The Prince Of Whales (1)
Shmuel Yacobi

 


Chapter one

Joan dear! Coffee ready!

It’s four am on the clock in New York. There is no cock to crow her up. Dr. Joan is waiting for the funny alarm to crow. She impatiently got up and looked at her watch. It’s still four in her old castle villa in the Bronx. She felt that time is getting old and lazy in New York.

She heard her prompt thinker whispering, nocturnal waiting is a terrible job. She nodded her thinker while he still murmured ‘half hour seemed like an indefinite strike of the underwear garment workers union in your stepfather’s only manufacturing industry in the Bronx area last year’. She hushed her yawner and clicked her personal history channel.

One full year was gone just like that. She felt that history moved faster than the present in New York. Yes, she began to remember. Last year when the workers union did it, the family went to Hawaii until they called off the strike. They had spent a full day with granny Eliza at her bayside guesthouse.

Her grandmother Eliza stayed in her guesthouse since the sudden demise of her grandfather Boris Jacobson. The guesthouse is set back at a safe distance from the ocean. She left the castle and lived at the bayside guesthouse with limited staff. Eliza is now sixty. She stopped talking to anyone.

She sits in the porch and looks at the ocean. She thinks that Boris is still alive and he would come back any time. Last year’s Hawaiian summer trip was quite different from this year’s professorial trip.

Last year Joan played in the sand with her cousin Sam like a little girl. Sam tried to take her into the water. But she never liked to go into water. Sam and Joan bought Homer’s paintings The Life Line and Gulf Stream for their granny. She saw the spirit of Homer the Painter behind those paintings.

Boris liked Homer’s deep-sea classics ‘The lookout and Eight Bells’ and decorated his room with the paintings of the Poet Laureate of the Ocean. Eliza always told them that Boris loved those paintings, as they are ever young and fresh.

Now Joan is going to Hawaii again but on professional business cum vacation trip. There she is supposed to present a paper on whale behavior and give a demo. She is expected by a group of marine scientists headed by Dr. Chad the fanatic worshipper of Charles Darwin’s religion of evolution.

It is really an exciting opportunity for her age to participate in such an international scientist gathering. She is still a 20-year wonder baby for her mother Lillian. She cuddled her waterbed while her thinker rehearsed, you must see your granny after the science session and meet Sam your cousin. She impatiently said, ‘I have already decided that’.

In her fishy sleep she saw it again. The same cinematheque appeared before her blue dreamy eyes: the same cockeyed boat driver, pushing grandpa off the boat, the same killerwhale swallowing grandpa while mummy and granny talking and laughing with Rodrigo the castle’s limousine driver.

She was yelling at her mummy and granny about grandpa without uttering words. They were still deafening her ventriloquial baby voice. Joan woke up again on her waving waterbed from her terrible dream.

It’s still four on the clock. But it’s a little different four: a real coffee-smelling four in the morning. She could hear the dangling castle kitchen activity. For the castle keeping personnel it was a special morning. Their little princess is going to Hawaii alone. She must catch the plane in time. She is still a royal doll in their eyes. They are preparing a royal breakfast for her royal taste. The royal castle family had a wonderful history and many historical traditions and tragic accidental deaths. Every thing is still remembered and maintained as usual even though the true royal pomp had faded away.

Dr. Joan from her mother’s side and from her father’s side belonged to the old royal families that came from Europe to the USA a century ago.

The acting stepfather is a lucky New Mexican guy, a real househusband who is now used to the kingly shoes of the castle.

Soon the royal househusband and the queen of the castle will come down to the early morning coffee porch. The head butler is dying to figure out about where to serve the morning breakfast to Dr. Joan: in the regular dining hall or in the early morning coffee porch along with her stepfather Rodrigo and her mother Lillian. Every little thing matters in this castle.

Dr. Joan dogged her sundress yogic body off the bed. She then really woke up and joined the brief early morning coffee session with her mom and step dad.

Her mother said, ‘call dad as soon as you get there. He would be upset if you don’t. And don’t forget to see granny. Don’t call Sam your cousin. My brother, your uncle Shea would be upset if he knows that you are around Sam. Don’t even let them know that you are in Hawaii? Don’t remind them the past. Your aunt Feggy will be depressed like last time’.

