The Whale-Burier

The Whale-Burier

About four years ago, maybe five, I don't remember really, I was
working the summer in Greenland on some tiny island. Right up near the
Arctic Pole it was. The reason for this? I was just tired of life, more
specifically my life. Bored with the unflinching greyness of my town. I
wanted to be gone, as far away as I could be. Not just in distance
though, I mean more than that. I wanted a whole new life, an
experience. The type of shit I'd read about all my life but never had
the guts to do. Well, I did it, I got the fuck out. Where did I get to?
Ever heard of Skipsik? Thought not. It has one interesting
characteristic, well two actually, but more of that later. The one that
I noticed pretty soon after arriving was the one that makes you crazy.
Because what locals there were, they were pure fucking nutheads. Not in
a bad way though, I mean it was usually just funny. Anyway this
interesting thing, well, if I said it was always freezing I'd be lying.
It never got that warm. I am serious here, it never, ever, ever got
warmer than a bit below freezing point. Jesus, it was summer for fuck's
sake. Another crazy thing though that wasn't so bad. It was light for
ages sometimes. This stunning, celestial light that covered everything
with a golden shine. I say everything. There was really only a load of
trees, a few wooden huts and some snow. Plenty of snow, pure snow,
dirty snow, slushy snow. If I had a fetish for snow it would have been
Heaven. Snow, light, cold. Cold, snow light. Ligh-sno-cod. That, THAT
is where I worked.
My job was to cook for the Scientists, or Geologists, something like
that. I had to use a big cauldron because small amounts of water would
tend to freeze up too quickly. You want the inside knowledge on how to
be a chef in Skipsik? Step 1: Boil the water. Okay, you still with me?
This is where it gets pretty tricky. Step 2: Put the fish in the
cauldron until hot through. And finally Step 3: Serve the motherfuckers
in plastic bowls and Voila! A beautiful tasty fucking treat and eat
that shit for three months and you see if you don't lose your mind
somewhere in that cauldron. Although, I may be over simplifying things
somewhat. Sometimes, oh yes, sometimes we had vegetables. Little, tiny
brightly-coloured ones. But that was only when we were lucky enough to
get a supply drop. Which wasn't often. As for the drinking water, it
was stored in these huge, dark boxes with in-built heating systems.
Then there were smaller versions to drink out of and take on
expeditions.
We ate in the huts two times a day. When we weren't eating I could do
what I wanted. I slept for 12 hours, cooked and ate for four, and
usually sat in my hut for eight. As you can guess, it was great fucking
fun. I had to keep moving though to stop from freezing. It was a
3-month expedition. I spent about a third of that just wandering around
my hut in my free time. Sometimes I'd think up some disastrous
occurrence that would mean we'd have to fly back home. Like maybe it
was called off for financial reasons, or more often one of the
scientists was devoured by a giant snow-monkey. Other times I would
plan the most intricate and delicious meals for the scientists. They
would traipse in for supper, shivering and numb, before catching sight
of the feast and, well, needless to say, I would become a saviour, a
benevolent God sent to this triple-hutted city to be worshipped and
adored. Then, I would awaken to find my arse was stuck cold to the rim
of the toilet bowl, trust me, you haven't ever felt pain.
One day though, as the Sun was dying and spitting its golden beams all
over the horizon, Jaka the Fish-Hunter, or Jaka the Fat Fish-Finder as
I wittily renamed him, entered my hut smiling. I tried to ignore him.
He suffered from insanity.
'He-he-he!' he laughed, slowly and from deep inside his chest. I turned
around.
'Jaka, my good fellow. Have you had an extra-fine time purchasing
tonight's gourmet selection?' He looked at me for a few seconds, then
temptingly turned away and muttered,
'Crazy man.'
'Actually, I am no more crazy than the Queen of England,' I replied. I
know that sounds stupid, and I'm no fan of the posh-tart, but I often
said stupid things just to remind me of home. God, what I would have
done to be home that day.
'Not you, Mikhail. The Whale-Burier.' I walked over to where he had
hung the fish on the back of the door and grabbed five.
'HE is crazy man.' I wasn't really listening. There's only so long you
can listen to a jolly fat man who sounds like a horrific cross-breed
between an Italian Pizzeria owner and a sleazy Russian gangster.
