Caroline Palmer sat in her seat rigidly, trying to display more grace than was actually warranted. She had been brought on this radio show with the promise of a fair discussion, but it had become readily apparent that they had simply entrapped her, brought her here to caricature her and her mission, to turn her into a cartoon for the sake of the loyal conservative listeners on the other end. Driving to work and sipping expensive and unethical coffee, Caroline imagined, the listeners guffawed as she was lambasted. She consoled herself wordlessly by imagining them spilling piping hot Starbucks onto their pleated-pantsed crotches, skidding off to the side of the road, cursing.
She didn't understand why whales needed a human justification for saving. The whales' existence justified itself. It wasn't up to humans to determine their worth. She was part of a Save the Whales foundation, and her host seemed to think this point of view was hilarious, something only an acid-head hippie would think.
"...But of course," he was saying, childish mirth cloying in his voice, Ms. Palmer has no need for simple human needs like food and economics. No, if whales heat your home, provide your food, form the backbone of your economy, and form your region's culture, you're just a selfish jerk. Maybe you should subsist on snow. Oh, and no seals, either."
It seemed like he was giving her the go-ahead, so she carefully began:
"That's not exactly what..."
"Please, Caroline, don't talk over me," he said, interrupting her. "This is my show." He was smiling, until he realized he didn't have anything further to say. He grasped at straws trying to justify his ploy. "It's just... it's just ridiculous," he said. "What, are these people not supposed to eat?"
Caroline waited a moment before she responded. "Is it my turn?"
"Yes," he blared. "By all means, enlighten us."
"That's not what I'm trying to say," she said. "People have been hunting whales for a long time, and there's nothing wrong with hunting for survival. That kind of thing is justified. But you've got to understand -"
"I'm glad to hear you say it," said the host, seething with contempt.
She continued. "-You've got to understand that when we're talking about hunting for whales for a community like this, one whale would suffice for the entire winter. Maybe two whales at the most. I mean, these were villages with wooden boats and harpoons..."
"But," he countered, "Now that the boats have motors and they can do a better job, it's too much for you? It's getting too real? Let me tell you something, Caroline... back in the day, these communities didn't have nearly as much taxation as they do now, and their communities were able to subsist by providing for themselves locally. Now here comes the tax man, and the tax man says, "give me half your money," and now they gotta go out and get another two whales just to survive! There's that socialism for you."
"I don't think we were talking about socialism," Caroline said.
"But that's what it all comes down to," he scowled.
"Maybe for you," she shot back.
...And so it went. The conversation was pointless, a woman representing a species' right to not go extinct, for God's sake, at least not extinct at our hands, while this loudmouthed buffoon lampooned her quest as some sort of fake liberal unicorn-and-rainbows-and-butterflies nonsense that imperilled the foundation of All Things Good.
Actually, she was fairly fiscally conservative, but it really wasn't worth her time explaining that. There were only two minutes left in the interview, and she sat back in her chair, receding into complacency, content to let the "conversation" finish on his terms. She wouldn't be reaching any minds today, so the effort wasn't really worth her time.
She had to get him out of her mind.
This was one way to do it, although it took her from anger to anger. Anger that Russ had wasted her time and made an unfair mockery of her dissolved into a more righteous, deep-seated, sorrowful anger at the condition of the creature in front of her.
This whale she had named Lumbergh; partly because of his habit of hanging around long past when the interactions were over, and partly because the way he moved resembled a great big lumbering oaf. He had been messed up, badly, when he decided to gobble up a bunch of garbage that fell off a garbage skiff up near Juno. He had also been poisoned by an oil spill, at which point he lost his vision and swam frantically in no particular direction until he had beached himself and crashed his big whale nose directly into a seaside McDonald's, where she could have sworn he was crying. Basically, he was pretty much the poster child for boy do we treat animals wrong.
Lumburgh blubbered at her like an aquatic version of Droopy Dog, mournfully and without excitement.
