Blood in the Water

The water is slick with blood. It’s that time of year again, filled with the harsh cries of men and the brief singing of whales. Our livelihood depends on violence, on death, which isn’t much different from anyone else’s we’re just more honest about it. I have my mother’s blond hair and blue eyes. My dad is darker. They met because of a dog. His dog. A skittish mutt she thought beautiful. She told him so and then looked at him and told him he was beautiful. He thought her beautiful too but could not say it. His dog was more exuberant in his greetings, unafraid of love or the unfamiliar. He’d gaze into her eyes, enraptured. 

There’s a photo of my dad in a foreign magazine. He has a long pilot whale rope looped around his forearm. In profile his eyes lock on the sea, his face spattered with blood. This is the same man who crawled on his hands and knees in his hunger for my mom, whose dog whimpered as they made love. There is violence everywhere, even in the most intimate of acts. 

Sliding his knife into the whale was like sliding his body into hers.