Work Text:
A children’s book. Found on a sea promenade and illustrated with vivid pictures.
The whale is food.
Each butchered animal delivers from 80 to 100 pounds of meat. It is impossible to eat it all at once, therefore the meat is preserved through pickling or smoking.
[Picture of a whale opposite to hundreds cans of whale meat. The whale smiles cheerfully. His right flank is skinned and bleeds red.]
The whale is light.
Whale blubber is commonly used for candles and soap, but it’s not our main source of light in the modern day. Can you guess what is?
[Lightbulb over a boy’s head.]
Whale oil is what fuels every electrical lamp in the city. Only imagine, what darkness would befall out city without it!
The whale is many things.
Baleen is an flexible and durable bone, found in the whale’s mouth. It is used in female corsets, fishing rods, whips and dress hoops.
[A rich pretty lady is looking in a hand-held mirror. A small whale is engraved in the mirror casing.]
The next pages are torn out all except for the last. Originally blank, somebody has filled it from top to bottom with scrawly handwriting:
The whale is life.
Gives life to us to be fed into our mouths, our eyes and ears. Sustains us until we cannot live without it.
The whale is a song.
Its song so mournful it kills your heart and so loud, it reaches your dreams. You hear its voice wherever you go. Wherever you go. You can’t find the way home anymore.
A whale is the sea.
Stare into the eye of the beast and find the endless waves lapping at your mind. The sea is black from suffering, but soon a hazy fog-veil covers the pupil.
The whale is home.
After the humans are done, rot and maggots lick the carcass clean. I live there. Without the meat a whale is pure.
The whale is you.
The city forgets you. The sea rejects you. The sky won’t have you. But it is the Void that sucks you in and twists your innards, until the singing whale approaches your isle and opens its mouth to swallow you whole.
[The rest of the page is the phrase “The whale is you” repeating until it runs out of space.]