With my fourth cup of coffee on the table in front of me, pictures of whales on my laptop beside me, and rain splashing the roof above me, I was surrounded by happiness. Everyone had gone to bed, and even though it was one in the morning, I wasn't tired at all. Most of that was likely from the caffeine I had consumed, but just like the food web in the circle of life, my soul was consumed by something else.
Despite my most valiant efforts, I couldn't find a single whale in the entire database that matched my little buddy exactly.
Out of the thousands, there were maybe three whales with very similar patterns on their flukes, but I had no other indications to their identity. The fork tine pattern wasn't nearly as unique as I had thought, and any other clues like scars on Little Buddy's back from unfortunate accidents weren't visible in my photos. Instead, I had to detect microscopic variances like a "find the differences" puzzle at one in the morning, and the joke was that there were no freaking differences among the three possible choices.
It was so funny, I forgot to laugh.
As I stared at the computer screen, my eyes burning with sleepiness and frustration, the door swung open.
"Go to bed, Rea," the shadow man said.
"Logan?" I asked.
"Yep."
"What are you doing awake?" I grumbled.
"Why are you still working on your whales? It's not like you have anything to do tomorrow," Logan said.
"Well, you do have stuff to do tomorrow, so why were you just outside? It's raining, and you should probably be sleeping."
"If you'd like to get away from your whales for a minute, you should come see something."
Maybe refreshing my eyes would be a good idea. I spent hours just trying to narrow my choices down to three options, and I wasn't really sure if I was real anymore.
"Sure. Anything would be less depressing than not being able to figure out which whale my new best friend is," I said.
"I wouldn't be so sure about that, but that's just me. Come on. Bring your phone. I don't want you to slip and fall and kill your uncoordinated self," Logan said.
I stood up and followed him outside, where the puddles on the ground dampened the bottoms of my jeans.
"It's right around here somewhere. I think it washed up during high tide, and it's just—" Logan trailed off.
I laughed. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"I found it during my seal watch this evening, and little Racecar here," he flashed his phone light on the ground before us, and there laid a dead seal, "was barely alive then. He died a few minutes after I came over to see what happened."
The dead seal had a small pool of blood next to his head, but without much light, I couldn't tell where the bleeding had started on his grey speckled body.
"You named it Racecar?" I asked.
He nodded without taking his eyes off of his fallen seal.
"I'm sorry. What happened?" I asked.
"If I knew, I wouldn't have brought you out here to see this gruesome scene."
"I—I think I can handle seeing a dead seal. It's sad, but life goes on."
He looked up at me. "My specimen is dead, and you're treating this like a joke?"
I shook my head. "No, no. Of course not. I was just—"
"You're heartless, Rea. Heartless."
"Look, is there a reason you wanted me to see this?" I said.
"You seem like the most knowledgeable person here, so I just wanted to hear your thoughts. Plus, you're the only one awake."
I smiled. "Well, thank you."
"Do you think one of your whales murdered it?"
I un-smiled. "My whales don't eat seals."
"What about a shark?"
I thought for a moment. "Maybe a really inept shark. One that sucks at hunting."
"I didn't ask for your smartass commentary. I'm trying to get to the bottom of this mystery, so if you would take this seriously," he said as a small laughed squeaked out, "I'd greatly appreciate that."
"It sounds like you can't take this seriously."
"This isn't about you or me. It's about Racecar, who is very dead right now. Have a little bit of sympathy."
I knelt down beside the remains to pay my respects on the puddled rocks. "Rest in peace."
"Thank you. That would have meant a lot to Racecar."
"Can we go back inside now? It's raining, and Racecar smells horrible."
"I'm pretty sure it's you that smells horrible."
I looked up at him, stood up, and brushed off my knees. "Well, I spent all day getting snotted on by whales."
He smiled, illuminated by the light from his phone. "Sounds like a good time."
"It really is. I'd offer to have you come on my next trip, but—" I trailed off with a laugh.
The two of us began the trek back to the house, which wasn't too far, but the slippery rocks made it a little more labor-intensive.
"You're real funny. Why don't we compromise? You can help me with my morning seal watch, which is boring as fuck, but we get to stay on dry land," Logan said.
Oh. I hadn't really meant my offer (Curse my Southern hospitality!), but he seemed to think otherwise, which was probably my fault for oozing friendliness.
I hadn't come to Paradise City to make friends besides the whales.
"Or you could just focus on your whale. It won't offend me if you want to do that instead," Logan said.
He got offended when I didn't show the utmost respect to a dead seal that I didn't know, so I wasn't sure how valid that claim was, but I nodded anyway.
Maybe it wouldn't hurt to try to make one friendly acquaintance.
"Sure. I'd love to watch the baby seals," I said.
"How are your counting skills?"
"Probably worse than average, but still passable."
"Alright. I'm going to trust you. You better not let me down," he said. "Counting seals is serious business."
I smiled.
"Now, you should probably get some sleep. Give the whales a break," Logan said.
"I don't think that's possible. I drank four cups of coffee, and I think I'm gonna be awake for a while."
