The Lights In the Sky

Chapter 22

There's a lot to learn about the world, you know. People think they know it all or else they're too stressed to care about it. But watching a network of twenty-four-hour nature programming, you pick up new things. And I don't mean male seahorses being the ones who give birth or the fact that polar bears are black with white fur. Everybody knows that stuff. I didn't know elephants could swim. I did learn that. Or that the blue whale is literally the largest organism that has ever existed. I always assumed there was a dinosaur or something that was bigger.

On one of these episodes, they had a group of tribal people out whaling with spears. People still do that in some parts of the world, which is crazy when you think about it. Not that the people themselves are crazy, they're just trying to survive. They do these prayers and stuff beforehand, apologizing for what they're about to do and recognizing that the whales are beautiful and majestic and spiritual and all that. But the thing that was interesting to me is that it takes these guys a long time to kill a whale. It's really brutal. They have to throw the spears over and over again. They basically just tire it out until it can't swim anymore. But you know what? The whale never fights back. Think about it, the biggest animal ever, the biggest living thing that has ever existed and probably will ever exist. It could jump into the air, crush all these guys in their boats, dive down and disappear. But it doesn't. Why doesn't it?

I talked to Susan about that when she came to visit me. This is after I was out of school those two weeks. They were talking about calling a truancy officer. I didn't even know we had those in Indiana. She came over to see me on "school business," then reported back that her recommendation was more time to talk to her rather than expulsion. I think she was disappointed that I didn't want to talk about the things that took me, though.

She asked me why the whales didn't fight back.

"I don't know," I told her. But I had this theory, which was pretty simple. Basically, the whales know their place. I don't mean that in some crude hierarchical sense, either. But maybe there is some instinct in these whales, some part of them that knows this is part of life. Or whatever idea of life they have. Their instinct is to just stay there. To not upset anything.

Which, to me, is a very human instinct. When was the last time you caused a fuss over something? Even if you thought it was unfair? Even if it scared you?

When was the last time you really had the chance?

Susan asked a lot of questions about what I saw in the cage up there. It wasn't something I wanted to talk about too much, but she could tell that something had changed and I was too exhausted to argue with her. When she asked me how seeing him made me feel, I told her a story.

I was on a field trip in elementary school. Fifth grade, I think. That's when the big field trip to the Indianapolis Zoo is. Then, in sixth grade, you take a step up and go to Chicago to one of the museums there. They've got the two of them up there, you know. The natural history one and the science one. I was the weird kid who always liked the history one more. The dinosaur bones were a lot more interesting to me than the fake airplane or mine car simulator. Only we couldn't go to the natural history one anymore, because the year before us, some kid's parents got angry when they found out there was a wing about evolution. It's actually pretty cool, they have these fossils spread out through a few rooms, but if you walk through them in order, you can actually see the animals start to evolve. First are those troglodyte things that swam around, then early fish, then fish with legs, on and on. I'm sure you know how it works. Anyway, these parents said that the evolution part was against their religious beliefs. Personally, I would think that a science museum would be more offensive to God than a museum about stuff we've learned from the past. Imagine you're God: are you more offended that people are learning about one of the most intricate natural systems you've ever created or by the fact that they have machines that go faster, faster, faster but destroy the planet in the meantime. You know?