Life is a beach, or so they say, and then you die.
Mine’s actually quite a nice beach, and I’m not dead yet, not by any stretch of the imagination; my beach admittedly has a bit of pollution, but that’s largely been my own fault and now I’m older I look after it better, try to keep it clean, and I’m sure its gradually improving.
But I do have one big problem with my beach. Well, it’s actually a problem in the water. There is something in it. A shadow. Not a terribly big one, but it really is there, and we’ve all seen it now. In fact we first saw it about 9 years ago. It hasn’t changed, it is just there. We don’t know if it’s like a basking shark, that is, big and scary but actually quite harmless, or if it is a great white. That’s a different kettle of fish all together. Ha ha ha.
Scary though it is, a great white may cause no problem at all; it may just circle round and round and but never actually do anything; there again, one day it may suddenly decide to come in close and bite you clean in half, for no reason, maybe just because it thinks you’re a seal, or maybe just because it can, either way it’s all over in a flash.
From a distance they look the same, its hard to tell one from the other, and we only get to see this thing from a distance.
The life guards have a look every now and then, they photograph it, and they try to figure out what it is.
We talk about it, the life guard and I, and I feel quite relaxed because up to now he has been saying that he thinks it is just a basking shark, something to be aware of but not to get too excited about it. It may have been there for ages, it may never get any bigger. He says it is something that we’ll just photograph every now and then, just to make sure it is behaving itself. It is the kind of animal that may accidently hurt you, when it flicks its tail or you get too close, but nothing that’s going to kill on purpose so we’ll be careful & take the right pills.
But I have a big problem now.
I’m in the water and it has got between me and the sand. It flicked its tail a short time ago (November actually, and I had a seizure) and the life guards took a few more pictures. They have changed their minds. Now its closer they think it’s a great white. A big, scary bastard. Between me and the shore. It may decide to bite me, it may not, who knows? So they are going to harpoon the bastard anyway and kill it. While I just tread water.
The life guards are pretty sure that they can get it with one shot. Spear it, hike it out of the water wriggling and bleeding so that they can at last get a good look at it, cut the swine up and decide if it really was just a basking shark or if its a great white after all.
They catch these fish all the time.
Usually its pretty routine (if such things ever can be…), but sometimes they f*** it up. If they are too close to you, when they harpoon them, these fish may catch you with their tail or flick you with a stray fin as they are being hauled out. Or sometimes it is the harpoon that nicks you, it gets too close, slices a blood-vessel or something and you then end up sitting in the corner of a dark room for the rest of your life being spoon fed jelly and talked about.
Sometimes the fish come back ….and get bigger.
