Constricted view, consumed by clear blue sea, purled in white wavelets. Beneath that glittering, glassy surface rests a great, moon-pale shape, its smooth contours distorted by distance, by the sea’s subtle, internal motion. A whale. See the massive, blunt curve of head, dimpled by sealed blowhole; the sleek, muscled immensity of its body; the gradual narrowing and reshaping of form that results in the great, flattened fan of its tail.

With the ocean piled high and deep, drawn up over it, the whale sleeps. Adrift. Blissful. Content.

Soundlessly, the battleship materializes. It is not there; and then – in the next breath, thought, heartbeat – it simply is. Dull gray; wedged front; a single, monolith turret at its center. Obscene in length, the ship hovers – airborne – above the rippled ocean, casts its shadow down and through the sea, over the sleeping whale.

A moment, only, before it descends.

The ship’s keel parts the waves. Its hull flattens the ocean’s surface, sends sheets of water arching, waves thundering seismically away. Immediately, the battleship is swallowed whole and sinks rapidly, crushingly down. A herculean depth charge aimed directly at the creature beneath it.

Impossible, improbable, infuriating silence as the ship gathers downward speed.

Collision is assured.

The whale sleeps.

Unaware.

— C.Birde, 12/17