'Big man. Big hair. You not see him?no, you not see him.' Gawwwwwd. Why
do I get drawn in?
'Why don't I see him?'
'He don't like people. He crazy.'
'You saw him.'
'Ya.'
'Then why can't I?'
'You see. He not like you. I sleep now. You crazy men make me work
much.'
I still couldn't believe the utter laziness of that man. Probably why
he took the job in the first place. One fishing trip a day, that's it.
Anyway, this man. The Whale-Burier. I had been in that place for about
a month and I could already feel the spiders crawling over my brain. I
needed some way to stave off the dementia. I had to find out about this
man, who according to Jaka, was crazy. Not crazy in the way that
everyone in the world was crazy. But ACTUALLY crazy.
The next day when Jaka returned to our hut from one of his wanderings
I accosted him.
'Hey!'
'He he. How may I be of a server to you, my good friend?'
'Listen. That Whale-Burier. Why is he called that? And where does he
live?'
'He lives here and over there.'
'What do you mean?'
'He travels where he has to.'
'Where is he now?'
'North. By the sea. He is always by the sea.'
'Where did he get his name?'
'It not his name. It what we call him.'
'Argh. Okay. But why do you call him that?'
'Because he is the Whale-Burier.'
'You mean?he buries whales?'
'Ya. The Whale-Burier.'
'What the f?he buries whales. God. How can you make such an extensive
discourse about him without telling me that?'
'He he. Crazy man.'

From then on, my friends, that perpetual wasteland was transformed
into an expanse of limitless possibility. I felt the immediate need to
find this man who buried whales and to simply discover, why? Well,
actually I felt the immediate need to leak my lizard. But, as I was
emptying myself I developed a plan to use all the free time I had left
in exploring the snow and trying to find this man. I started the day
after. I trekked through the knee-deep blanket of snow until I reached
the Ocean. I had to pass through a forest of what looked like lanky
Christmas trees. They stretched up for ever and when I stopped and
stared up they seemed like they were pointing to Heaven, like endless
bristled train tracks with a jarring, crystal light shimmering through
between them from far above. There were smallish groups of trees
scattered around all over the place but when I approached the water
there was just a vast stretch of snow following it both ways for as far
as I could see. That first day I walked north. I followed the line of
the ocean, about fifty feet inwards, for a couple of hours. I saw
absolutely nothing. By the time I decided to turn back I couldn't feel
my fingers, even though they were covered in two different pairs of
gloves. I had some thick Thinsulate ones which were supposed to be
excellent and underneath a pair of thin woollen gloves with different
coloured fingers that my Gran must have sneaked into my suitcase before
I left. I had to admit, they were quite cool.
For another few weeks I would leave the huts and walk to the water.
Once there I would decide which way to go. Sometimes I'd go south,
where I would often see pairs of men in skins with strings or bags of
fish. The funny thing was, they never seemed to notice me, let alone
show surprise that I was there. A white man in vivid, plastic clothes
just wandering around in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes I would go
with Jaka to get the fish, although he wouldn't let me watch him fish,
he made me stop at a certain place while he carried on. An hour or so
later he would come back with a load of fat, grey fish. I'll say this
for him, he was good at his job. The fish were invariably long and
chunky specimens, as if he had just selected the best ones from a
seaside fishmongers. These walks were excellent ways to spend time even
though there was no chance of finding this whale-burier as I had set
out to do. By the time I returned to the huts each day I was absolutely
famished and contentedly tired. I had a job trying to quench that
bastard of an appetite though, so I asked Jaka to get more fish. He
said there was no need but did as I told him.

We reached the final third of the expedition, leaving only a month to
go. It was also the birthday of one of the scientists so we had a bit
of a party in their hut. I don't know where they got it from but they
had some fucking chocolate and champagne. Of course, I asked them to
tell me but they wouldn't. I ended up smashing some kind of radar or
scanner and storming out. All I could hear as I stomped back to my own
hut was the scientists jabbering to each other and Jaka's deep growl of
a laugh. The pitch black night was so silent I could hear the
individual pieces of snow crushing beneath my boots. I stood there for
a while and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness the outline of trees
became more visible and the sky seemed to grow before me. It became
infested with stars, there were so many I could barely see the
darkness. Well, I was fucking ecstatic after that piece of shit party
but looking at the sky as it developed above me just made me happy to
be where I was.
