THE THAMES WHALE

Blluur !   Swoosh !  The waves are coming up.   Crash !

 “I can’t see mother, mother! I’m scared! Mother!”

 Crash ! Swoosh !

 “I’m being pushed away! I’m turned over from side to side! I try to fight the current but….but I, I can’t move. I can hear screaming. I can hear screaming. Stop! Stop the screaming!  I open my mouth to cry out ‘stop!’ but no words come out. The waves are pushing me up and down. My mind is in a muddle. I don’t know where I am. Time has gone. Vision of day or night has vanished from my eyes. I know only one thing and this is very clear. The waves have blown mother away; away from my life…….

 Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh. I’m bleeding. It’s painful. I don’t have the strength to move. All I can see is red water oozing out of my side. I’m feeling dizzy. I can’t, I don’t remember. I must push forward. I must, otherwise I am going to rot and die. I must survive. I’m trapped between two rocks. I must break free. Push!  Push!  Yes, come on I can do this.

I can see the sea, well, what I think is the sea, getting narrower and narrower. I can see the bank. I can see buildings and towers reaching the clouds. There are people all around people! They come. They come for me?

A flash of light…I can’t see; I am panicking….I can’t breathe…flashes; flashes of light everywhere. I feel a push, a warm touch on my flesh. I turn over. I can breathe again. The flashes of light have gone for now…..”

 “Will she survive?”

“Don’t know.”

“Sir.”

“The best way…the only way is to put it on a barge and take it back out to sea. We can’t do anything else.”

“In the night?”

“Not enough time”

“Sir. Do you want to make this public?”

“Damn you!. It’s already public. Half the world knows. We’ll do it tomorrow.”……

 “I’m alone, barely breathing. I miss mother….who wouldn’t? Night has come blood black. I’m feeling pain…a great pain at my side. The moon shines down and I’m happy yet I know in my heart it will be the last time the moon and I shall meet……”

 “Pull!” they shouted.

“Pull!” they shouted.

 “They have lifted me out of the water, the sun in my eyes. Still using all my strength to grasp for a single breath. The pain is blinding me….”

 “Come on men.”

“It’s alive!”

“Pull!”

“It’s on the barge.”

 “…… I’ve stopped breathing. The sun has grown all white. I can see my mother. She reaches out. The moon still shining and we swim in the warm sea of the night.”