"How are we feeling today?" Caroline asked him, as if he could answer her. "One of these days, you'll see. One of these days, we're gonna get these jerks to stop destroying everything. One of these days we'll stop them from killing the planet."
Once upon a time, in the land of... well, it would actually be the sea... anyway, somewhere in the ocean (go fuck yourself) there lived a Kingdom of Whales. This is not to be confused with Wales, and the Princess of Whales should not be confused with the Princess of Wales, although puns do present themselves. Seriously, dear reader, though, go fuck yourself.
In this magical Kingdom of Whales there lived a whale known as The Wise OOOH-tickoo-tick-TICK-tickOOOO. He alone of all the wales warned against the dire threat. And it was not a fearsome sea beast he warned of, nay – but a seriously dumb economic system that did didn't concern itself at all for the well-being of the environment. The whales, you see, had discovered a new energy source and started drilling along the ocean floor. The minerals they dug, hardened by eons of crushing water pressure, could combust and create air-powered vehicles. The modern whale era was born. The Wise OOOH-tickoo-tick-TICK-tickOOOO objected that not enough study had been done yet, and they needed more information on what their drilling was doing to the water – and to the air above them.
It was commonly known, you see, that the land creatures above were really pretty stupid on a good day, and generally pretty easily affected by various substances. There had once been a particularly bad spill of polluted air, for instance, that caused the Europeans to put on hooded red outfits and force people to pretend to believe in a Jewish guy. Then, later, a spill of the same gas caused Europeans to put on black outfits with armbands and kill all the Jewish guys bcause a Jewish guy ordered them to. Basically a lot of Jew stuff.
After that, The Wise OOOH-tickoo-tick-TICK-tickOOOO figured, they'd better create a Save the Humans campaign. "My Whales," he said in his first and best-known speech on the matter, "the Stupid Gas - and I know that term is not politically correct, but this is no time for political correctness - we pump into the water rises, and affects the land creatures. This causes them to behave irrationally, and it is only a matter of time before their irrantionality trickles back down to us."
And, as if by prophecy, almost the moment the wise old whale began his predictions of doom, the first oil spill hit.
"We are raining down our own destruction upon ourselves," The Wise OOOH-tickoo-tick-TICK-tickOOOO lamented. "This kind of crap will keep happening for as long as we pump this damn gas into the water."
The whales didn't listen. The gas was a byproduct of their mining industry - the industry that drove the entire Whale economy. As TICK-oooTICK O'Reilly once said, "Blow it out your blowhole. Let me explain this slowly so it doesn't hurt your head. Wealth... has... to... come... from... somewhere. Get it? We can't... just... shut... down... the economy."
So the oil spills kept happening. A geyser of the stuff opened up on the ocean floor a while back, and that had a few whales a little concerned; but for long-lived creatures they had remarkably short attention spans. The oil kept spilling, and the economy kept grinding on, and the whales just learned to live with it. Apparently some sacrifices were worth a nice economy. Like a profoundly shorter lifespan.
OOOO—ah-tick-ticktick-OO-ehhhOOO - or Lumbergh, as he was apparently known by the Humans - was growing a bit tired of this pointless tête-à-tête with Caroline Palmer. She couldn't translate Whalese, and of course whales lacked the vocal cords to communicate with humans in humanese; so they never bothered learning how to translate it. This created a full impasse. Back in the days of Atlantis, which really wasn't that long ago when you think about it, humans had had devices for translation. What happened? He'd heard the USA was the most sophisticated empire the land-span had ever seen. What a crock.
He'd come as an emissary from the Save the Humans campaign and wanted to interview some of the hardest-hit humans on the planet for a piece his organization would be running in the Whale York Times. He'd also heard stories about the human entity named Russ Pinbaugh - apparently one of the people hit hardest with the Stupid Gas and wanted really badly to get an interview with him. He'd been trying to explain this to Caroline for the past three days now, but so far she just squealed in delight every time he attempted to make noise. He wasn't trying to be cute, damn it. And the last time he asked very clearly to speak to Russ Pinbaugh, she actually winked at him. That was earlier this morning.
Winked!
