Mael's Ecnounter
The grey sea appeared more alive than usual to Mael’s green eyes. Her father was tending the boat while she stood on the rocks staring out at the old view. The early morning sky was tinted peach and blue but clouds on the horizon told her the warm colors would soon be covered up. The breeze was still slow and gentle and she closed her eyes in order to fully appreciate it’s calm before it would pick up in the afternoon. The familiar heartbeat of the waves on the rocks surrounded her in the darkness behind her eyelids. For a moment she imagined her mother humming in their dim kitchen, heating the water to make the food for the day.
Her father called her name and she opened her eyes. He was standing on the stern of the boat and his cool green eyes peered at her. They were about to go out and wait for the creatures her great great grandmother, great grandfather, and grandfather had studied. Her father had grown obsessive the past few years because something had changed in their behavior.
“It looked at me, Ora. And it said something to me. Or at me. It said something, Ora. It made a sound and looked me in the eyes. And it kept repeating the same sound.” He said to Mael’s mother years ago when he first noticed the changed behavior.
Mael knew that the mammals of the sea spoke to one another because her great great grandmother had known this, somehow. Somehow, she knew they spoke to one another through vigorous study with technology her father no longer had. Mael had once heard whales calling out in the night and it frightened her tremendously so. Their long, bellowing wails were eerie and ongoing. Now, when her father goes out to fish, he doesn’t bring as much back as he used to.
“Are the fish leaving?” Mael asked when she was eleven.
When she asked this, her father looked at her with his eyes full of words.
“No.”
This year, when she turned twelve, she learned that her father simply fished less when he was out at sea and would keep watch instead in attempt to locate the creatures, afraid the nets may get in their way. She was relieved the fish weren’t leaving. She pretended to be asleep while her parents talked at night, which had become a serious game she played. She learned a lot this way about the creatures her father spoke of so much but saw so little of. Her mother would always glance at Mael to see if she were truly sleeping, but Mael always had her eyes closed and her breath unwavering.
“One came to me today,” he whispered once.
“I’m afraid you’re getting too involved in this, Hassian.” Her mother said warily. He looked up at her, his eyes looked distant; he seemed like he was far away.
“If you could hear them, see them, you would understand. It’s something I’ve never encountered before out there, with them.” his words were slow and heavy.
“You’re bringing in less fish. You leave every day now, when before you’d leave maybe twice a week. Your daughter is growing without her father.” Her mother’s voice was steady. It made no sense in her mind that he was going out every day now and coming back with no fish on some days. Was it the creatures?
“You don’t need to leave every day. They won’t appear for another six or seven months after today, you know this.”
“She needs to learn how to sail. She should continue to learn about these creatures like her great great grandmother would want. She should come with me tomorrow.” Her father’s eyes suddenly grew bright as he suggested this.
Her mother fell silent for a few long moments.
“She’s still too young. I didn’t learn to sail until I was fifteen.” Ora’s voice was weak, as if she knew it was no use.
“She’s strong and she’s a quick learner. She will be here or out there for the rest of her life. She should learn now.”
With that, Mael drifted off to sleep. The next day, her father took her out on the boat for the first time, and she began learning how to sail and fish. Her father showed her field notes her great grandparents took.
“They were simple, fascinating creatures then…your great great grandmother knew they were just as intelligent, if not more, than us. She had the technology to prove it…they would swim with these creatures and go back and forth with words translated into frequencies. And they would learn these frequencies.” He explained as they sat on the boat. She stared at the horizon, thinking of the faded image of her great great grandmother in the chest they kept of their passed family members.
“But things have changed…they have changed since then,” he started.
“One tried to speak to me I think…without technology. One made a sound underneath the water…and I could hear it. Before, we couldn’t hear their sounds above water. Now, we can. It made these sounds while looking at me as it swam around my boat. It was looking right at me…into my eyes. Then it dived and I didn’t see it again for another year.” He told her after teaching her the basics of how to mandate the sails.
