It was a few days after Las Vegas so our frayed nerves were still raw as we tried to get back to ‘normal’ while we were enjoying the first stint of laid-back camping on the California Coast. Los Osos, the name of a quaint water-edge town what meant the bears, but of course the last trace of wild bears in that area had been hunted down and murdered by rich California power-mongers a century ago. The largest wild mammal we encountered invoked a sad helplessness in all of us, awash on the dry rocks waiting crippled and baking in the sun for a tide that would never come. Obviously we’re no marine biologists, and this animal was severely battered, with a charred-looking rash covering most of its body. We thought it was dead when we first saw it lying on the high end of a rocky sloping inlet, and then it lifted its weary snout, opened its huge glossy black eyes and let out a heart-piercing yelp of suffering. Although it was deflated well below a healthy weight, the poor seal must have still weighed two hundred pounds, and in its sad state who knew if it had some sort of sea-rabies or aquatic dementia. We talked about trying to heave it back into the water, but then we would have had to watch it struggle and get battered by the pounding surf. The entire situation was horrible, a serious cloud of guilt hung over our heads for the rest of the cool sunny afternoon, conversation waned to mumbling about what we could have and should have done to help the doomed seal. With nothing left to do we continued to wander along the coast, scaling sharp rocks to stare into tide pools teeming with microcosms of weirdly harmonious sea life.
Max named the ill-fated seal Pepé, to whom this is dedicated.
July 2, 2008
Post a Comment