52 Blue

Here’s a chapter from my story “Hilcias” for today.

Enjoy 🙂

#kindness #courage

In 1992, in the North Pacific Ocean, a Navy hydrophone picked up the song of a whale.

The whale sang.

And listened.

Sang.

And listened.

But heard no song in return.

Normally, a whale sings it’s song and other whales sing back.

In the vast loneliness of the sea comes friendship through music.

This was not a normal situation, though.

And this was not a normal whale.

Scientists named him 52 Blue.

They named him that because when he sings, the frequency of his whale song is around 52 Hz,   the frequency of basso profundo, the frequency just above the lowest note on a tuba.

When other whales like 52 Blue sing their whale songs, they sing between 10 Hz and 40 Hz.

They can’t hear 52 Blue’s song.

Because of this, he is known as the loneliest whale in the world.

Whales are communal creatures.

They live their whole lives in family groups called pods.

Whales are migrants.

They migrate from warm waters to cold waters back to warm waters to find food and give birth to their babies.

They follow the same migration routes year after year.

52 Blue is alone.

He doesn’t follow a predictable path.

The 2004 edition of the journal Deep-Sea Research reported that the song of 52 Blue came from a whale whose movements “appeared to be unrelated to the presence and movement of other whale species.”

He wanders the ocean.

He is a wandering whale.

We don’t know what kind of whale 52 Blue is.

He could be a deformed blue whale.

He could be a mixture of a blue whale and a fin whale.

He could be a kind of whale we’ve only heard but never seen.

There is much in life yet to be discovered.

He is a wonder.

Scientists are searching for 52 Blue as I speak.

Will they find him?

Will he find them?

Does he want to be found?

I wonder.

Hilcias wrote this poem for 52 Blue:

whale

song

lonely

where are you?

wandering, singing

singing unheard wandering songs

can you hear me? are you there? are you? I am alone

listening, longing for songs gently sung, I hear you song on water, I’m here, I’m here

we sing at diff’rent frequencies, migrate along diff’rent routes, wandering, wondering

unheard, unknown, wandering the sea, songs on water

singing unheard wondering songs

wondering, singing

who are you?

gentle 

song

whale

* If you’re interested in learning more about 52 Blue, you can follow @lonelywhale on Twitter and you can read a wonderful piece by the great writer Leslie Jamison in The Atavist Magazine here - http://magazine.atavist.com/52-blue