Mael would ask questions like where they came from, why they were there, if they had always been there. Her father answered to the best of his ability, explaining the things he had read in his grandparents’ notes. He had studied them for hours, soaked in as much information so he didn’t have to rely on their notes. He wanted it to be memory and he wanted her to learn the same way.
“But these creatures…they show an interest I’ve never seen them display. An interest our relatives have never mentioned. When I see them…when I see it, the young male…it stays with me for a little bit. He watches me so closely. And I watch it. And we simply circle the boat together, I walk around it’s edges and he swims around the boat in circles.”
Mael stared at her father
“What does it want?”
Her father stroked his beard, which was lined with silver hairs.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what it wants. To observe? To communicate?”
Six months later, Mael is looking at her father from the rocks, who is peering at her from the stern of the boat. She still hasn’t seen the creatures in person, but she is patient. She is also a little frightened.
“Mael.”
“Yes?”
“I forgot the third bottle of fish in the kitchen. Can you go grab it for me?” he asked.
Mael frowned.
“We’re bringing three?”
He nodded, looked away and continued to prepare the boat for sail.
“Let’s hurry. Those clouds will be here soon.” He said firmly.
She leapt from giant rock to giant rock until she got to the beach and climbed the steep hill that led to their one room cottage. It was very humble, it took Hassian and Ora months to build it. And months after to improve it as they lived in it. They still make adjustments to the structure. It is the only home Mael has known.
She burst into the house and her mother looked up at the doorway, unphased while adding wood to the fire.
“We forgot the third jar.” Said Mael breathlessly.
“Third jar?” her mother asked, frowning.
Mael shrugged and spotted the ill-colored jar on top of one of the wooden tables by the window. She snatched it and ran out of the cottage.
“Be careful!” called her mother warily, who shook her head when Mael was no longer in sight.
“Three jars?” Ora whispered to herself.
The jars are filled with slop. Fish slop. Fish intestines, scraps her father decided to use to try and attract the creatures by tossing the contents into the water. He didn’t do this often at all and Mael didn’t understand why they were bringing so many in one day. When he did do this, he would only take one. And Mael had never witnessed him do it yet. She made her way back down the beach to the rocks, leaping from one to the other as if they were not wet with ocean water, clutching the jar close as if it kept her warm. Her father helped her onto the boat and they drifted out into sea.
“Why are we bringing three jars?” she asked once they were settled.
Her father said nothing at first.
“The number of fish here are dropping. Our catches are getting smaller and smaller,” he started.
“They may respond to this. And if they do, I want to provide more than I usually do.”
Mael hadn’t noticed the number of fish dropping, though she may not have known any better. She nodded and looked off into the distance again, looking at the small white caps of waves. She was looking for dorsal fins, which she had only seen before on sharks. They were massive creatures, terrifying to look at.
“One can easily capsize the boat. If that were to happen, climb onto whatever you can and try to make your way back to land.” Her father instructed. She always felt like she should be more afraid than she actually was, maybe because she couldn’t imagine such a thing happening. She had seen fuzzy pictures of the creatures before, which were also kept in the wooden chest they kept in the house. They were grey and long, with strong tails and dark eyes that almost look human. She always kept her eyes peeled for them when she went out with her father. After a few minutes they threw anchor and tossed in the fishnets into the water. The clouds were rolling in and Mael began to grow anxious. She had only been out in the water once with rain and she decided very quickly that she hated it.
“I don’t want to be here.” She said suddenly.
“It’s okay, let’s pull the nets in then and just get on with it,” said Hassian, seemingly frustrated of the cloud’s presence. They caught nothing and before they lifted the anchor, Mael and her father opened the jars and tossed the foul juices into the sea. Mael scrunched her nose.
“They like this?” she asked in disgust.
“It’s shown up for it once before.”
“Once? I doubt they like it.” She said, putting the jars down.
Hassian chuckled.