Everything went on mechanically well with lots of dos and don’ts. Dr. Joan said, ‘mom! I know every thing. I am not a little girl any more. I will see granny without letting uncle Shea and aunt Feggy know about me’.

The castle limou driver opened the door for her. She settled in the old time limousine and byebyed the old castle with a hitlerian hand as they wave-caught her fly-kisses.

Dr. Joan is a new species in her royal castle. She wants to be simple, modern and independent unlike her mother. She had learned how to breathe freedom in her royal golden cage. She is going to Hawaii by herself thanking off the original plan of ten-keepers accompanying royal trip. She determined to travel alone for the first time in her twenty-year castle life.

She looked at her watch and her thinker reminded her, ‘Hawaiian airlines, Hawaiian time’. She moved her cute little butt slightly and reclined back to watch the galloping streetlights through the window. It’s only a little after four. Somehow the hours-hand seemed dead slower than the seconds-hand in her old diamond timer.

The castle limou driver Alex had been telling how forest was the Bronx area in his childhood. She could finally visualize and recognize the airport signs and could decipher his ventriloquial words as, ‘have a safe trip and take good care my little princess! Enjoy your Hawaii trip and come back safe’.

After the great commission of old Alex, Dr. Joan started her window seat winning processing into the aircraft. It seemed almost like prophet Jonah’s whale trip to Nineveh plus the pilot’s welcoming announcements, airhostess’ safety precautions, flight attendants’ services and the in-flight movies.

She likes the action movies. She turned the light on and wondered if there are any movies for rent. She buzzed the flight attendant and asked about Jaws 4 and Indiana Jones 5 series.

The airhostess brought the latest equipment and arranged the screen in front of her seat. Dr. Joan ordered for hot buttered popcorn and coke. Joan started watching Jaws 4.

The flight took her to Sanfrisco first and to Hawaii from there. She met a funny guy from Sanfrisco to Hawaii. His name is Max. He is a private plane pilot going to Hawaii for a vacation. He tried and asked Joan whether she had a boy friend or relatives in Hawaii. He bugged her whenever Joan took off her earphones. Joan finally told him to keep quiet. She said to herself, ‘these chatterboxes belong to the asylum’.

He finally understood that she is enjoying the movie. He changed the subject and showed her a song tape. Dr. Joan began snoring. He finally understood that she is tired. He left the seat and left her alone.

Joan’s thinker said, ‘these extra human clones should be sent to the black hole asylum. They should be given a twenty-four hour job to talk to the female chimpanzees and black widows. They must learn how to treat women as women and not as mere plastic dolls for their tom play’.

Joan sleep-smiled like a little girl and sleep-said, ‘they must have hundred sisters and two hundred daughters. They must be appointed as accoucheurs in a pregnant women’s ward to permanently work night shifts. They must always clean the afterbirth’.

Chapter two

Aloha and aloha!

Oahu the chief of the Hawaiian Islands is waiting for Dr. Joan with a hearty welcoming Aloha. The giant wheels of Hawaiian Airlines flight touched the Honolulu international airport runway. Dr. Joan began to feel welcomed by the passenger claps. She took her carry bag and went down the stairs to receive her heavy scientific equipment baggage. She stood at a corner while the free porter is waiting for her baggage.

While she was waiting and looking for her baggage at the luggage merry-go-round belt, some Singapore passengers rushed and pushed her aside into the mob. They left their carry bag there and took her carry bag with them since both looked alike.

Joan waited there and finally saw her scientific equipment trunks along with other baggage items. She availed the free service porter’s assistance and decided to pay him twenty dollars. The old porter brought the baggage cart and they came out into the waiting hall.

The Palace hotel van driver identified her with his signboard. She could feel Hawaiian air right from the waiting hall. The van driver and the porter walked her to the hotel van along with all her baggage. She began to breathe fresh and sunny Hawaiian air. The bayside Palace hotel seemed like a bikinied Polynesian fairyland with all half naked gals walking around and a heavenly suite on earth.

Dr. Chadwin Lu the head oceanologist of the scientist group welcomed her with an owlish aloha, a big penguin hug and a short parrot lecture - we heard great things about you Dr. Joan. We can’t wait to see your presentation. I will show your room. Come on. How was the trip? Of course it’s the time difference. Is it still three hours? In 1948 it was three when I went to the mainland’.

