February Prompts | Whale Day & Pluto Day
Help Us Save the Whales While Helping the Whales Save Pluto
Yes, you heard right; now let’s get going!
Happy World Whale Day! Happy Pluto Day!
Yes, two holidays, one day. February 18th.
But it’s not really happy. I just used it ’cause it’s idiomatic.
I can’t be happy on Whale Day or Pluto Day if the whales and Pluto aren’t. Happy, that is.
We know whales are unhappy because many of them are endangered. In spite of all of us armchair eco-warriors, we humans are the culprits.
It’s our fishing nets they get caught in.
It’s our toxic plastics that kill them.
Not to mention people who harpoon them for meat and blubber.
Now quit your blubbering, I’m not done.
Pluto’s unhappy, too.
It never got over being demoted in 2006. It’s no longer considered a full-fledged planet. At best it’s a dwarf planet.
Dwarf. Planet.
Isn’t that oxymoronic? Like military intelligence.
Also, what an insult. How can anything the size of a planet be described by the word dwarf? Elephants aren’t considered dwarves and they’re way smaller than even Pluto. So go figure.
It’s not only an insult to Pluto, it’s an insult to little people. If we wouldn’t use the word to refer to a person, how dare we use it to refer to a planet which is after all exponentially larger than even the biggest giant.
But it’s not just February 18th throwing whales and Pluto together.
Whales and Pluto have a symbiotic relationship.
Let me explain.
Whales are very, very, very sensitive creatures. And they can hear for thousands of miles.
Well, when Pluto got demoted back in ’06, he started crying.
You and I couldn’t hear him because we don’t hear sounds in his register. But whales do. Blue whales and Belugas in particular.
And they swam out to Pluto to comfort him.
What? Yes. Really.
They snuggled up against him and sang whale songs about being lonely and lost in the vast expanse of the briny deep. You’ve probably heard recordings of their mournful cries.
Akin to how we sing the blues.
Which may be why the blue whales volunteered for this mission of mercy. And the belugas, well, beluga sounds like blue. Especially when they whale. I mean wail.
Hearing them, Pluto perked right up. His spirits rose knowing someone cared about him. Cared enough to venture all the way to the outer reaches of the solar system where it’s hecka cold, damn lonely, and the oxygen’s thin to non-existent.
They couldn’t stay long for that reason. But they kept coming back again and again. You see, rubbing up against Pluto helped them get rid of those nasty barnacles who love to attach themselves to anything and everything they can. And it itches like hell when that happens.
And no, it’s not sexual. The relationship is strictly ‘Plutonic.’
So after removing a layer of those suckers, they have to head home. But before they do, the whales wave a fin of encouragement to remind everyone Pluto Day is a big deal and Whale Day is no fluke either.
So now that you know, help us spread the word.
Help us get Pluto back to full planetary status with the same rights and responsibilities all the other planets have. Which will prevent the whales from having to risk their lives for the cause.
Though it is kinda cool seeing them swim across the moon in the nighttime sky.
A whale-load of planetary thanks to Chronos/T. Kent Jones for providing us precious provocative prompts for February anyway, even if they/he couldn’t be bothered to so do last month.
Thanks to them, I got to join the Dry January movement and go cold effing turkey. It was good for me. Character-building and all that crap. At least I got my thirty-day chip at my local PA meeting. But with this whale of a tale, I just lost my sobriety, and damn proud of it!
Marilyn Flower’s a sacred fool who writes fiction, poetry, and blogs, inspired by the practice of SoulCollage®. Her books: Developing Characters: Fun Ways to Cast Your Fiction, Creative Blogging, Bucket Listers. Follow her Sacred Foolishness or SoulCollage® for Writers, and Stay in touch!
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