My Story
Shamu was in a foul mood. Swimming alongside Shamu (that was the joke here, all the killer whales were called Shamu - stupid humans) he was angry enough he could jump the wall into one of the other pools and eat a walrus. He knew what his real name was, and had often clicked it to the two legged creatures, but they were too dense to understand the communication system killer whales used. The humans thought their guttural language was the superior one, but did they have over two hundred different words for water? Hell no. At least the Inuit used their language intelligently to describe snow in various ways. But the creatures that kept him here in captivity basically called it either water or H2O. Not much variety in that. The lifeblood, and they thought they were being creative when they put it in little plastic bottles and calling it Dasani, Deer Park, Aqua Springs, and hundreds of other silly little marketing names.
And if only it really was H2O. But they polluted these tanks he lived in with so much chlorine and dozens of other antifungal and anti algae chemicals, it was enough to make him retch having to swim in this stuff.
And Hello! Killer whales crap and pee too thank-you, and whereas in the ocean it dissipates into negligible traces or sinks to depths where the deep dwellers feast on it, in these tiny tanks they were kept in, they had to swim in their own pee. Fine, maybe there were fetish loving two leggers that thought this was dandy, but to a killer whale, hell, he wouldn't hesitate giving them a piece of his mind, if they would only listen.
These humans were particularly limited in their understanding of other species. He saw how they treated his smaller brothers, the dolphins. It was despicable. But, the humans did have their nets and tranquilizers, and his species had no defense against those, hence that was why he was here.
So here he was in a life of slavery, doing stupid pet tricks for a reward of dead fish. Stale, dead fish. Every day the same thing. Stale, smelly, dead fish. And what about the thrill of the hunt, chasing down those schools of scrod or tuna and having a really fresh dinner? No, not here in this place they called Sea World. Dead, smelly, rotting, fish. He could just puke. In fact, sometimes he did.
And then all the dumb tricks they wanted him to play. Jumping through burning hoops, leaping up and grabbing things out of the handler's hand. Walking on his tail. Sheesh, some days he was so mad.
He told his pal Shamu (ha ha) about his troubles, but his pal chided him for trying to change the unavoidable. "Listen," he friend clicked, "you know I've been thinking about the equations for the thermodynamic properties of aqueous solution high in sodium chloride, especially near its vapour pressure, and the equations I've been using used to estimate aqueous sodium chloride's solubility, density, specific enthalpy and entropy are hard to construct for temperatures reaching 300°C with suitable accuracy. It's not like I can test anything in here. I have to build all the models in my head. But it's so much fun, you should try it. It'll take your mind off of our dreary living conditions. Would you like me to sing the outline to you?"
"No, old pal, thanks, it does sound intriguing. I admire you for your theoretical pursuits. But then having to click long distance to someone out in the great ocean so the world can learn and add to the collective learning is so annoying. Why can't we go to the grand council meetings ourselves and be present in person? Instead I have to do a backward flip and then splash some humans with life blood to get a dead fish."
"Hey, those fish aren't so bad. We had mackerel last week. You should see the chum they feed the sharks."
"Don't say sharks to me, I hate sharks! Remember it was sharks that killed my mother. Why that one trainer, the one with the pony tail hair? She smells of chum. I think she feeds the sharks before she comes to order us around. I swear, if she ever pats my nose again with chum smelling hands, I'm just going to grab her by the pony tail and take her down to the lower levels of the pool and let her get a good whiff of the pee where it settles, and see how she likes it."
"Say, Shamu (giggle), did you know I can relate the procedure for pressure drop calculations in a thermodynamic equation-of-state backwards? Want to hear me sing that? Huh?"
"Nah, thanks, but not now. I'm just in too foul a mood."
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