Dr. Joan got the instructions from him and showed him the way to the door and byebyed him. Dr. Chad had unfinished his parrot lecture in the middle for the time being and went down to the conference hall to see the arrangements.

He made the aquarium, projectors, big screens, PA system and every thing ready for her historic presentation. Meanwhile Dr. Joan took real aquatic bath following the Hawaiian time schedule and dressed up for the occasion.

She went down to the lobby and greeted the other scientists. Dr. Joan was the only lady scientist at the conference. She began to feel as a participant of the miss universe contest.

The scientists walked her into the conference hall. She checked and found every thing ready for the historic presentation and demonstration of her new lingua franca converter device, which can convert the whale sound language into English.

The University department staff brought three baby whales and the mother whale and dropped them in the aquarium. The conference hall was full with the professional scientists, whalers and the fishermen who were enjoying their famous Hawaiian luau.

Dr. Chad began to introduce Dr. Joan to the participants in his owlish style. Dr. Louise the chairman of the commission came to the front and took the microphone from Dr. Chad and relieved him from the burden of translating his thoughts into his Pidgin English language.

There are quite a few zoologists and many amateur naturalists, sailors and fishermen in the group. The chairman of the commission gave a review of the history of the problem in his opening address.

There are eminent scholars and scientists who are waiting to hear the witnesses pro and contra to make a decision concerning the existence of strange animals and birds of the ocean such as giant fur seals, wingless monster auks, underwater white herons, giant jelly fish, the whale-serpents, sea urchins, basilisks, sea-devils, gesner’s whales, gila monsters, Pogonophores, giant duck-billed platypus, Lilliputian sea-monks, heloderma, tatzelwurms and the orangutans.

Dr. Joan looked around the conference hall and said, ‘hi everybody, ladies, gentlemen and fellow scientists! We all know that life likes to communicate with life. Some people say, ‘mute as fish’. But fish are terrible chatterboxes’. The audience applauded.

Dr. Joan continued, ‘the fish carry on conversations all through the day and sometimes at night too. We can detect these conversations only through special apparatus but they can hear one another very well. Whales like any other beings do communicate with each other through their sound language. We may hear only the sounds, but for them those are not mere sounds but intelligible messages. I feel proud to continue this acoustic research project that my grandpa Boris and my granny Eliza had started and left 20 years ago. I wish that he might somehow come back to life to see that the work he had started had born rich fruit. My granny is still alive but she is not in a position to understand that this great achievement was actually her idea and not mine. Their great invention would bring riches to the human society in unimaginable ways’.

Dr. Joan gave out her short but sweet introductory speech and started to show how the whales communicate within their family through different symbol sounds. There are about 22 trinomial sounds further divided into hundreds of variants. Dr. Joan had developed a device that can convert those symbol sounds produced by the whales into human language and vice versa.

She demonstrated the operation of the special apparatus that she had developed and everybody could hear the sounds produced by the whales. All they heard was nothing but a babbling, piercing and chilling sound in a concert pitch.

Dr. Joan showed what those sounds could mean in the human language through the converter device. She explained that the signals serve diverse purposes. Some are roll-call signals, others are alarms, and the third type announces a food find and the fourth type are love-calls appealing to the mates.

The converter device had translated those glossolalia sounds into somewhat clear human languages. Everybody could hear and understand the whales in their own languages through the translating earphones. It was like an old Greco-Roman glossolalian expression. The whales had developed and used very limited symbol sound vocabulary and it sounded like an aryanized chantry ceremony. Thoughts are always expressed in and through language. And conversely language is the expression of thought. It is a special signaling system. Life communicates with life.

All languages consist of separate signal-words of conventional sound symbols. The aggregate of those signal-sounds of a language forms its vocabulary. Hens utter several dozen sounds. Among the whales and dolphins there are several hundred sound signals. Theirs is the first signaling system and ours is the second signaling system. Whales reach maturity at the age of two. They can hear high-pitched sounds of up to 125 kilocycles. The brain of a whale is roughly 500 times lighter than its body.

When they are hot they begin rinsing out their mouths and nasal cavities with cold water spurting it out as powerful fountains of heated water. Dr. Joan ended her afternoon session. She is supposed to show how the human beings can communicate with the whales in the night session at 8 pm. The demonstration went on very well. Everybody appreciated her great contribution to the scientific community.

 

 

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Copyright © 2001 Shmuel Yacobi
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"