Pardon Me

"Pardon me. I see that you are a seafaring man. My name? In these parts, they call me the Old Sailor. I am a story teller now. Perhaps you've heard of The Whale? That's mine. The British hated it, and well they would. They've too great a respect for God and Queen, and when we set out to slay the great white whale, it was God that we were really after though we did not know it at the time. And sadly for me, though we freed our bodies from the yoke of King George almost a century ago, we did not free our minds, which tell us 'The English man of letters is superior to the American in every way.' I am afraid that until some British scholar declares my text fit to read, it will serve only as a doorstop. And so, until that day comes, I must haunt the waterfront and tell my tale to those willing to listen, much like the Ancient Mariner of old.

"Why would anyone want to kill God, you ask. An excellent question. Might be a sign of the times. One hundred years ago, men were born and died on the same small patch of earth. Unless called upon to swell the ranks of an army as foot soldiers--cannon fodder--they lived as the fathers and grandfathers did before them.

"Our so called industrial age put an end to all that. Steamships, trains, factories--now we go where industry takes us. And one of the demands of industry is 'Bring us oil. Lots and lots of clean whale oil for our lamps, our tools.' And so we make like Jonah and go down to the sea in ships in defiance of every moral law and code. For, if you've ever gazed into the small eyes of one of the behemoths of the ocean, you know that there's a cunning mind behind that orb, and a soul and a passion for life as great as our own.

"Will you listen? It isn't a tale to be spun in a moment. This is the story of the earth itself, and the earth, as the naturalists now tell us, is billions not thousands of years old. The ancient Hebrew prophets were a bit weak on sums, though they had a firm grasp on the laws, 'Thou shalt not kill' being one of them. Seems like a simple enough code to follow, except for another of the laws, 'Thou shalt have no gods before me.' Meaning that if we hear two voices--one which tells us 'Live in harmony with all creatures' and another which seems to say 'God and industry must have whale oil' we choose which to call the voice of God and which to label 'devil.'

"Our Captain thought he heard the voice of God. He thought that when he set out to slay the great white whale, he was doing divine work. He never suspected the true source of the voice which whispered to him in the dark of night, when men's fear is greatest and his soul is most vulnerable. None of us knew the real nature our master on that voyage, though some among us, especially the Quakers had an intimation, Quakers being more fond of the 'Thou shalt not kill' than the 'I am the Lord Thy God, kneel down before me and shiver' school of religion.

"What's in it for you? This is the story of your life, though it may not seem so at first. Have you ever passed by a mirror and caught a glimpse of a face that seemed both oddly strange and oddly familiar? Perhaps you though it your old father come back from the dead. You stopped in your tracks. You peered into the glass. And, to your chagrin, you realized the old, grizzled man on the other side was you. Not the you of your mind's eye, forever fixed in young manhood, strong and straight of spine. The man in the glass was the you which exists in the mind's eye of the world. And, seeing that worn countenance, did you ever ask 'How did the young man that was me come to such a sorry state?' This is the story of how the human race came to its present sorry state, how we came to fear and hate creation. How 'Thou shalt not kill' became 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live'.

"You say you know the story of your own life better than any strange old sailor ever could? 'Tis a rare, wise child that knows its father and an even rarer one that knows itself. But, if it will keep you still for an hour, I'll have the barkeep refill your tankard when it runs low. Not a bad bargain. Free beer in exchange for listening to a sermon. Better than the bread and weak tea offered by the preachers.

"In order to understand the world in which you live, you have to know something about the past. The distant past. Not your parents' past or your grandparents' past. I'm talking millions of years ago. Sixty million to be precise. A million? It's….one hundred one hundreds and then one hundred of those. Just think of it as a very long time ago. An asteroid-- a star the size of a mountain struck the earth and sent up a cloud of ash and water that blocked out the sun for decades. Plants died. Land and sea animals that fed on plants died. Land and sea animals that killed and ate smaller plant eating animals died. Most animals died. A very few survived.