The next day I went walking on my own, along the icy coastline to the
north. I stopped in my tracks when I saw smoke rising in the distance,
blowing towards me. I could also hear the faintest trace of some chant
or song. I was frightened, in case this was a sort of ritual that I
shouldn't be intruding on. So, I ducked into the thin line of trees
that ran north and slowly made my way towards the smoke. As I
approached I could make out the scene more clearly. There was a large
dark mass, like a giant pebble, surrounded by steel buckets or vats.
Whatever was in those buckets was on fire, creating the thick smoke
that reeked of something deathly. Sitting in the snow at one end of the
pebble was a yeti, or it fucking looked like it to me. The creature was
covered in white fur and had a massive grey beard. The sounds I'd heard
were coming from this creature. It sounded like a language similar to
the one Jaka used but in a way totally different. I waited in the
trees, watching and listening. To be honest, if there was anything in
me to shit it would have been in my pants. I was so scared but I just
couldn't leave, until I realised I was late for dinner and started to
re-trace my steps back through the trees, leaving a flask to mark my
find. It wasn't until I was nearly back to camp that I recognised I had
been to that spot before and seen nothing. Nevermind the creature or
the smoke, how could a giant pebble just appear from nowhere? Then I
thought of the pebble, examined it in my mind and knew what the pebble
was?one.. big.. motherfucker.. of a whale.

I burst open the cabin door and shook Jaka out of his fat man
slumber.
'I saw him!'
'Nn. Mm.'
'Wake up you lazy sod!'
'What?'
'I saw the yeti, the whaleman. I saw the whale.'
'I not think so.'
'He had about eight buckets with smoke. What is he?'
'Ah. You see him. He he, you see him.'
'What was he doing? What is he? Answer me.'
'Ok, ok. I tell you.'
'What was he doing?'
'Getting ready for the burial.'
'How do you bury a whale?'
'Not ask me.' He shrugged.
'What is he?'
'The whale-burier. Are you crazy?'
'No. Is he a human?'
'He he he. He he ha. No, he is a whale. His penis as big as whales. He
he.'
'Shut up!. Tell me, is he a man?'
'Of course he is a man, what else is he?'
'Is he an Eskimo, like you?'
'No. Not like me.'
'What language was he using? It didn't sound like yours.'
'He speaks all languages.'
'Yours?'
'Yes.'
'English. Does he speak English?'
'Yes. He speaks all languages.'
'How does he bury the whale.'
'I not know. Before dawn. He old man. Here before us.'
'Yeah. He looked old. He must be sixty at least.'
'No. Not him. The whale-burier. Here before us, before all of
us.'
'So, what, is he ancient?'
'His people, they are old. I am hungry, your masters be back soon. You
make food.'
'Ok. I will. I'll make the food.' I left it there. I was beyond
intrigued by what Jaka had told me. While I boiled the fish I couldn't
help thinking about this strange beast-man who planned to bury that
huge pebble. It was impossible. Impossible.

The next morning I was out before the scientists had finished their
breakfast. They also told me that we would have fresh supplies in the
near future. With my hunt for the whale-burier and the promise of
plastic vegetables in the next few days I felt elated as I strode
across the snow. The sun itself seemed to be shining brighter and
hotter and it was a shame when I reached the dense silence of the tall
trees. I couldn't believe it when I reached the flask. According to
that the whale should have been no more than a hundred yards in front
of me. I stepped out from the trees and scanned the water-line but
there was nothing, absolute fuck all in sight. I thought it was a
mistake, I walked both ways for nearly an hour and was utterly pissed
off when I found no trace of the whale or its burier. I flopped onto
the floor and let fly a violent string of abusives. Then, like a hungry
lion at a fresh carcass, I buried my face in the snow, and started to
eat it.