“We’ll stay for a little while longer.” He said softly.
She nodded, ignoring the spike of fear within her. The boat bobbed up and down and she sat staring at the water while her father paced back and forth, adjusting the sails as he saw fit. She watched him carefully, remembering how her mother always watched her father very carefully when he spoke about these creatures. Mael was sometimes frightened by the look her mother would give her father. It was as if he was becoming something else, and her mother wasn’t yet accustomed to it.
She thought about how things are; how it was just her and her parents. They spoke often about her having a younger sibling and she never opposed the idea. She always wondered what it’d be like to have another child around, one she can play with, talk to, and swim with. She imagined teaching them the different names she gave the local fish that would swim up to you if you waded in the water, or point to the different birds that flew above. She imagined what it’d be like to teach the child words, to talk to it and tell it about herself and her wishes. She felt alone, but she also didn’t know what alone truly felt like, because alone was all she knew. Her father told her that before, there were billions of people and she couldn’t imagine that.
“They warmed everything up, and now there’s water everywhere and people nowhere,” he explained to her once.
Suddenly, a dorsal fin appeared. She gasped and her father stopped and looked at her quickly. She stood up and pointed to where the dorsal fin once was.
“I saw a fin!” she said loudly.
“Shhh!” her father rushed to the side of the boat, staring into the water.
Mael’s eyes were wide and she took a step back away from the side. It could be a shark. It could be one of those creatures. She moved to the middle of the boat, suddenly aware she was not on land, there was nowhere to run. She looked over her shoulder. The beach looked close, but she knew better. It would take maybe half an hour to swim to it.
“Dad?”
He was still staring, leaning.
“Dad you’re too close.” She whispered.
His back straightened and he looked farther out. They stood in silence for a few long seconds until a there was a sound. It was incredibly high pitched and Mael’s skin shimmered into goosebumps. Her father held a patient look. The sound continued, clicking, squeaking, and eventually long drawn out sounds similar to a whale. Mael was very confused.
“Look!” her dad whispered.
She followed his gaze and noticed many dorsal fins in the distance. She couldn’t stop staring at them, afraid she’ll lose sight of them if she looked away. She and her father stood there watching the group when suddenly, there was a loud thump against the side of the boat. She gasped and held onto the side, looking into the water almost by accident. There, the side of a grey face was staring up at her. She was frozen, unable to move or make a sound, but her blood curdled. It stared at her gently, cooing sounds vibrated in the water and after a moment, she tried to regain herself. It swam along the side of the boat and it wouldn’t take its eyes off of her. She couldn’t take her eyes off of it. She felt suspended in air, time felt endless but also felt like it had stopped.
“Mael?” Her father’s voice cut through the air and she couldn’t believe she wished he wasn’t there.
The creature’s body twitched and it disappeared beneath the boat.
“It’s underneath the boat.” She said breathlessly.
Thunder clapped in the air. Mael and Hassian stopped and realized the clouds were directly above. The wind was stronger and the ocean was now darker. The sounds of the creatures continued to fill the air and Mael felt fear sink in her veins again.
“We need to leave,” her father said painfully.
She peered over the side of the boat again and the creature was there, waiting for her. It cooed again and she blindly reached out to touch it. It made a terrible sound and before she knew it, she was in the water.
She could hear her father shouting for her, and she couldn’t see. She didn’t know what was up or down for a moment and she felt a sharp pain in her head. She felt a large object beneath her and she screamed, kicking. The sound the creature made drowned her screams but suddenly, a specific sound caused her to go still. The cooing continued, but the creature began to whistle, it’s frequency modulating and sweeping. Mael for some reason, unknown to her, remained still and calm. She knew everything was going to be okay. She felt a rush of water as the creature beneath her moved her up toward the surface. It continued to whistle, and something in Mael’s brain seemed to react. She gasped for air and felt the boat next to her. The slippering skin of the creature was surreal to her, but she couldn’t stop listening to the whistling. It kept repeating the same chirps. She felt the strong arms of her father reach for her and lift her out of the water. The creature disappeared.