"The majority of the survivors were birds, fish, insects and animals that scavenged—that fed off the corpses of the dead. And those that were adaptable. Intelligent creatures which could change how and where they lived and fed. Tiny squid that lived in coastal waters, collecting bits of dead matter that drifted down from the ocean's surface. Tiny rat-like creatures that evolved--that changed very gradually from generation to generation until they became human. Yes, I have read Mr. Darwin. No, I do not think him a blasphemer or a fool. He is a story teller like myself. All stories are lies and all stories have a kernel of truth in them. 'Tis the reader—and listener's--task to shift the one from the other, and when the sorting is done, what remains will be himself--

"But I digress. Where was I? Ah, yes, it was the end of the world--again. In a time of want, small size was an advantage. But when the sun came back out and the plants started growing again and the ocean was full of seaweed and kelp, the animals that remained started getting bigger and bigger—and they retained their intelligence. For once knowledge is attained, there is no putting it back on the shelf, any more than Eve and Adam could restore the bitten apple to its original state after their Original Sin.

"Squid that were once no larger than your fingernail grew to be forty feet long with eyes as big as a human head. They moved to the bottom of the world's coldest oceans, where they thrived. The weather up above had little effect on creatures that fed off plants and animals that grew on the ocean floor. Down there, where sunlight cannot reach, geothermal energy--volcanic lava, hot gases--took the place of the sun.

"You have no idea how deep the deepest oceans are, do you? Think of the tallest mountain you've ever seen. Now, stack five of them one on top of the other. That's how far down the oceans go. Do you know how your ears feel when you swim on the bottom of a lake? Imagine that pressure magnified a thousand times over. Creatures that aren't used to living on the ocean's floor are crushed if they venture too far below the surface. Air breathing creatures--animals with lungs, like you and I--invariably die when they try to dive too deep.

"For the next forty million years, the giant squid ruled the deep. The abyss and the world above might as well have been two entirely different places, like heaven and hell. When creatures that lived in the upper portions of the sea died, their corpses sank to the bottom of the ocean, where they nourished the small creatures on which the colossal squid fed. With no predators to speak of, the giant squid flourished. They developed language, art, culture--and a particular kind of science that we call magic based upon the power of the earth's molten core.

"Among their magic arts were clairvoyance—the ability to see the past and the future, telekinesis—the ability to move or change solid objects without actually touching them, and telepathy--the ability to talk directly via thoughts with each other. They learned how to pass their memories from one generation to the next, so that they grew incredibly wise, even though their bodies had a relatively short life span.

"It seemed to the rulers of the deep that their paradise would last forever, safe from the cataclysms and climate changes that played havoc with the lives of creatures living above. However, twenty million years ago, something happened that would open the gates between hell and paradise. A pig-like creature that lived on land returned to the ocean. It lost its limbs and acquired fins. It got bigger and bigger and smarter and smarter. It learned how to hold its breath and dive for food. It learned how to dive to depths of one and two miles--which took it to the squid's paradise.

"The colossal squid were not prepared for the largest, hungriest of the whales, the sperm whales. They had no defenses against such a fast and powerful creature. They died by the millions. Eons of knowledge were lost in each hungry gulp.

"The colossal squid refused to give up without a fight. And so, they came up with a scheme to destroy their enemies. They would create a hunter to kill the creatures who, up until then, had been the apex predator of the sea--a beast that had no rival. They chose as their champion another member of the swimming-pig family, the orca.

"Up until forty thousand years ago--four one hundred one hundreds--killer whales ate only fish. Fish fed on smaller fish that ate kelp and seaweed. Whenever the earth entered one of its long winters, the amount of seaweed fell, the number of small fish dropped and so did the number of orcas and other whales and dolphins. Only the sperm whale was immune to the effects of weather, since it hunted its prey at the bottom of the ocean, where life was not dependent upon the sun.

