Floating

Don was swimming casually, watching his surroundings for the occasional jellyfish, tasty fellas those were. Don’s flippers were extended beside him to take advantage of the current he was riding, if there was someone who mastered the art of gliding the laziest it would be a turtle, that was his opinion at least.

In a moment of happenstance he looked up and saw a strange floating object, it looked like some dead coral pretending to be a rock with a glaring low rate of success. He approached the underside to inspect the finding, just in case there were small delicacies still hiding on it, but all he found were some barnacles and small algae.

While pecking the algae he noticed the strange coral was slowly sinking, keeping up with its position escalated to a mild annoyance but it wouldn’t stand between Don and his meal. He positioned himself to the side to stay out of the way of the coral’s vertical advances.

But as the coral submerged Don had to face the fact that the formerly emerged part of the coral had nothing to eat, not even loose pieces of coral, preposterous!

The current around the coral started to grow erratic as it sunk increasingly faster, Don was forced to make some distance from the offending object.

Now that the algae was not worth it anymore he allowed himself to pay some attention to less important things, like sounds coming from the top of the coral, some animal seemed to be on top of it and was bellowing in distress, or performing an extravagant matting call.

As the top of the coral reached the water line a selection of objects that rested on top of it started to float away, very colorful and interesting misshapen twigs and floating rocks, nothing alive with the exception of the noisy land animal, who stood mostly above water positioning itself on top of one of the floating things.

Don poked his head above water to sniff some of the thingamabobs, nothing smelled as food as he knew it, some smelled like potential food though. A couple bites on suspicious looking jellyfish-shaped and food-colored things made him regret the decision.

With nothing of interest above water and the odd coral on its way to the bottom of the ocean, he turned his attention to the animal, he hadn’t seen many of those in his life but those were usually much more gracious. Wait, looking now this one didn’t have the tube appendage on its back nor had those long crooked feet, he decided he had never seen one of these before.

Resigned to its fate, the castaway noticed him when he approached it for a sniff. “Hey, buddy, bad day too?”

Don didn’t understand its rambling but welcomed the decrease in sonority levels, it sounded less threatening.

It was not a large creature, about as long as Don if he stretches his neck but much thinner. Reflecting about before, he recognized that maybe it was actually screaming a distress call, it was too clumsy to not be a young calf, lost from its flock. Don decided to stick around for a while, just to see what would happen to the poor animal. In fact, why keep calling it animal? “I’ll call you Pem”, he thought proudly.

Pem spend a few minutes fishing some of the floating rocks with a twig and placing them on top of another larger floating rock tied to its own with a unappetizing vine. What it didn’t get its paws on was quickly drifting away, the latest of the objects was just a small fish too far but Pem insisted, “come on, water, i need you” it grumbled as if the rock understood any more than Don himself, which was nothing, fruitless.

Don wondered what that was, he emerged close the object and nibbled at it, it had a tasteless and though exterior, why would anyone want this? But it was enough to push it towards to Pem, who immediately caught it and happily squeaked “thank you buddy, you’re saving me here”.

Pem looked around, nothing else was in its reach, and shuffled on its makeshift transportation with a sigh. “I should be fine if the wind takes me west” after observing one of its trinkets Pem splashed some water with a paw as if trying to drag its little vessel towards land, but Don could tell with just a glance that those paws were useless to move anywhere. Some cubs are so dependent of adults, Don couldn’t relate but was intrigued by the helpless being.

After some time Pem was exhausted and retreated its paws from the water, Don had been in a reef close by and had seen land from afar and they were quite a distance away, how had this cub gotten so far from its kind in the first place was a mystery.

Next morning came without a fuss, Don wouldn’t always be at Pem’s side but stayed close and checked on it every once in a while. Pem seemed to have developed some attachment to him, every time it noticed the turtle it would start making sounds like “you’re still here” or “good boy”. At some point Don suspected Pem was asking for food from the only adult nearby, him. Of course, it was only logical, a cub this feeble can’t feed itself like a little turtle could.

Don caught a fish with his mouth, making sure to not eat it by mistake, and brought it to the surface. He extended his neck towards Pem, who just looked puzzled, the fish struggling in his grip, “are you giving this to me, boy?” it chirped and tried to grab the fish with a paw. The moment he let it go the fish shook violently and the paw was not able to keep hold of it, it was a wonder how Pem had survived so far.

The second fish was practically dead when he brought it up and Pen was smart enough to use both paws this time, success!

Frankly, Pem was a messy eater, it threw away most of the skin, bones and innards of the fish into the water. Don didn’t complain though, the waste just attracted some more pray for himself, so he kept giving it a fish every now and then.

Four more days passed and Don noticed Pem got suddenly agitated, he put his head above water, a few meters away just in case there was any danger, and saw a large floating coral approaching, much larger than the one Pem was on before it sank.

Don watched from a safe distance while other creatures made noise on top of the coral, they looked like Pem, it was its flock, they lowered vines and one of them climbed it down and fetched the young one.

With Pem now safe and out of reach there was no more reason to dally around, he dived.