“What happened?” he asked.
She sat staring, shivering.
“I calmed down,” She whispered.
“I calmed down…I calmed down…I calmed down…it told me to be calm.”
Her father called her name and she opened her eyes. He was standing on the stern of the boat and his cool green eyes peered at her. They were about to go out and wait for the creatures her great great grandmother, great grandfather, and grandfather had studied. Her father had grown obsessive the past few years because something had changed in their behavior.
“It looked at me, Ora. And it said something to me. Or at me. It said something, Ora. It made a sound and looked me in the eyes. And it kept repeating the same sound.” He said to Mael’s mother years ago when he first noticed the changed behavior.
Mael knew that the mammals of the sea spoke to one another because her great great grandmother had known this, somehow. Somehow, she knew they spoke to one another through vigorous study with technology her father no longer had. Mael had once heard whales calling out in the night and it frightened her tremendously so. Their long, bellowing wails were eerie and ongoing. Now, when her father goes out to fish, he doesn’t bring as much back as he used to.
“Are the fish leaving?” Mael asked when she was eleven.
When she asked this, her father looked at her with his eyes full of words.
“No.”
This year, when she turned twelve, she learned that her father simply fished less when he was out at sea and would keep watch instead in attempt to locate the creatures, afraid the nets may get in their way. She was relieved the fish weren’t leaving. She pretended to be asleep while her parents talked at night, which had become a serious game she played. She learned a lot this way about the creatures her father spoke of so much but saw so little of. Her mother would always glance at Mael to see if she were truly sleeping, but Mael always had her eyes closed and her breath unwavering.
“One came to me today,” he whispered once.
“I’m afraid you’re getting too involved in this, Hassian.” Her mother said warily. He looked up at her, his eyes looked distant; he seemed like he was far away.
“If you could hear them, see them, you would understand. It’s something I’ve never encountered before out there, with them.” his words were slow and heavy.
“You’re bringing in less fish. You leave every day now, when before you’d leave maybe twice a week. Your daughter is growing without her father.” Her mother’s voice was steady. It made no sense in her mind that he was going out every day now and coming back with no fish on some days. Was it the creatures?
“You don’t need to leave every day. They won’t appear for another six or seven months after today, you know this.”
“She needs to learn how to sail. She should continue to learn about these creatures like her great great grandmother would want. She should come with me tomorrow.” Her father’s eyes suddenly grew bright as he suggested this.
Her mother fell silent for a few long moments.
“She’s still too young. I didn’t learn to sail until I was fifteen.” Ora’s voice was weak, as if she knew it was no use.
“She’s strong and she’s a quick learner. She will be here or out there for the rest of her life. She should learn now.”
With that, Mael drifted off to sleep. The next day, her father took her out on the boat for the first time, and she began learning how to sail and fish. Her father showed her field notes her great grandparents took.
“They were simple, fascinating creatures then…your great great grandmother knew they were just as intelligent, if not more, than us. She had the technology to prove it…they would swim with these creatures and go back and forth with words translated into frequencies. And they would learn these frequencies.” He explained as they sat on the boat. She stared at the horizon, thinking of the faded image of her great great grandmother in the chest they kept of their passed family members.
“But things have changed…they have changed since then,” he started.
“One tried to speak to me I think…without technology. One made a sound underneath the water…and I could hear it. Before, we couldn’t hear their sounds above water. Now, we can. It made these sounds while looking at me as it swam around my boat. It was looking right at me…into my eyes. Then it dived and I didn’t see it again for another year.” He told her after teaching her the basics of how to mandate the sails.
Mael would ask questions like where they came from, why they were there, if they had always been there. Her father answered to the best of his ability, explaining the things he had read in his grandparents’ notes. He had studied them for hours, soaked in as much information so he didn’t have to rely on their notes. He wanted it to be memory and he wanted her to learn the same way.
