In a turn of events so utterly predictable that it would make a Greek tragedian roll their eyes, a whale has been found dead off the coast of a Danish island. The corpse follows a heroic but clearly doomed German rescue operation, a maritime misadventure that has left conservationists weeping into their fair-trade coffee and the rest of us wondering why we bothered turning on the news.
Let us set the scene. The North Sea, that grey and churning liquid graveyard, slaps against the shores of a world that has learned to expect nothing but bad tidings from its waves. Somewhere in this mess, a whale, a creature of magnificent stupidity and grace, wandered into the shallow suffocation of Danish waters. Enter the Germans. Oh, those noble plucky Teutons with their clipboards and hydrophones, their sense of order and their desperate need to impose meaning on a universe that clearly has none. They mounted a rescue. They applied science. They probably made a spreadsheet.
And it worked, as well as any plan that relies on the cooperation of a wild animal and a government budget works. Which is to say, not at all. The whale, displaying a level of existential defiance that would make Camus proud, promptly expired. Flopped over. Gave up the ghost. It washed ashore on some Danish island that was likely having a perfectly mediocre Tuesday afternoon.
Now, the experts are out in force, their faces long and their vocabularies full of portentous terms like 'stranding events' and 'habitat degradation.' Oh, spare me your hollow jargon. We all know what happened. A giant fish got lost, some people tried to help, and the universe responded with its usual indifference. The whale is dead. The rescuers are sad. The North Sea remains a cold, wet bastard.
But let us not overlook the sheer grim comedy of it all. A German rescue operation. In the North Sea. The very name sends a shiver of bureaucratic dread down one's spine. One can picture the planning meetings, the risk assessments, the laminated identification cards. And for what? To end up as a footnote in the dark pantheon of failed animal rescues, a cautionary tale about the hubris of trying to correct nature's mistakes.
And the Danes, those silent witnesses to this aquatic tragedy, have been left with a rotting whale on their doorstep. They will likely now face the delicate task of disposal a logistical nightmare involving explosives, tugboats, and the inevitable complaints from locals about the smell. Ah, democracy in action.
This story, my fellow citizens of this absurd planet, is a mirror held up to our own foolishness. We spend billions on space programmes, cure diseases, invent pocket-sized computers that contain all human knowledge. And yet, we cannot stop a whale from dying in a puddle. We throw our best efforts at the void and the void eats them for breakfast.
So raise a glass of whatever medicinal gin you have on hand to the dead whale, a martyr to our collective impotence. And to the Germans, whose noble failure reminds us that sometimes the most heroic act is to do absolutely nothing, especially when the sea is watching.
Biff Thistlethwaite, reporting from the edge of the bitter, unforgiving shore.