I woke up shivering and felt for my pulse, it was slower than a snail
on cannabis. I removed my hood and head gear to let the sun on my face
which was numb to the touch. I remembered Jaka telling me the worst
thing to do when you were wet in the snow was to stay wet. Even if it
was freezing I had to let my skin and hair dry. When I felt the heat I
thanked God it was so warm on that day of all days, and hedging my
bets, thanked short-sighted governments too. Who said global warming
was shit? As I started to walk back I noticed some markings on the ice
near the water. They were lines leading to the edge, in uneven and
sketchy patterns. I would have stayed and looked around further but
knew I had to get back or I would be in trouble. The trek to the camp
was longer than I remembered. I had no energy and was soon so cold that
I had to cover my head again, even though that didn't seem to lessen
the shivering. I saw the darkness descending from out to sea like a
depressing wave, destined to reach me before I found land. Then I saw a
figure approaching from in front of me. For a few moments, I imagined
it to be death, or the Michael-burier. Some half-human figure to watch
over my final hours of life, to shepherd my soul to another land and
dispose of my useless, earthly remains. I fell to my knees and waited.
The figure approached in silence and with pure joy in my heart I
recognised who it was.
'He he. No time to sleep, you crazy man.' He shouldered my weight and
we walked for an interminable time until we finally reached the
camp.

Eight days passed like a series of disturbing dreams before I was able
to leave my bed again. The main thing I remember is the feeling of
being pulled from a dark and warm womb-like cave into a kind of
stagnant desert, surrounded by corpses and a horrific buzzing noise.
Then I recall a total blankness, not like space but like death,
non-existence. It was grey and endless, I could move wherever I wanted
in a split-second but it meant nothing. It was all the same. Towards
the end of that time I remember seeing Jaka often. His face was like
that of an angel after my journeys to total loneliness and hell. A
hairy, red-nosed, fat-cheeked messenger of God. During my time of
convalescence my angel or his cousin, who had been bought to camp to
take over the difficult art of fish preparation, were nearly always at
my side. One day I asked Jaka how he had known where I was.
'Your tracks,' he said.
'But I'd been gone for hours. How were the tracks still fresh? Because
it didn't snow?'
'Yes. But even if it rained snow, I would know.'
'So, if I was gone for a day, and it snowed all day, you would still
have found me?'
'Yes. But you would be dead.'
'How can you follow tracks that aren't there?'
'For my people, they are.'
'How. Fucking how?'
'I don't know. If you cannot see them you will die. Your people cannot
see them. You do not belong here.'
'How did you learn English?'
'I helped the sciencemen when I was small. Now I am big, I learn
English.'
'Do you like us coming here? I mean do you want us here?'
'You come and you go. Then more come. Then they go. It means
nothing.'
'How did the whale-burier bury the whale in one night.'
'I not know.'
'Can you take me to him, Jaka?'
'No. I not know what he knows.'
'Can't you follow his tracks.'
'He make no tracks. I catch fish now. Inik will help you until I am
back.'
The more I thought about the whale-burier the more I was desperate to
know his secret, to know who he was. With only two weeks left before we
were due to leave I knew I would have only one chance in my life. I
organised for Inik to take my place for the rest of the expedition, the
scientists weren't happy but in the end they had no choice. I told Jaka
I was going to find the whale-burier and he could help me or not. The
very next day he returned from a fishing trip and came over to me with
a maniacal glint in his eyes.
'Crazy man. You want to find other crazy man?'
'Yes. Please help me.'
He told me one of his cousins had seen the whale-burier heading south
recently, if I wanted to find him I should follow. He took me to his
cousin's where I was to spend the night. That man had more family than
Don Corleone.

I was given directions that consisted in the most basic terms of
following the line of the water until I found the whale-burier. I can
do that, I thought, I've been following the coastline for long enough
now. Shit, was I wrong. The first thing I noticed was that after a few
hours I was further south than I'd ever been in Skipsik. I thought it
would get warmer but the wind came from nowhere, it stung my face and
nearly crushed my eyes shut. I had plenty of water and warm clothes.
But, I was extremely hungry and had only raw fish. I had no way to cook
it and didn't fancy becoming an ancient Eskimo if I didn't have to. The
cold and tiredness were really starting to bite through me when I saw a
small hut, smaller than any I'd seen on the trip. I headed for it and
knocked weakly on the door. An old man answered, he looked older than
Jaka by a few years, which would put him around 50. I smiled and
offered him some fish. He seemed to understand and stepped aside to let
me enter. Inside were two younger men with the same slightly oriental
eyes and erratic dark hair that Jaka had. I gave them the fish and sat
down on the wooden floor. They knew no English but luckily for me were
speaking the dialect that Jaka spoke. I knew there were two main
languages of the people, divided into many different dialects. Thanks
to the not wholly flattering terms for 'stupid' and 'white man' I
gathered that this was similar, if not the same, to the language that
Jaka spoke. So, after one particularly hearty burst of laughter from
the men, presumably aimed at me, I broke my silence.
