🌊Telling Keiko

01 Apr, 2024

First Draft Created: 2024-04-02

Last Updated: 1 month, 3 weeks ago

a.k.a “The Kid”

Inspired by the story of Keiko the orca, the titular actor of *Free Willy, whose movies and real-life story raised awareness of the conditions of orcas raised in captivity, whose tragic failed rehabilitation taught much about the immense difficulties in returning these orcas to the wild.*

“You’ve been lied to, Keiko. I’m sorry.”

The lovely human’s voice to Keiko’s right broke, as they, silhouetted against the bright floodlights beside the tank, turned their head towards those glaring lights rather than look at the hopeful orca’s face.

Then Davo had to turn their head away from those lights and instead rested it along their right arm, laid over their bent knee, while their left leg trailed misleadingly lazily in the tank water where they had placed it to summon Keiko by splashing, as if this was just another visit.

Keiko looked up at the trainer's outline, his face ever-hopeful and unbearably trusting, and now registering, to Davo’s imagination, anyway, confusion.

“I don’t understand!” he said, his childlike voice registering his youthful naivete and a slight rise of anxiety. “They did everything! I mean, I was good! And so even though they had to go away they came back! They came back! And this time they brought me with them and put me in a bigger home right next door to the ocean! It's such a big tank but they keep me safe, see? I get to be in the sea but still be safe! I'm in the sea just like real whales, but with my family! And we're all happy here now, look! We're a family again, and I have everything I need here, everything! I have so much space! And I can swim so far now! Look!”

He suddenly took off, racing his way down to the far end of the enclosure, turning around, and whipping back, ever faster, until he finally stopped short of the trainer, dousing them with spray, which usually made them laugh, and when there had been many people visiting his old home and the performance tank on land before, had made them clap.

The human just sat there in their wetsuit, basically unmoving, unreacting, just letting out a slow, deep sigh, seemingly defeated by life. Keiko was unnerved. Where was the clapping? Why were the people here always too busy to watch him play, like humans had before?

Keiko didn’t want to believe that something was wrong. This must be some sort of game, like the ones he’d played in his smaller house. Sometimes they would put on a whole play about cleaning up the ocean, this place Keiko finally had a house in: his big relocation tank, located alongside the humans and inside the wider expanse (which he was so grateful for, of course), though back then it had been his small home, his tank at the aquarium, where Keiko would pick up objects for a cheering audience, to teach them about picking up their own objects out of the ocean and not leaving them there.

Those fun games had involved pretending too, and everybody loved them. Also sometimes the trainer acted like nothing was going on, like it was a regular chat, and then produced some fish, seemingly out of nowhere, as a lovely surprise! Though Keiko had learned that the fish usually only came out if there was a cooler nearby. Maybe there was always a cooler. He couldn't always see it from his place in the water, and he had seldom had to jump, given the humans had always gave him the food that he needed during those performances, as well as outside of them.

The trainer wasn't being their usual self today. Keiko raised himself slightly in the water to peer past the trainer, trying to catch a glimpse of whether the small cooler was nearby. There was nothing. No fish. Just as he'd thought. He supposed it was coming later.

Admittedly, it wasn't just the trainer who was seeming different. Nothing about this place - while preferable and far more comfortable than his last home- was familiar.

Keiko hadn't been given any lessons, rather, he'd been encouraged to go out and do his own thing! It was fun - more fun than doing all the things he'd used to do in a smaller tank - but he missed the attention from humans. Which was why he'd sought them out by the shore and in boats when he did go out.

“No.” The trainer finally spoke. “You weren’t meant to be in here. You were never meant to be in captivity. And now it may be too late.”

Keiko still didn’t understand.

“But it’s so nice here! Didn’t you see how far I can swim? And they even let me out now! I can go ALL OVER THERE.” He jerked his head back out of the water, to indicate the ocean outside the tank.

“You never go far, though” the trainer observed.

“No, why would I?” Did the trainer detect an edge of panic? “My family is here! You take care of me! I’m just so glad we get to spend time together at last!” He settled down a bit lower in the water with a happy sigh.

“Do you know why we went away?”

“You were busy. Humans always have to work. I wouldn’t want to be one. But you came to see me! Sometimes. When you could. It was less than when I had all those people and we played all those games though. But I’m glad you came back and fetched me, and now we’re in such a nice home together! We have so much space to swim!” He turned his head slightly so he could look at the trainer more clearly with his left eye.

“Why don’t humans generally want to swim anyway? It’s only you here who swims with me. The rest all seem busy. Though I saw some by the sandy place, when they sent me out swimming.” The bay they sometimes called it, or the beach.

Keiko was unconsciously changing the subject, the trainer realised. He didn’t realise it, but the trauma of that time made him not want to dwell on those memories of being in the tank, languishing alone.

“You need to go out more.” The trainer said suddenly, standing up decisively.

