Tyronek
On hearing a baby Beluga whale vocalize
Tyronek is a baby beluga whale.
When his vocalization begins, twelve seconds of sound, three jade circles appear in my mind. Not the jade of stone or jewelry. Living jade. The deep glowing green of shallow ocean water where something warm and breathing moves just below the surface.
※ ※ ※
Three circles. All different sizes.
The largest leads. Bold and expansive, it fills the center of my vision, swaying side to side with a confidence that belongs only to something very young and entirely unself-conscious. Its edges blur outward as the sound peaks, soft and unhurried.
The medium circle weaves alongside it, nimbler, tracing arcs around the larger one in the same vivid jade, expanding and contracting with each vocalization.
The smallest darts at the edges. Quick and delicate, a tight jade ring that spins near the outer edges of the arrangement. At its core, a flash of silver. Brief, hidden, the way a spark catches light underwater before the water closes over it again.
Where the circles overlap the jade deepens. A watery glow, tender and alive.
※ ※ ※
Tyronek did not know he was making something.
Twelve seconds of breath and voice from a creature who has never heard the word beautiful and does not need to. That is the thing about this sound. It is not composed or performed or offered. It simply is. And what it produced in me was three jade circles, a hidden silver spark, and the feeling of being allowed briefly into something that was never meant for human ears.
※ ※ ※
When the sound stops, all three circles vanish at once.
Not gradually. Not the way music fades, the largest shape holding longest, the color thinning at its edges. Instantly. A clean disappearance, the jade gone between one breath and the next.
Twelve seconds.
Then nothing. Then the world again.
Adrian Adair