Those whose bodies were consumed by the deep still lie on the bottom of the ocean, and the hollow spaces created by their remains produce echoes that ripple upward through the water column, and into our consciousness - like memory, but not quite memory; like connection, but not quite connection; like the ocean itself remembering, even after the individual body has perished.
Our pod consists of sixteen individuals currently, having lost two members since last season - one lost to an orca attack during our northern migration, and one due to age when her heart failed her during a dive, and she sank without resurfacing, her body falling into the cold layers of the ocean where we could not follow without risking our own survival. Her calf was old enough to feed himself, but not old enough to survive independently of his mother; he lingered at the surface for three days, calling his mother’s song, before we eventually convinced him, through our own relentless calls, to join the pod and resume our migration. Our matriarch is the oldest member of our pod; her body bears scars from multiple migrations, and her songs represent the most extensive compilation of route knowledge, feeding locations, and seasonal currents we carry. When she sings the route instructions, we listen because she has survived sixty migrations, and that survival represents evidence that her knowledge has been tested, validated, and verified as sufficient to guide our navigation through the ocean.
We communicate in layers. The highest level of communication occurs through the use of high-frequency clicks and pops; these are used to convey specific information - food here, predator there, surface now, dive deep, etc. These are the operational instructions that coordinate the movement of our pod as a single, distributed organism, rather than sixteen separate entities attempting to survive individually. Below this level are the longer songs, the lower frequency calls that can travel hundreds of body lengths through the water and contain more complex information - pod identity, territorial boundaries, mating status, route verification, etc. Below this level are the teaching songs; these are the low-frequency calls that resonate in our bones instead of our ears, and they are the songs that the matriarch sings to the adolescent whales and that the mothers sing to their calves. These songs require hours to complete and contain the cumulative knowledge of our pod, dating back many generations; knowledge of seasonal feeding grounds, safe resting areas, predator acoustic signatures, and the harmonic patterns associated with impending storms, earthquakes, and changes in the currents.
The ocean is not quiet. Perhaps this is a myth that surface dwellers must accept because they cannot perceive the constant acoustic texture of the water surrounding them. To us, the ocean is layered with sound - the distant booms of glaciers calving in the far cold waters; the grinding of tectonic plates shifting deep beneath the ocean floor; the snapping of shrimp colonies in the shallow coastal waters; the low moans of other whale pods passing through adjacent territories; the high-pitched chirping of dolphin hunting parties; the clicks of sperm whales diving to depths that we rarely venture; the strange mechanical groaning of underwater slopes collapsing; and the eerie harmonic singing of wind-driven surface waves resonating through the water column. All of this surrounds us continuously, providing more information than sight could ever provide, and we navigate by interpreting these sounds as if they were light, understanding our position in the world by the acoustic signatures that surround us, and by the manner in which these signatures change as we move through the water.
The current in this area is strong, representing a deep river of water that flows beneath the surface current, and we allow it to carry us southward towards the breeding grounds, where we will reside for the duration of the warm season, before migrating northward to these feeding grounds when the cold season arrives. This pattern has existed for longer than any of us have been alive; longer than the matriarch has been alive; longer than the songs we carry in our memories represent. It may be that this pattern predated language, predated individual memory, and predated the concept of beginnings or endings. We move through the ocean as the ocean moves through itself, without purpose beyond continuing to exist, without meaning beyond existing, and without narrative beyond the acoustic map that we collectively remember and the route we swim because that has always been the route we have swum.
The water supports us. The pressure molds us. The current transports us. The deep feeds us. The pod sustains us.
This is all that has ever mattered.
And then we feel it.
Something is wrong above, but it is distant - a rhythmic thumping that does not resemble wind or waves or any animal that we have experienced in these waters. Wood hitting water. Hollow. Alien. Too regular. Too harsh.
The matriarch’s song interrupts the pod - a descending harmonic that indicates uncertainty regarding danger. And we all dive together, dropping below the warm surface layer into the cold layer where the pressure dampens sound. We can collect ourselves and listen more clearly to determine what the wrongness above may indicate.
The thumping continues. Still distant, but increasing in intensity.
It is approaching.
A great beginning to this little series. Looking forward to the rest.
I don't know how, but since the very beginning the premonition that humans will come to fuck shit up was there. Too picturesque of a painting for them not to. Another beautiful piece. Well, fucking done!