Ripple

by Tui Allen

  At 7am, practice over, he closed the piano, entered the kitchen where coffee was by now wafting in the wind. He fought his way around the smaller breakfast-seeking family members, cooked and ate a couple of poached eggs on toast, regretfully skipped his usual follow-up of toast and marmalade, drank two mugs of coffee without sugar, (groan) showered, dressed, and made his way to work.

  On the ten minute, 50k trip in the transporter, he listened to modern classical, which raised his spirits and relaxed his mind for the day’s work ahead.

  So far, so good. No black cats crossing his path. No angel feathers descending in his vicinity. No warning signs of impending life-changing phenomena.

  He walked into the lab, greeted his colleagues and progressed through a normal day until after lunch when the new equipment arrived. Like school kids being introduced to new gym-gear, the scientists gathered round and listened hungrily as the technician explained the operation and uses of the machine. They were the first laboratory to test the technology. Its function was high-level mathematical analysis of sound.

  Marcus booked the first trial session for 5pm when the others would be leaving. He wanted to try it out in the solitude of an empty laboratory to assess it without distractions.

  When the time came, he dug out an old recording of sounds from nature. He started up the machine, positioned the earpieces, inserted the memory cell and read its menu on the screen. It had birdcalls, an amplified recording of an earthworm wriggling across paper, wind on water, weather sounds, animal calls, the rattle of a rattlesnake etc.

  Marcus liked animals, so he selected the sound of a cat meowing. The original sound played first – it lasted about one and a half seconds. The machine automatically analysed the sound and played out its complete interpretation. The interpretation lasted ten seconds and sounded completely different from the original sound – more complex, with a far greater range of tone and pitch. There were even tiny breaks in a sound which had seemed continuous in its original state.

  Sounds almost like a human language, thought Marcus. Amazing!

  After playing the interpretation, the machine presented visual data in the form of figures, notes and graphs to explain how it had arrived at its analysis. He studied the material and couldn’t fault it, though he’d worked in the science of sound all his working life. His interest in the new machine was increasing. He looked at the menu again. There were a few cetacean sounds. Cetaceans had made all sorts of interesting but meaningless sounds that people felt compelled to record: clicks, whistles, squeaks, booms, horn-like noises. Marcus chose a dolphin sound that interested him as much as any other. It was a three-second whistle. The original played and the interpretation began.

  Marcus’s whole body stiffened with shock. After just a few moments, he stopped the programme, consulted the guides, and re-checked everything to make sure he had made no errors with the process. He went through the start-up again using the same sound-clip. The interpretation began again.

  Sweat appeared on his forehead. His mouth dropped open and his hands moved slowly from the arms of his chair to the sides of his head. He stared at the machine in disbelief. Gradually the shock gave way to ecstasy. His hands dropped down again slowly. The sweat dried but tears flowed instead. He was looking at a machine, but you’d have thought from his expression that he was looking into the eyes of an angel. Marcus was listening to music! This sophisticated machine was telling him that dolphins had created music that could send all human music straight to the trashcan.

  The machine’s interpretation of the three-second dolphin squeak lasted sixty-five minutes. Though he’d listened to most of the world’s masterpieces, he had never heard music the quality of this. A bird who had suddenly progressed from flapping like a chicken to soaring like an eagle might have understood what happened to Marcus during those sixty-five minutes.

  It was woven from sounds that seemed to have come from a planet in a different galaxy and time. Chords swept from unknowable instruments, carried him away as though on Arethusa’s dreams, over surging tropic oceans through cerulean despair. They swept him up into midnight, and out between oscillating constellations that spun him to the ends of the universe where the spirits of the ages set him adrift in eternity, to wander back, unified, through a million lifetimes to his own reality on earth.

  All inside sixty-five minutes or a three second dolphin squeak.

  From this time, all his interest in human music was lost but he was spiritually recharged as though he had physically travelled on the journey the music described. What he did not know at the time was that this recharge was to be life-long. The powers within the dolphin’s musical journey had permanently altered his brain cells. They rendered benign the malignant tumour, which had grown aggressively in his brain for the last two months. It began to dissolve from that moment.

  When the interpretation was over, Marcus Evans took a little time to adjust. The tears he’d shed streaked his face with salt and made his vision unreliable, but he glanced around, re-established his whereabouts and brought his scattered thinking under control. He tottered to the bathroom and sluiced his face with cold water. The rough-soft texture of the towel on his skin helped to re-ground him.

  ‘Dolphins!’ he muttered, ‘What in this world were they?’

  He recalled something he’d read about the dolphin brain having ten times the sound processing capabilities of the human brain. If we already knew that, he wondered, how could we not have guessed?

  He returned to the machine and sat with his head in his hands for a moment or so. Then he stared at the mathematical data the machine had provided. One look was enough to tell him he would need to commit serious time to studying it if he was ever to understand a tenth of it.

  ‘I’ll listen to the music again. Second time might be easier.’

  By the time his colleagues arrived for work fourteen hours later, Evans had heard the interpretation of the dolphin squeak twelve times. He didn’t hear them enter.

  ‘Hello! Evans is still here!

  You been here all night buddy?

  Ain’t you got a home to go to?’

  Marcus groaned, ‘Omigod its morning!’

  ‘Friday morning - Woohoo!’

  ‘Jack,’ said Marcus, ‘know much about dolphins?’

  ‘I know they’re all dead.’

  ‘Seen pictures of them,’ chipped in another.

  ‘You think we’re all palaeontologists, Marc? What the hell have you been doing all night! You look like death.’

  ‘They died out suddenly between 2207 and 2217,’ said an older scientist. ‘About the time of the Great World Famine. I was still a kid. Humans were starving so new fishing methods were developed and cetaceans lost their food supply. The fish saved millions of human lives but all whales and dolphins were lost.’