"No wonder you're talking so much. Just don't kill yourself over this whale. You seemed pretty pissed when I walked in earlier."
I nodded, but if I was going to die, I wanted it to be at the fins of a whale.
We headed back inside the house, and other than the floorboards creaking beneath our feet, the foghorn, and the gulls squawking, it was silent inside.
Perfect for concentrating on my whales.
***
As the clock struck 5 am, I still hadn't identified the whale, but I had cleaned the entire kitchen, which after only a few days had gotten pretty nasty.
With no running water, cleanliness and hygiene were lacking, and understandably so. My last shower was taken using dry shampoo and baby wipes as soap, but despite this, there were certain standards that needed to be upheld, including maintaining a clean environment for food preparation.
Brett didn't seem like the cleaning type, but fortunately for him, I was, and I couldn't bear to look at my whale or the filthy kitchen any longer.
"Morning, Reagan," Jia said as she walked into the kitchen, then sat up on the sparkling clean counter.
I didn't say anything about her butt on the clean surface, and I smiled instead. "How did you sleep?"
"The foghorn doesn't bother me too much anymore, so it's nice to finally get a little sleep." She laughed. "I don't even remember the last time I had a decent night's sleep."
"Me neither," I said.
Neither of us spoke for a moment.
"Did you figure out the whale's identity?" Jia asked.
"Not yet. I have it narrowed down to three options, though."
"That's exactly where you were when I went to bed. It's not as easy as it seems, huh?" She smiled.
"I guess not."
"Well, neither is working on the gulls with Darrell, so I can relate. He's even worse when it's just him and me for some reason."
I wasn't aware that those two were working together, but I couldn't imagine that it would be a match made in heaven. In fact, I was impressed that they hadn't tried to kill each other yet.
With the front door located in the kitchen, Logan walked through the room to go on his morning seal watch.
"Rea, let's go. I'm already three minutes late, and if Toby finds out, he's going to be pissed that I fucked up my data," he said.
"Oh, right. I forgot about that," I said. Fortunately, I hadn't taken my shoes off from our excursion the night before, so I followed him.
"I'd really appreciate it if you'd take a look at the whales and see if you can figure out which one it is. The passcode on my laptop is 0623," I said to Jia as I headed out the door.
"Will do," she replied.
The seal watchtower was Logan's territory on Paradise City, but we were all working on establishing our own. The Millennium Osprey with Robbie and Nastasya was mine, Carter claimed a room that he almost never left, Brett had the kitchen, and Jia and Darrell just tried to avoid each other, which was a difficult task, given that they were supposed to be partners, apparently.
I climbed up the ladder to the watchtower first, then took a seat on the wooden bench. There was a small puddle of water pooled by the glassless window from the rains the night before, but with the sun emerging on the horizon, it would evaporate in no time.
So, to make the most of my time with the puddle, I splashed my shoes in it.
Logan sat next to me, a pair of binoculars, a notebook, and a pen in his arms.
"So you just count the seals?" I asked.
"For an entire hour twice a day, which is a real treat, let me tell you." He put the notebook in his lap and the pen behind his ears.
"You could have picked a more exciting project."
"I wasn't being sarcastic. It's the best two hours of my day," he said. "Nobody ever says anything stupid out here."
"Don't you get lonely?" I asked.
He handed me the binoculars. "Not really. I don't mind the solitude. Look, there's a baby right over there." He pointed out a single seal resting among the herd.
"Shouldn't you be counting? I'll shut up, so you can focus," I said as I pressed my hands to my heart.
The baby seal's small body inched across the rocks, and a smile came across my face.
"It doesn't take that much brain power to count seals. You can talk all you'd like." He laughed. "Just don't say stupid things. This is a stupid-free zone."
"I'll do my best." But I couldn't think of anything else to say.
The gulls wished us a good morning.
"Good morning to y'all, too," I said.
"They don't understand you, you know," he said as he scribbled down some notes.
"Maybe not, but I understand them just fine."
"Then you should steal Darrell's project since you know all about bird language too. I'm sure you and Jia would work much better together. You're not difficult to get along with, but you're a little annoying."
"And you're quite blunt, aren't you?"
"Consider it my fatal flaw." He smiled.
"Well, you don't have to share your negativity. There's enough of it elsewhere."
Negativity ran rampant in the world, Paradise City, and that watchtower too. There were no flowers of hope that sprung joy through the rocks of the island, but some people and creatures just had the power to bring it themselves. Although I wasn't one of them, I envied them and emulated it, albeit unsuccessfully.
"Maybe you should talk, then. It's a hell of a lot nicer than when I do," Logan said.
I didn't have anything else to say, but the gulls did, so we listened to them instead. I was never the best at people skills, but neither was Logan, which gave us an even playing field.
And even though I didn't want to acknowledge it ever again, I thought back to what he said. Me? Annoying? Absolutely. But did I care? Also yes.
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Hey everyone! Thank you for reading!
Uncoordinated, heartless, annoying Reagan. Are those adjectives the product of Logan's first impression, or something else?