Three days had gone by now, though; and Lumberg was beginning to question what the point was of keeping him here. A terrible thought entered his head: Yes, Caroline and her facility was supposed to be a research vessel; but perhaps humans were just to stupid now, with all that gas, to realize they'd inadvertantly imprisoned him. He began to feel pretty anxious.
Caroline had been gone most of the day when she came stumbling back in, obviously drunk or high on something - but then he saw who she brought with her, and his spirits soared.
Russ Pinbaugh, or El Russ-Bo as he liked to call himself, spread out over his giant leather-and-fur chair in a fluffy chiffon bathrobe, sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and lit his Cuban cigar. The pills were just starting to kick in. Today was Forum Friday, where people called in on whatever they wanted to talk about. In two or three hours he was going to just sit back at the microphone and provide an occasional comment; it was basically a babysitting job on Fridays, so he didn't have to write out any blaring diatribe. That gave him an extra 45 minutes every Friday and it also meant he could take an extra pill because he didn't have to put in nearly as much brainpower. Fridays were his favorite.
Later his secret lover, Snerdles, had promised to take him out for an endangered species smorgasbord for dinner. Panda, great white - owl giblets to die for, wine fermented in a live baby elephant's lobotomized skull - everything. The giddy feeling spread to his toes; the first time in days he'd noticed his toes. Hello, toes. El Russ-Bo let out a mighty, earthquakey fart, and giggled to himself.
The door burst open suddenly as the mighty Russ-Bo hastily fanned away his fart stench. "Who's there?" he called clumsily, twisting in his chair just in time to see a dead body fall to the floor. He stared uncomprehendingly at the corpse before him. Snerdles? His loyal sidekick, bodyguard, call screener, and lover was dead?
Standing above Snerdle's lifeless form was a woman in a black outfit - from her black combat boots to her black ski mask.
"You're going to come with me," the woman snarled. She stopped, swore at herself, and tried again. "You're coming with me," she re-snarled.
"Caroline?" Russ asked incredulously. "Caroline Palmer?"
"What gave it away?" she asked. "The fact that I'm the only female character introduced thus far?"
He let out a long, excited whale bellow that roughly translated to "Mr. Pinbaugh, your Excellence! It is an honor to finally meet you"; but once again the language barrier seemed to be an issue.
"Look at the misery you justify!" she shouted. "Listen to that scream!"
"I'd be in misery too," Russ muttered in his trademark radio personality fashion, "If I had to spend my time locked up in here with a bleeding heart radical like you, missy" (it turns out Russ Pinbaugh isn't actually putting on a fake persona for his radio show; he actually is really an asshole, in real life).
"No, no," Lumbergh shouted, sensing his words had been mistranslated. "There is no problem. I'm simply trying to greet His Excellency --"
"Listen!" she shrieked in fury. "Listen to his wail!" Gripped with fury, she grabbed Russ by the shirt, rocked him back and forth, and finally pushed him headlong into Lumbergh's tank.
Driven by instincts and habits out of his control, Lumbergh lunged forward and swallowed Russ Pinbaugh in one massive gulp. Kind of tastes like manitee, Lumbergh thought, and then El Russ-Bo was gone. Damn it! What have I done?
It was then the door opened in his containment cell - sliding upwards with a clacking sound. This was a clear signal to him: it's way past time to leave. He swam away, discouraged, realizing that the effect of the gas on the humans was far, far worse than he had ever imagined.
The Wise OOOH-tickoo-tick-TICK-tickOOOO is basically a punchline now. He's trying pretty hard to not be bitter about it, but human extinction is bad for everybody and sometimes these whales just don't understand that. But it is what it is. Perhaps whales deserve to be wiped out, he thinks from time to time.
Caroline Palmer sued the coffee manufacturer for manufacturing the dangerous drink that spilled on her lap and is now a multi-millionaire. She is using her income to help spread awareness of something or other. I can't remember; I wasn't paying attention.
Lumbergh is now an accountant with High Fidelity Whale Insurance, a subsidary of some whale thing.
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