"Seventy thousand years ago, the colossal squid took advantage of a huge volcanic eruption on the far side of the world. For close to ten years, the earth was plunged into darkness and winter. Creatures starved and died, among them the orca.

"When things were looking desperate for the killer whales, giant squid sorcerers spoke to them telepathically. They told them that they would die unless they learned to hunt new prey. They pointed out the sperm whales, which had suffered almost no harm from the change in climate. They told them that while a bull sperm whale was too large for an orca pod to take down, young sperm whale were vulnerable when their parents went hunting. They blamed the sperm whale for the cataclysm that had brought one long perpetual winter to the earth. They offered the orca a way to feed their young and do God's bidding at the same time--"

"What do killer whales know of God? Orcas are much like you and I, though you might not know it to look at them. They speak in a language all their own. They tell stories. They reason, they dream. They love their mothers and their sons and daughters. They will do whatever they must in order to survive. And like all rational creatures, they have their deities and their own moral code--and when a voice speaks to them from inside their heads, they sometimes judge it the Voice of God.

"And so, the orcas split into two races, one which refused to listen to the telepathic voices of the squid--to them, killing and eating another warm blooded creature was taboo, like cannibalism. These orcas called themselves Fishers. The other group began to refer to themselves as the Hunters. They stalked and killed seals, dolphins, and other whales—including infant sperm whales.

"It's never easy for an intelligent species to change its belief system overnight. The Hunter orcas were consumed by guilt. Guilt is a powerful emotion, and powerful emotions can affect the earth. The volcanic winter should have lasted only a decade. But every time the orcas killed another warm blooded creature, the earth interpreted it as a blood sacrifice, the kind of depraved act that fuels dark magic. Dark magic destabilizes the earth--it causes earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. Volcanoes all over the globe kept erupting, over and over again, and the winter lasted for close to a century, until the original Hunters and their children were all dead and the ones that remained were so used to hunting warm blooded prey that they no longer felt guilty about it.

"And that's where we, the earth's human children came in to the picture. As creatures of the land, there was little about us to interest the squid sorcerers at the bottom of the ocean. However, one hundred years of volcanic winter brought the most intelligent and adaptable species that walked the earth to the brink of extinction—and changed us forever. Like colossal squid, humans had a knack for magic. During that long period of starvation, only the natural mages survived. Those who could see the future were able to predict when and where food would be found. Those with natural telepathy could read the minds of their enemies. Those with telekinesis could protect themselves against predators. And there was another kind of magic, one that the colossal squid did not possess. Shape shifting. When food became scarce enough, a few humans learned to survive by altering their bodies so that they could eat other things. Like human blood, human dreams, sexual energy, even human emotional energy. A very few were able to derive nourishment by eating the sickness and death of other humans. Some learned to transform themselves into creatures like bears, wolves, and eagles. Some grew gills and returned to the sea where food was more plentiful. Some become creatures of pure energy, without bodies—the creatures you call ghosts, angels, spirits.

"When the one hundred year winter was over, a few pockets of humanity remained. They were scattered across the land, living in small groups, mostly near natural hot springs, where the earth's energy provided warmth and food. The majority of those who survived had some kind of innate magic ability. And though they no longer needed to use telepathy or telekinesis and they no longer had to drink the blood of other humans or change into wolves in order to hunt, they passed the ability to do these things to their children, who passed them on to their children, and so on and so on. And after that, every time a falling star struck the earth or a massive volcano erupted, plunging the world into winter, these special abilities saved them.

"Take the Year Without a Summer, 1816, when crops froze in the fields in July. 'Tis no coincidence that Polidori conceived of his Vampyre and Shelley her Monster that year. Four volcanic explosions, one after another, filled the sky with soot and ash. Human magic ability, already high from the eruption of Laki in 1783, stepped up another notch, creating the spiritualists of today.

"A coincidence you say? Who is deemed to be the most brilliant man ever to walk the earth? Leonardo da Vinci. And, what happened within a few years of his birth in 1452? Another of those massive volcanic eruptions, one that sparked the Renaissance.

