There’s been a short story floating in my brain since I visited the New Orleans aquarium, about courage among sharks, rays who speak in poetry and finish each others couplets and a lonely sawfish who somehow knew exactly how many sawfish there are in the world and knew exactly when another one died. I haven’t been able to write it down yet, have only told three people about it. There’s always this weird fear when you really love an idea that your pitiful attempt to capture it will tarnish the hell out of it, like a four-year-old trying to draw a picture of their family, making arms that stick straight out of necks and giant mantis legs for the adults. Even though I know that I’m being stupid and I should just force myself to write the damn story, not expect brilliance out of a rough draft, I don’t. I know that once I trap it, it will be bound by the margins of the page, never more than what I can manage to capture in the first rough draft. If I let it go, it will become its own thing, and all I can do after that is try to clean up the rough spots. But right now, that story is magic. Right now, that story can breathe underwater. Instead I keep visiting new aquariums, trying to recapture the awe of watching those taciturn giants swim in their glass bowl of ocean that if you stood close enough, water filled the entirety of your peripheral vision and you could stare into eyes that seemed to understand.
A brave skeleton crew of zoologists and marine biologists stayed on through the worst of the winds and flooding. When the electricity went out, they had the generators running the pumps, which oxygenated the water and kept the animals alive. They were forced to leave the facility only when threatened by violence from the roving gangs.
The generators overheated. The pumps stopped.
The sharks. Those big primordial bull sharks that managed to make a deadly five hundred pounds move as though they were performing ballet. Gone now.
The jellies. The rays. The big ancient sawfish. Over 1500 animals. Gone. I’ve spent most of the day surreptitiously crying into the putty-colored walls of my cubicle.
Sometimes it’s really hard to believe in the grace of humanity.
Donations to help the Aquarium, which expects to be closed for at least a year, are being collected here. If you donate to this cause, send me a copy of the receipt as well as your mailing address and I will send you a mix CD. Donate more than $50 and I’ll include an 8×10 print of one of my photographs, either one that is on my Flickr page or that has appeared on this site, your choice. Donate $100 or more and get the above, plus I’ll call you and thank you personally.
Photo taken by Cliff Wright at the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans, July 2005.