Keiko felt a sudden rush of panic at the thought of them leaving, reminiscent of those darker old days he tried to block out, of when the trainer was away for longer and longer periods, where them leaving meant it would be a long time before they returned, and that Keiko was trapped, alone in his small house, where he could barely move, and without people to talk to him.

That was before they’d taken him to this new house and wanted to be around him again. He didn’t know what he’d done wrong before - they’d never told him - but maybe he’d finally been good enough for them to want him with them again.

They're not going far, he reminded himself. Now we’re together. We’re a family! And there are people, all around! Even though they didn’t want to talk or play much. It seemed only the trainer actually wanted to talk to him and listen to what he had to say.

“I do! They let me out so much! Now I think they even left the gate open on purpose so I go out more! Though I don’t want to. I’m worried they’ll close the gate again. I don’t want you to leave without me.”

“You should go out further, I mean. And try harder to meet more whales.”

“More whales?" now Keiko really seemed panicked. "They don’t like me though! And they’re scary! They’re not gentle like you!”

“Still. We’re trying to teach you to survive out here. You need to get better at hunting, and at spending more time with others like you. That’s how orcas survive in the wild. There’ll be no one to give you fish, so you need to learn!”

The kid will never understand, Davo thought. Somehow, they still thought of the now-adult orca as a kid, perhaps because in many ways he had never matured. His isolation had kept him from growing up, being socialised by adult orcas to survive with them in a pod, in orca society, and to be able to hunt.

Keiko started splashing, moving himself up and down agitatedly, causing little waves to hit the side of the human “habitat” tank. Even more like a kid Davo thought.

“No! They’re scary! And I can’t live by myself! That’s scary too! Do you know how big the ocean is? One day I went out and just kept swimming and swimming and it was so far! I almost lost you! That's why I stayed back here for so long and didn't want to go out for weeks!”

“You didn’t go that far. We tracked you. We watched you. But we were impressed, nonetheless. We hoped that this meant you were going to start going out more, but then you started spending more time with us again and wanting us to feed you. Even though we tried to teach and encourage you to hunt for yourself.

"And you wouldn’t be living by yourself. You need to learn their customs, their hierarchies, and how they hunt. Orcas are social animals. You’d be living with a pod, not alone, like you were. Wouldn’t that be nicer than when you were in the tank, alone for so long?”

Davo hated the manipulation, hated invoking Keiko's trauma, but this was the reality. The orca would have to learn to survive in the ocean. Davo did not want to think about what would happen to him if he didn't. But if he did... well, orcas lived long and happy lives out in the ocean. They were apex predators. They were meant to be.

“They bully me.” Keiko said stubbornly. “And I’m happy now! Yes being alone was awful, but you’re all here now! You came back for me! I knew you would! I knew! The whale shook his head and himself from side to side insistently, causing more splashes, and the trainer could tell from his agitation that he was trying to block out thoughts and memories from before.

Keiko didn’t remember, didn’t want to remember how depressed he had been. The fawning instinct over his human “pod” was strong, as was his need to belong with them, to be taken care of. To survive with a family. The only problem was, it was the wrong one. But it was the one he had been taught was his.

“You don’t know their culture. But this is what I’ve been worried about. Maybe it’s too late for you to learn.”

The trainer sounded so dejected that Keiko felt the urge to comfort them.

“I met more humans though!” he said brightly.

Davo froze. “Humans?”

“Yes! On my swims out, I like to talk to them when I see them out in their boats, and sometimes I like to go close to the shore when they’re out there! OK… actually I go to the shore a lot. Humans like to stay on the shore and they can’t swim far without a boat. But, you see? I don't need the whales! I'm making lots of family and they all like me!”

Davo’s tense voice betrayed their worry. “You … shouldn’t be doing that. They should have told me that you went there. We need to train that out of you.”

“But it’s good, right? I’m making more family! To help me survive, like you said! Maybe even a new… pod?” His voice grew whiny. “I like humans. Why can’t they be my pod? They like me better!”

Keiko still didn’t understand the benefit of this “survive” thing. He had everything he needed right here! They were a home, a family! Admittedly, he didn’t know most of them. Still, the presence of these people in their lab coats carrying strange equipment and talking to each other was comforting, reminding him of the days humans had visited the aquarium.

And here he had his food, and his amazing new big enclosure, where he could even go outside when he felt like braving the real ocean outside of his rehabilitation enclosure.

But he wouldn’t go too far. It was too scary. This was home. Lovely people had raised him, had loved him even when they couldn’t come to see him - he knew it!

The lovely people would always be his family.

He was sure that things would work out this time. They had to.

This time, the people would stay. People loved him, people were there for him, and he didn’t need those scary other whales, who bullied him and whose culture he didn't understand and whose language he couldn't speak.

The humans would have to keep him.

Things were definitely going to work out, and they would be a family again.

He was sure of it!

Thanks for reading!

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#animalrights #serious #👥third-person #📚Story-like #🦄fantasy