"We humans can do wonderful things—and terrible things. We can build empires--and wipe out an entire race. Now, we are the squid sorcerers' greatest weapon in their battle against their foe. Though we are physically small and weak, thanks to our nimble fingers we can build leviathans of steel and wood that allow us to sail the seas. Using machinery, we can craft and throw harpoons capable of downing the earth's most ferocious creature, the bull sperm whale. Every whale we kill is many thousands of colossal squid saved from death. And so, the tentacle sorcerers in their lair at the bottom of the sea speak to us. They tell us to fear the darkness and seek light at all cost--even if the cost is the life of a whale. They tell us to fear the coming of winter and prepare for it by building newer, better machines—machines that require whale oil to work.

"And so what if the squid sorcerers in their underwater kingdom thrive? Why should we, who live in the light be concerned about those who dwell always in the dark, a race for whom the word "dry" means death and "light" means evil? Recall what I told you of the rulers of the abyss, how they get their food. They eat the dead. The more living creatures that die and sink to the bottom of the ocean, the greater the squid ranks swell. Every time a massive volcano sends up a cloud of ash, plunging the earth into one of its long winters, killing humans and animals by the millions, the squid have a Christmas feast. And, one of the easiest ways for them to precipitate the instability in the earth that leads to a volcanic eruption is through dark magic. Meaning, the more they can persuade us to sin against everything that is good--everything that we imagine represents 'good'-- the more they thrive.

"And here, in a nutshell, is the 'good and evil' of which so much has been made over the centuries. The squid sorcerers do not hate us. They are not Satan or the devil. They do not speak to us in our dreams, telling us to commit atrocities, because they delight in witnessing 'evil' for its own sake. They fear the sperm whale. They want him dead at any cost. When the earth is plunged into volcanic winter, their servants, the Hunter orca and the human whalers attack the sperm whale, as if he were the cause of our misery, never realizing that the sperm whale is the one creature in all the world that has the power to suppress the voices that speak to us from the deep.

"It is indeed a comedy that we humans live. A farce. A whole ship's company lost, except for me, in a crusade against a godly beast undertaken for the sake of a tentacle monster that dwells at the bottom of the sea. A monster whose face we will never see except in nightmares. Why was I spared? Was it because my motives in taking to sea were nobler than those who cast aside every vestige of humanity in order to slay the white whale? They sought wealth and revenge, while I wanted the freedom to love another man--

"Don't pull away. I do not seek your body, just your ear. You think me deviant, but let me tell you, vice in one situation becomes the most ordinary expediency in another. When men are confined together for long periods of time, say in prison or boarding schools, or while away at sea, they do not lose their need for companionship. Being human, they needs must love, and so they love those closest at hand. I went to sea, because my life on shore was a sham, and I wanted to be free to love where I would. And that, I am convinced, is why the white whale, Moby Dick, spared me and only me. And that is why I must tell this tale, for the sake of my dear Queequeg and all the others. If we continue our present course, if we wipe the whales--most especially the sperm whale--from the face of the earth, there will be nothing to save us from madness and ruin.

"Now I've had my say. I can tell from your eyes that you think me mad, but you are not entirely skeptical. Some portion of my tale has struck a nerve. You will go back to your rented room tonight and try to forget what I have told you, but like the wedding guest compelled to listen to the Ancient Mariner's words, you will find yourself a wiser if sadder man tomorrow. Adieu, my brother. And don't try too hard to puzzle out which are the heroes and which the villains. 'Villains' are that which we fear. 'Heroes' are those who make us feel safe. But both fear and safety are illusions. All that are born must die. If we live our lives solely to control the time and manner of our death, then we will not have lived at all."

THE END

Bio: McCamy Taylor is, of course, Aphelion's reigning Serials / Novellas (fiction longer than 7,500 words) Editor. She is also the author of many stories and articles that have appeared in Aphelion and various other publications too numerous to list here.

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