'Hello.'
The two younger men looked at each other with a fearful bewilderment
but the old man just stared at me blankly, for a few seconds I
considered that I may be in a mess. Was it best to run or fight? Then,
to my relief, he laughed out loud and returned my greeting. The other
two still looked shocked but the old man started talking to me like an
old friend. After convincing him that in reality I couldn't actually
speak his language apart from a few words or sentences he gradually
grew as bemused as the others. Two hours later, I had managed to get
some information out of him. We were in a resting place for fishermen
who travelled here to find the best fish. The old man and his sons had
spent two days there and were leaving for home in the morning. He
showed me an entire sack of shiny, fat fish and also told me he could
make many more sons when he gave fish like these to the local women. I
told him that was nice and tried to explain my situation. One of the
younger men, when he heard the word whale-burier, grew excited and
started talking to his father. He then managed to tell me that his son
had seen the whale-burier that morning and pointed to the south. I felt
one step closer to the end of this journey that began the moment I
arrived at the airport and met the expedition team. For all that they
tried to discover about life I could never imagine them next to these
men. They could never be content with the answer they had.

The old man woke me before dawn to say goodbye. I offered him a fish
from my supply, to which he gave me three in return. So, I gave him my
gloves with different coloured fingers. I watched them head off inland
and packed up all my stuff. I had more food than I'd set off with and
felt good because even if I didn't find the whale-burier that day I
knew of a safe place to stay in the night. However, as I started south
I froze. Far away, rising directly out of the tree line, I could see
the unmistakable sign of smoke. I jumped up and down with a childish
joy, wasted half of my energy doing it, and then started off at a
trudging pace.
Again I approached through the trees, slowly coming upon the same
scene as I had before. This time the pebble, or whale, was smaller, but
the other things were the same. I sat concealed and watched for an
hour, not really wanting to approach this giant man who was, quite
evidently, a bit on the eccentric side. Then, he abruptly stopped and
walked away from me. He went into the trees about fourty yards ahead of
where I was. I waited until he was definitely gone and tip-toed
anxiously to the body. I circled it, feeling its rugged smoothness and
thinking about the life it had led in the ocean, covering more of the
earth in a year than I ever had, or would. With my hand already on its
huge belly I pressed my head against it and felt like sleeping. As I
leant against it, I felt it move, my body was pushed back and forth,
minutely and sluggishly. I realised it was breathing. I walked to the
front of the creature and knelt by its head. I could see its black eyes
open and suffered an instant urge to push it back into the water.
Breathing deep and summoning all my strength I began to press against
it, willing the stupid beast to help me. No matter how hard I tried I
just couldn't move it.
'What are you doing?' He spoke in a gentle but deep voice, in perfect
English.
'I..uh, trying to save it.'
'Please leave.'
'No, I've come this far to meet you.'
The whale-burier stepped up to me. Face to face he was no man. He was
well over six foot tall and had a deadly threat in his eyes. But, his
voice seemed more in pain than in warning.
'You are the whale-burier?'
'That is what they call me.'
'What who calls you?'
'The people of the snow. You call them Eskimoes.'
'So what do you call yourself?'
'Leave.'
'Sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I'll go.'
'Then you are a man.'
I walked off, under the spell of that wild man who spoke like a
character in an old novel. I had the sincere feeling that I had wasted
my chance, but then I thought, what of my chance? There is an animal,
or not an animal, something I know has more intelligence and feeling
than an animal, alone and struggling towards death in an alien land. I
felt no sorrow for myself, no regret.
'I only wanted to help it. I just wanted to help it.' I shouted, and
carried on.
'But you knew you couldn't.'
'Yes, but I still wanted to. Even if it was pointless, it doesn't
deserve to die like that.'
'Now you are not a man. Would you like to sit with me?'