  ‘Yeah, it was before I was born but I heard about it. Weird to think there were warm-blooded mammals that lived their whole lives at sea. The extinctions upset some folks for a while, but they were only animals; we had to put human survival first. And no real harm came of it in the end. Why everyone . . .’

  ‘I know that,’ Marcus interrupted. ‘I mean research. Ever heard of research on dolphin sounds – using our modern tools?’

  ‘Haven’t heard of any. Interest in those animals pretty much died when they died.’

  ‘Then I suggest we start researching now.’

  A weird exhilaration glowed from beneath the exhaustion that stamped the face of Marcus Evans.

  ‘You’ll understand when you listen to this.’ He tapped the menu item on the machine, heaved himself to his feet, walked out, rode home and slept.

  Later that day he arranged to replace his slot at the fundraiser with dolphin music. The committee promoted it, played it to the community and staged many extra performances to cope with demand. Marcus received recognition and gratitude from the community for providing such a financial boost.

  He reverted to jogging in the mornings in preference to music practice
. It felt less futile and meant he could eat toast and marmalade as well as poached eggs for breakfast and go back to putting sugar in his coffee.

  ~~~

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  Poem Version

  RIPPLE

  Tentacles that suck and strangle

  boiling in the deep

  Dolphin! Listen to the stars

  that shout and laugh and weep.

  The world is young, a sapphire

  Floating soft in solar space.

  Jewel of the universe,

  what pure ellipse you trace.

  On the ocean’s perfect mirror

  one sweet raindrop fell.

  The monster’s heartbeat thundered

  but she heard the tiny bell.

  The stars were silent in her ears

  bubbles giggled endlessly.

  A million tiny beating hearts

  The rhythm of the rolling sea.

  In the music of the ocean

  where the monster hunted long

  In the shadow of its bloodlust,

  She has sung the world’s first song!

  The monster longed to rip her flesh.

  The song leaped up to certain death.

  Searching in the stars above

  alerted by a scream of love

  Beyond the grinding teeth.

  She danced so curving, lissom,

  like the laughter of the song,

  She sent resounding into space

  and down the ages long.

  Read on, or if desired . . .

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  ~~~

  Afterword:

  HOW TO HELP DOLPHINS AND WHALES

  *If Ripple has changed your attitude to dolphins and whales, be sure to recommend the story to your friends at home and around the world. The more people who become aware of the true possibilities of these magical creatures, the less likely they are to die or suffer at the hand of man.

  *Never pay to view captive dolphins or whales. It encourages the practice of imprisoning them. Dolphins are born to be surrounded by their families and chosen social groups. They need deep water beneath them and the freedom to swim hundreds of miles of open sea whenever they choose. Many captive dolphins die young and some commit suicide by ceasing to breathe.

  *Never stay at any hotel that keeps captive dolphins for the entertainment of their guests and be sure to tell the hoteliers why you are rejecting their hospitality.

  *Reduce your usage of plastic and always dispose of all your rubbish, plastic, and chemical wastes thoughtfully, to be certain these items never end up in the ocean where they can kill dolphins and other sea creatures.

  *Think carefully before eating any seafood. Be sure it was caught using sustainable fishing methods. If in doubt, refuse to eat seafood unless you have caught it yourself. We are land animals. Dolphins do not steal our fruit and grains. We should not steal their fish.

  *If you have money to invest in energy resources, make sure you invest in those which are renewable, clean, and safe for our oceans.

  *Reduce human populations. Honour childlessness as a blessed sacrifice. One child between two is next best. Once human populations are down to sensible levels we can eat as much sustainably-caught seafood as we wish.

  *Do everything you can to reduce your own use of non-renewable energy and encourage others to do the same.

  ~~~

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

  Dr Ewan Fordyce of the Geology Department of Otago University, who gave me paleontological and geological information, showed me fossils from Ripple’s era and introduced me to the fossil itself.

  Carolina Loch and Gabriel Aguirre of the Geology Department of the Otago University, who were as interested in my fictional information as I was in their factual information about the fossil.

  Daphne Lee of Otago University, who also helped me to find paleontological and geological information I needed.

  Mark Simmonds, International Director of Science, WDCS, (Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society) for checking facts and contributing guidance beyond all expectations.

  Jeff Tucker – for preventing my death by starvation while I wrote this book.

  My son Leith Simpson – for motivating me to continue when I was discouraged and proving that you are what you think you are.

  My daughter Heather Simpson, for inventing music of her own, having the willpower to pursue goals in the face of adversity and doing her bit to help the dolphins of Taiji.

  My stepfather Jack Allen for giving me access to the open oceans in childhood and teaching me the names of the stars.

  Gregar Haycock – for surfing information and descriptions of the physical sensations of surfing.

  James Gurney for information about tides, currents and wind directions affecting the surf and the link between surfing and creative energy.

  Steve Thompson for answering scientific questions.

  My cousin Heather Thompson of the NZSO for assistance with musical information and terminology.

  Shaun Cooper of Massey University – for mathematical assistance when I needed it.

  Barbara Else for her three assessments of the story of Ripple.

  Raymond Huber for editing the manuscript.

  My literary friends who provided ruthless criticism to help me refine the text: Hilary Boyd, Rod Fee, Shauna Bickley, Ted Gibbons, Katie Henderson, Pauline Herbst, Bronwen Jones, Jeannie Mclean

  My niece Nicole Adams for providing critiquing from a young person's viewpoint.

  Chrystene Hansen, mind adept, for providing the healing journey that got me started.

  If desired . . .

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  ~~~