If life ends in death, then to what purpose are your days spent. Are we supposed to engage in some bacanalian pursuit of pleasure or is there some higher goal? The answer is irrelevant to a short sotry which only exists so that it may have a pithy or profound ending. Unlike short stories we evolved to experience love and to tear down the barriers that prevent it. Are we truly living if we fail to do that? If we abandon it's pursuit in favor of something else?
The short story need not toil for love, but only has to come to an end in 7500 words or less.
Chapter 12
“What we have here your honor is a matter outside of the court’s jurisdiction. An animal has never in any court been given the rights of a person.” The court was crowded with people, several times the judge had threatened to have it cleared even before the testimony had started. Every few sentences he would bang his gavel and demand quiet. He wondered why he had allowed this charade to continue. The matter was only set for a preliminary hearing. The aquarium attorney had come in to take the adversarial role. Clearly he was uncomfortable with all of the people present.
“The law, however, differs. In this court, people who have less ability than this whale, are given rights.” Hyatt had already told the judge that he would appeal any adverse decision.
“The precedent will not allow it.”
“The flexibility of equity demands it. If the animal can communicate it is human under the law.”
“It is a whale, therefore it cannot be human! I don’t believe it can communicate and if it cannot communicate there is no logical basis to give it more rights.”
“Well, I’ve heard all about this. Apparently everyone else has seen the video on the internet. Show me the damned video,” Judge Stern demanded. A hush fell over the jury.
A large screen had been placed where the jury could see it. Hyatt had made sure it would also be visible to the packed visitor’s gallery and the throng of activists and reporters. The camera zoomed in to Truly who was ‘fully dressed’ in a skin tight wetsuit. She was wrapping elastic bands around the whale and running one along his dorsal fin. The whale seemed to be waiting patiently as if it had done this before. Hyatt asked “What are you attaching to the whale?”
“This is Bruce’s hearing aid. It was designed by his trainer, it is a waterproof bone conduction microphone connected to a translator by a transceiver. The translator translates your voice into the sound frequencies the whale uses and his into a computer voice. This type of device would not have been possible 10 years ago, but now all the technology is in place. There is even a written transcript generated by the program.”
“So what do I do?”
“You have to come down here and talk like you are on a phone. There are no buttons, but you have to talk into the microphone.” While Truly said this, the whale slipped back into the water, taking the microphone with him.
The video then showed Hyatt awkwardly climbing down in a suit and tie onto the platform that was partially in the water. He looked around as if looking for a place to escape, as if he even thought of jumping into the water with the whale. Then with a tightening of his shoulders, he sat on the wet platform and leaned over the microphone.
“Just say whatever you want like you are talking to a person, but try to speak clearly.”
“I understand. I’m just trying to compose myself, think what I want to ask.” He should have jotted down some questions he thought. However, he had had this same type of interview with a hundred different clients. There was only a single green power light on the panel before him and a display like a computer screen, but it was dark. Then words started to appear, “I understand. I am just trying to compose myself, think what I want to ask.”
Ok, he thought without saying anything. Every word I say gets recorded, here and on the video. Do I ask the whale if it understands me? How would it respond?
“Come to the platform,” he decided.
The whale was enormous. It rose as if by magic with no splashing of fins beside the platform. Hyatt took a deep breath. He wanted to ask if whales could smell fear, instead he continued with the interview.
“Do you know why I’m here?”
There were a number of squeaks from the whale, then a mechanical voice started to speak followed by the same words appearing on the screen below his question, “You are here to take me home.”
“Good answer. Are you home now?”
“No, fish?”
He stepped back from the microphone and asked Truly, “Fish?”
“He asks for fish a lot. The program is designed to only show the word once every ten times it is used.”
“He’s used the word fish ten times?”
“If it shows up, then yes.”
“Do you know why you are here?” Hyatt said to the microphone.
“Bruce is a prisoner.” Came the reply.
“Where is home?”
“The ocean. Fish?”
“Do you want to leave or stay here?”
“Leave.” The whale left and came back several times during this exchange, water washed up onto the platform. It was a warm evening even with the steady drizzle. His coat kept off much of the rain, but he was soaked by the water washing up on the platform.
“Do you want me to help you leave?”
“Yes. Help Bruce leave.”
“Tell me why you want to leave.”
“Why Bruce a prisoner? Fish?
“I don’t know why you are a prisoner, but they take care of you here. They give you fish.”
“Why kept. Leave. Why? Why? Why?”
The interview went on like this for some time. The internet version was heavily edited, this was raw footage.
When it was over the courtroom was silent.
“You cannot honestly expect me to rule that the whale is human?” To this, there was a loud burst of noise which faded incompletely in response to the gavel.
“No, your honor, my client is a whale. But he can communicate. He is able to express his desires. His situation is no different than that of slaves in the Eighteen hundreds. He is being held against his will…”
“Don’t you tell me this is like slavery! You are not going to make that comparison in this court. Slavery was an evil subjugation of one man by another. This is nothing more than a fish being kept in a large fish bowl.”
“A fish that can talk, your honor. A fish that can think and knows what it wants.”
“Man has rights over all animals. It is a law of nature!”
“Men had rights over their slaves.”
“They were human.”
“They were not considered human.”
“You are going to make a laughing stock of this courtroom.”
“This courtroom will be the first place where people recognize that there are intelligences other than humans. It will be the place where slavery is recognized for what it is.”
“Where will it stop? If I do this, someone will bring a dog in here. Then they will bring a cow or a duck.”
“Your honor, even dogs and cats have rights. They cannot be abused. They cannot be abandoned.”
“It’s a problem for the legislature, not the courts.”
“The statutes require you consider the rights of those who are impaired.”
“People, not fish.”
“Bruce is a person under any definition of the law in terms of intelligence.” The protestors in the audience begin to yell and cheer while the judge banged his gavel without effect.
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