I went and sat next to him. Until the light had faded he sat in the
snow, dressed in white furs, and sang animal-like songs, in a language
I had never heard, that reminded me of the howling of the snow-wolves I
could hear sometimes in the camp. I sat slightly behind him, at first
examining the whale that lay dying on the ice. Its hard skin and heavy
body beaten down by the lightness of the air. I saw in its eyes a
knowledge of what was to come, and at severe risk of sounding like a
cheesy spiritual fool, a knowledge of what had been. Its unhurried and
desperate breathing acquiesced as the evening sun sucked its light back
up into space, taking back from the landscape any element of control,
any sense of hope. Then I watched the whale-burier. He was part of the
snow, dulling as it dulled, his chants disappearing into silence as the
final light fell away. When he stood up he was immense against the
black trees.
'We must go now.'
We walked away from the dead whale and through the trees. After about
20 minutes we came across a small cabin, similar to the one I had
stayed in the previous night. It was empty and cold but the
whale-burier soon had a small fire lit from the stored wood. Sitting
opposite him, the burning orange fire highlighted the ferocity in his
face. I didn't want to break the silence so we just sat there for a
while.
'What are you doing here?'
'I'm with a science expedition. I'm the cook.'
'What do you want to ask me?' I couldn't think of anything now that I
was there, so I said what came into my head.
'Can you speak every language?'
'No, just some. You are wondering how my English is so correct
also?'
'Yes. I mean, aren't you from here?'
'I grew up with the Lapps. But from an early age I knew I was not one
of them. This is the land of my people, however we are not what you
call the Eskimoes. As for the English, I left Norway to study in
Europe. I was a scientist. I learnt many languages, I travelled to many
places.'
'You were a scientist? You don't strike me as very scientific, the
whales and all that.'
'I said I was a scientist. I am not any more. You would not understand
it if I told you, or you would not believe it. I have seen more than
you will ever know. I have studied with the greatest scientists of our
age, the most enlightened age in history you will agree?'
'Well yeah, I suppose so.'
'And we know nothing. We must go soon, my people will be here.'
'Your people, here? Who are they, I have only ever seen Eskimoes
here?'
'My people were here long before the Eskimoes. They came over land, we
by water. It is said that after the last world ended a whale guided us
to this land and told my people to begin again. That was a long time
ago.'
'Yeah, I'll bet it was. They don't seem to talk to humans much now, do
they? Can I ask you why you do what you do with the dead whales?'
'Thousands of years ago they began to come here and die. We do not know
why. All we know is that they do not want to. For a whale to die on
land is not natural. They must be returned to the water so their spirit
will sink to the earth.'
'So, that's where you come in.'
'Yes, and many before me. But it is becoming harder. The whale is
dying. Now it is almost too much for my people to contend with. What is
the one thing that science has taught us?'
'Er, I don't know. That there isn't any God.'
'We do not need science for that. But now, at this stage, this
so-called enlightened stage in history, we know that our world is dying
and that we are responsible.'
'Do you mean global warming and nuclear weapons and that?'
'I do not know how the world will end, but it will. No previous world
has been destroyed by man, it is the job of nature. For man to destroy
his own earth, to take away all life, it should not happen.'
'Hang on, isn't it the Aztecs or something who believe there has been
other worlds before this?'
'The Mayan people and their ancestors were left a legacy of the time
before them. My people are from that time. When the earth shifted and
the ice came we had to leave our home. That is how we came here.'
'How do you know all this? Wouldn't most scientists call you a crazy
man?' At this he stood up and turned away. When he looked back his face
seemed dead with sadness.
'Does not an elder know more of life than a new-born?' He paused, 'Did
not a man born two thousand years ago know more of peace than
scientists know now? Man is a fool.'
'Jesus?' He said nothing, 'But you said God didn't exist.'
'Jesus is no God. He is?he is your version of the Mayan legacy. His
teachings are from a past before history. His descendants are still
young, they think they know what they do not. They ignore the past,
looking anywhere else for an answer. It is time to go.'
We left the cabin and walked back to the whale. It was so dark I could
hardly see but I followed my new friend. When we arrived at the dead
whale I was shocked to see about thirty men, all dressed like the
whale-burier, and all of a similarly huge height and stature.
'These are my people. They will help. This is known as a Bowhead Whale.
It is a gentle and intelligent creature that has been on this earth far
longer than even my people have. This one is young. There must be
something wrong for a whale like this to make the effort to die in a
strange, hostile land. Do you not agree?'