“But these creatures…they show an interest I’ve never seen them display. An interest our relatives have never mentioned. When I see them…when I see it, the young male…it stays with me for a little bit. He watches me so closely. And I watch it. And we simply circle the boat together, I walk around it’s edges and he swims around the boat in circles.”
Mael stared at her father
“What does it want?”
Her father stroked his beard, which was lined with silver hairs.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what it wants. To observe? To communicate?”
Six months later, Mael is looking at her father from the rocks, who is peering at her from the stern of the boat. She still hasn’t seen the creatures in person, but she is patient. She is also a little frightened.
“Mael.”
“Yes?”
“I forgot the third bottle of fish in the kitchen. Can you go grab it for me?” he asked.
Mael frowned.
“We’re bringing three?”
He nodded, looked away and continued to prepare the boat for sail.
“Let’s hurry. Those clouds will be here soon.” He said firmly.
She leapt from giant rock to giant rock until she got to the beach and climbed the steep hill that led to their one room cottage. It was very humble, it took Hassian and Ora months to build it. And months after to improve it as they lived in it. They still make adjustments to the structure. It is the only home Mael has known.
She burst into the house and her mother looked up at the doorway, unphased while adding wood to the fire.
“We forgot the third jar.” Said Mael breathlessly.
“Third jar?” her mother asked, frowning.
Mael shrugged and spotted the ill-colored jar on top of one of the wooden tables by the window. She snatched it and ran out of the cottage.
“Be careful!” called her mother warily, who shook her head when Mael was no longer in sight.
“Three jars?” Ora whispered to herself.
The jars are filled with slop. Fish slop. Fish intestines, scraps her father decided to use to try and attract the creatures by tossing the contents into the water. He didn’t do this often at all and Mael didn’t understand why they were bringing so many in one day. When he did do this, he would only take one. And Mael had never witnessed him do it yet. She made her way back down the beach to the rocks, leaping from one to the other as if they were not wet with ocean water, clutching the jar close as if it kept her warm. Her father helped her onto the boat and they drifted out into sea.
“Why are we bringing three jars?” she asked once they were settled.
Her father said nothing at first.
“The number of fish here are dropping. Our catches are getting smaller and smaller,” he started.
“They may respond to this. And if they do, I want to provide more than I usually do.”
Mael hadn’t noticed the number of fish dropping, though she may not have known any better. She nodded and looked off into the distance again, looking at the small white caps of waves. She was looking for dorsal fins, which she had only seen before on sharks. They were massive creatures, terrifying to look at.
“One can easily capsize the boat. If that were to happen, climb onto whatever you can and try to make your way back to land.” Her father instructed. She always felt like she should be more afraid than she actually was, maybe because she couldn’t imagine such a thing happening. She had seen fuzzy pictures of the creatures before, which were also kept in the wooden chest they kept in the house. They were grey and long, with strong tails and dark eyes that almost look human. She always kept her eyes peeled for them when she went out with her father. After a few minutes they threw anchor and tossed in the fishnets into the water. The clouds were rolling in and Mael began to grow anxious. She had only been out in the water once with rain and she decided very quickly that she hated it.
“I don’t want to be here.” She said suddenly.
“It’s okay, let’s pull the nets in then and just get on with it,” said Hassian, seemingly frustrated of the cloud’s presence. They caught nothing and before they lifted the anchor, Mael and her father opened the jars and tossed the foul juices into the sea. Mael scrunched her nose.
“They like this?” she asked in disgust.
“It’s shown up for it once before.”
“Once? I doubt they like it.” She said, putting the jars down.
Hassian chuckled.
“We’ll stay for a little while longer.” He said softly.
She nodded, ignoring the spike of fear within her. The boat bobbed up and down and she sat staring at the water while her father paced back and forth, adjusting the sails as he saw fit. She watched him carefully, remembering how her mother always watched her father very carefully when he spoke about these creatures. Mael was sometimes frightened by the look her mother would give her father. It was as if he was becoming something else, and her mother wasn’t yet accustomed to it.
