Swimmer used his speed and agility to dart away, charting a path through the water that the larger animal was incapable of following.
The waters here, so close to shore, were cool even at the height of the day. He stayed as deep as was necessary to avoid the sunlight, moving slowly upward toward the surface with eager anticipation. When the sun finally dipped below the horizon he could comfortably venture into the shallows. And there, hidden just below the waves, he thought of her.
His sense of smell was not refined enough to break down the complex onslaught of odors from the land. There were too many different smells, so unlike each other and so unlike anything he encountered in the sea. Many of the smells were pleasant, emanating from the greens of trees or the reds and violets of a field of flowers, but they were so potent that he couldn’t enjoy them for long. Many other smells were repugnant, unnatural, emanating from the straight lines of gray buildings and paths carved into the landscape, metallic creatures racing along them as if hunting, growling and coughing as they hurtled by. He found it simpler to seal off his olfactory glands and shield himself from these smells. And so he couldn’t detect the smell of her, even from the shallows, unique and unforgettable though it was.
But he could listen. And he did.
His ears were perhaps the most sophisticated part of his body, designed to withstand the never-ending chorus of sounds that stitched together the ocean. The water gathered these sounds greedily, then flung them in every direction. Sounds layered against sounds, bouncing off each other, chaotic and in competition but somehow cooperative. Together, to his ears, this multitude of sounds was musical. And his ears were capable of parsing the complex, orchestral music and picking out individual notes. He could count the silver bullet herring in a school as they darted manically. He could envision the crabs picking through a carcass on the sea floor by listening to the tapping of their claws. Each animal was an instrumentalist or vocalist contributing its small part to a song that never changed but never repeated itself.
At the surface, however, the song was still unfamiliar.
The birds above, moving air with the flapping of wings. He could hear it rustling through their feathers. He could hear their beaks clacking and the shrill calls as their beaks parted and their throats stretched. The hoarse barking of dogs, sometimes joyful as they ran to greet a familiar human, sometimes menacing as they defended their homes from anyone unfamiliar. The breaking of glass, the squealing of tires, the compacting of trash, the ripping of paper, the scratching of tree branches and the crack of distant thunder. He heard it all, consuming every sound like a new flavor, building stories around them, visualizing the source, often incorrectly. The first time he saw an infant, he was enormously surprised to match its hew and cry to a tiny human form. He had heard the sound many times before, utterly convinced it was produced by some sort of animal, either dying or mating. He had seen several infants in the years since, but the incongruent squall had not yet lost its power to awe him.
Human voices captivated him more than any other sound. He had learned to discern the differences between young voices and old, between male and female. He eavesdropped on these voices, striving to master his understanding of their words, yes, but also the meaning behind the words. He identified peculiarities in intonation, enunciation, emphasis, all of which could change the meaning of a phrase or sentence in dramatic ways. He detected the rise at the end of a question that suggested uncertainty, the lowering of volume and timbre that suggested secrecy, and the peculiar cadence that suggested dishonesty.
Through language, he absorbed the human experience.
And with practice, he learned to recognize specific human voices: The stocky captain of a fishing
The waters here, so close to shore, were cool even at the height of the day. He stayed as deep as was necessary to avoid the sunlight, moving slowly upward toward the surface with eager anticipation. When the sun finally dipped below the horizon he could comfortably venture into the shallows. And there, hidden just below the waves, he thought of her.
His sense of smell was not refined enough to break down the complex onslaught of odors from the land. There were too many different smells, so unlike each other and so unlike anything he encountered in the sea. Many of the smells were pleasant, emanating from the greens of trees or the reds and violets of a field of flowers, but they were so potent that he couldn’t enjoy them for long. Many other smells were repugnant, unnatural, emanating from the straight lines of gray buildings and paths carved into the landscape, metallic creatures racing along them as if hunting, growling and coughing as they hurtled by. He found it simpler to seal off his olfactory glands and shield himself from these smells. And so he couldn’t detect the smell of her, even from the shallows, unique and unforgettable though it was.
But he could listen. And he did.
His ears were perhaps the most sophisticated part of his body, designed to withstand the never-ending chorus of sounds that stitched together the ocean. The water gathered these sounds greedily, then flung them in every direction. Sounds layered against sounds, bouncing off each other, chaotic and in competition but somehow cooperative. Together, to his ears, this multitude of sounds was musical. And his ears were capable of parsing the complex, orchestral music and picking out individual notes. He could count the silver bullet herring in a school as they darted manically. He could envision the crabs picking through a carcass on the sea floor by listening to the tapping of their claws. Each animal was an instrumentalist or vocalist contributing its small part to a song that never changed but never repeated itself.
At the surface, however, the song was still unfamiliar.
The birds above, moving air with the flapping of wings. He could hear it rustling through their feathers. He could hear their beaks clacking and the shrill calls as their beaks parted and their throats stretched. The hoarse barking of dogs, sometimes joyful as they ran to greet a familiar human, sometimes menacing as they defended their homes from anyone unfamiliar. The breaking of glass, the squealing of tires, the compacting of trash, the ripping of paper, the scratching of tree branches and the crack of distant thunder. He heard it all, consuming every sound like a new flavor, building stories around them, visualizing the source, often incorrectly. The first time he saw an infant, he was enormously surprised to match its hew and cry to a tiny human form. He had heard the sound many times before, utterly convinced it was produced by some sort of animal, either dying or mating. He had seen several infants in the years since, but the incongruent squall had not yet lost its power to awe him.
Human voices captivated him more than any other sound. He had learned to discern the differences between young voices and old, between male and female. He eavesdropped on these voices, striving to master his understanding of their words, yes, but also the meaning behind the words. He identified peculiarities in intonation, enunciation, emphasis, all of which could change the meaning of a phrase or sentence in dramatic ways. He detected the rise at the end of a question that suggested uncertainty, the lowering of volume and timbre that suggested secrecy, and the peculiar cadence that suggested dishonesty.
Through language, he absorbed the human experience.
And with practice, he learned to recognize specific human voices: The stocky captain of a fishing
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