'Yes, I agree.'
He spoke to the men in that strange language and they started to move
about and shout. I noticed that there were ropes tied around the whale,
most of the men picked these up and stood ready to pull the corpse to
the water. I knew that couldn't work but didn't say anything. Then the
whale-burier and several other men picked up the ropes that had been
put out and started to pour the contents onto the ice, some between the
water and the whale and some behind it. The men with the ropes began to
pull and like it was the easiest thing in the world the body started to
slide towards the water. The men moved to the side and in a few seconds
the body slid into the ocean with a huge splash. I had never seen
anything like it. The whale-burier turned to me.
'You do not know the laws of friction? Your people have known them for
hundreds of years. We for thousands.'
'But, what was in the buckets? That whale must have been 30 foot
long!'
He didn't answer me. Instead he shouted to the men who walked off and
not far away I noticed there were several wooden boats on the ice. The
men pushed them into the water and paddled away. As I watched them I
had the strangest feeling I was seeing something ancient, something
unchanged from a time I had no knowledge of.
The whale-burier started to walk back on the path he had taken to the
cabin. I followed. When we arrived the fire was still burning and
suddenly I felt so tired I wanted to just collapse and sleep.
'I wish you well in your expedition, Mikhail.'
'How did you know my name?'
'I have spoken with your friend, Jaka.'
'Ha. The cheeky bastard.'
'He is a good man. His people are not like yours. They seek no answers
where there are none to be found.'
'Yeah, but don't the Inuits, the Eskimoes, don't they hunt
whales?'
'Yes, and I cannot change that. But they respect the earth. They do not
kill for pleasure or to conquer. Only to survive.'
'If the world is dying, why don't you try to stop it, tell people? And
why have I not heard of your people?'
'I am only one man. I can only live as I choose to. If my people were
to enter your world, would you listen, would you change? Nicholas, if
you spent 20 years building a house for your family and on the day it
was completed a crazy old man walked past and told you to knock it
down, would you?'
'No, because if I've got that far I wouldn't want to throw it
away.'
'Even if the old man told you the foundations were unstable?'
'No.' I looked down at the floor, I knew exactly what he was
saying.
'Good. We must sleep now.'
'One more question. How did you go from being a scientist to a
whale-burier?'
'I learnt something.'
'What?'
'It is something simple and obvious. Do you really want me to tell
you?'
'I'm a man. I don't do simple and obvious. Please, tell me what you
learnt.'
'Alright. I learnt that if you ignore your past you have no future.' I
thought about that for a bit, then as I was about to speak I was beaten
to it.
'You have had your question. Goodbye, Nicholas.'
'You mean goodnight.'

In the morning I awoke to complete silence. I quickly looked around
the room but there was nobody there. Then I thought, are there any
spiders in Greenland? I expected to see cobwebs or some other signs of
disuse in the cabin in daylight. But, it smelt and looked as fresh as a
baby's shit. Well, it smelt fresh but in a nice way. I was suspicious
as to whether the last day's events had really happened so I walked
towards the ocean through the trees. When I got there I knew the whale
had to have been buried somewhere to the north in the next mile or so.
I headed that way, head down and scanning for signs. After a few
minutes I saw something that made me smile. There were lines, more like
scrapes, made into the ice and leading to the sea.

'Hello, my friend. Have you had a good vacation? We have work like
crazy men. You have missed a science discovery.'
'Hello, Jaka. I missed you too. I hope you and Inik have kept the
scientists fed while I was away.'
'Ya. But you have missed a disovery. They have a rock that helps them.
It is fantastic. It is small and grey but they act like it is body of a
young woman. Crazy men.'
'I don't care. Can you cook a fish for me, with fire? I've grown to
like the taste of raw, warm fish.'
'Ok, But you must put some in water for me. I am hungry. I like yours
in the water.'
'Sure, I'd boil you a fucking egg if I could. You want a fucking egg? I
really want to make you a poached egg. You'd love it.'
'I not understand. What is an ek?'
'Aah, don't worry, Jaka. Just cook me a fish and wake me up when it's
ready. Ok?'
'Ok! Then you tell me about your vacation and if you see any crazy men.
Inik! A fish for Mr. Mikhail!'