She thought about how things are; how it was just her and her parents. They spoke often about her having a younger sibling and she never opposed the idea. She always wondered what it’d be like to have another child around, one she can play with, talk to, and swim with. She imagined teaching them the different names she gave the local fish that would swim up to you if you waded in the water, or point to the different birds that flew above. She imagined what it’d be like to teach the child words, to talk to it and tell it about herself and her wishes. She felt alone, but she also didn’t know what alone truly felt like, because alone was all she knew. Her father told her that before, there were billions of people and she couldn’t imagine that.
“They warmed everything up, and now there’s water everywhere and people nowhere,” he explained to her once.
Suddenly, a dorsal fin appeared. She gasped and her father stopped and looked at her quickly. She stood up and pointed to where the dorsal fin once was.
“I saw a fin!” she said loudly.
“Shhh!” her father rushed to the side of the boat, staring into the water.
Mael’s eyes were wide and she took a step back away from the side. It could be a shark. It could be one of those creatures. She moved to the middle of the boat, suddenly aware she was not on land, there was nowhere to run. She looked over her shoulder. The beach looked close, but she knew better. It would take maybe half an hour to swim to it.
“Dad?”
He was still staring, leaning.
“Dad you’re too close.” She whispered.
His back straightened and he looked farther out. They stood in silence for a few long seconds until a there was a sound. It was incredibly high pitched and Mael’s skin shimmered into goosebumps. Her father held a patient look. The sound continued, clicking, squeaking, and eventually long drawn out sounds similar to a whale. Mael was very confused.
“Look!” her dad whispered.
She followed his gaze and noticed many dorsal fins in the distance. She couldn’t stop staring at them, afraid she’ll lose sight of them if she looked away. She and her father stood there watching the group when suddenly, there was a loud thump against the side of the boat. She gasped and held onto the side, looking into the water almost by accident. There, the side of a grey face was staring up at her. She was frozen, unable to move or make a sound, but her blood curdled. It stared at her gently, cooing sounds vibrated in the water and after a moment, she tried to regain herself. It swam along the side of the boat and it wouldn’t take its eyes off of her. She couldn’t take her eyes off of it. She felt suspended in air, time felt endless but also felt like it had stopped.
“Mael?” Her father’s voice cut through the air and she couldn’t believe she wished he wasn’t there.
The creature’s body twitched and it disappeared beneath the boat.
“It’s underneath the boat.” She said breathlessly.
Thunder clapped in the air. Mael and Hassian stopped and realized the clouds were directly above. The wind was stronger and the ocean was now darker. The sounds of the creatures continued to fill the air and Mael felt fear sink in her veins again.
“We need to leave,” her father said painfully.
She peered over the side of the boat again and the creature was there, waiting for her. It cooed again and she blindly reached out to touch it. It made a terrible sound and before she knew it, she was in the water.
She could hear her father shouting for her, and she couldn’t see. She didn’t know what was up or down for a moment and she felt a sharp pain in her head. She felt a large object beneath her and she screamed, kicking. The sound the creature made drowned her screams but suddenly, a specific sound caused her to go still. The cooing continued, but the creature began to whistle, it’s frequency modulating and sweeping. Mael for some reason, unknown to her, remained still and calm. She knew everything was going to be okay. She felt a rush of water as the creature beneath her moved her up toward the surface. It continued to whistle, and something in Mael’s brain seemed to react. She gasped for air and felt the boat next to her. The slippering skin of the creature was surreal to her, but she couldn’t stop listening to the whistling. It kept repeating the same chirps. She felt the strong arms of her father reach for her and lift her out of the water. The creature disappeared.
“What happened?” he asked.
She sat staring, shivering.
“I calmed down,” She whispered.
“I calmed down…I calmed down…I calmed down…it told me to be calm.”