Sunday Best by Jason Sullivan

“I don’t want to get my Sunday best wet!”  Jess petulantly exclaimed to his little brother.

Little brother was very excited about going on the whale watch, but not Jess. When Jess thought of whales, he thought large, messy and wet. He was not really an animal lover, except for possibly the roast beef on the Sunday dinner table. It was Sunday and Jess was handsomely dressed. He liked getting dressed up for the Son, and this was not vain because it showed respect. The problem this Sunday was the whale watch. There would be no time to change; what if his clothes got wet? His little brother, however, wore a big smile in anticipation.

As they sailed out of the harbor, Jess noticed Paul’s “castle”. Paul was able to build it because the Son had been very good to him. Paul had listened to the message of the Son. If you are good, you will flourish; if you are bad, you will wither. Jess sometimes wondered about little brother. He did not have the necessary respect for the Son. It was a lovely day on the ocean and the whales appeared from the four directions. Some jumped all the way out of the water, landing with magnificent splashes. The people on the boat cheered as the whales said hello with their flappers and tails, snorts and leaps. It was an affirmation, a sharing between mammals, different animals — but also alike. Jess noticed one or two others who were as unimpressed as he was.

As Jess stood there, behind the crowd that leaned out over the railing, an image leaped into his mind and captivated him for a moment. It was of millions and millions of plankton, fed by the sun and filling the oceans, and the whales sweeping them up with their baleen not merely nourished themselves — but also the whole planet! He shook the thought from his head and instinctively brushed off his lapels. The afternoon ended and the boat headed back toward the harbor. The crowd funneled inside the cabin leaving Jess alone on the deck. Out in the quiet, Jess thought he heard the whales talking to him. The boat was no longer in the whale area, yet the ethereal song of the whales filled his ears. Where was this coming from and how could he hear it? He moved closer to the edge of the boat, maybe a whale was following them. The high-pitched delicate sounds encouraged him to get closer to the water. He leaned out over the rail. The boat hit the wake of a passing ship, lurching for just a moment. No one saw Jess go over the railing and slide into the water.

He knew immediately that the boat was too far. He tried a scream, but stopped halfway — it was no use.  Jess, however, had faith. He knew the Son would save him. Just like Jonah and the whale, he would be rescued from the savages of nature. It was too far to swim to shore so he tried to stay afloat in the hope that someone might notice him missing. He stared longingly at the tiny houses on the shore. They were the homes of the good people of the Son. He refused to relinquish his grasp of the coastline with its sharply protruding houses; he imagined his hands bleeding as they scraped against the distant gables. He was getting tired; time to slip beneath the waves and sleep.

Splash! What was that? Another splash right in front of him. Jess pulled his head up above the water. To his surprise he heard chatter, not of whales, but of dolphins! They spoke to him, too, but it was not the airy echo of the whales. These guys were funny! The dolphins chattered away, occasionally nuzzling him with their snouts. He thought he could see the stars in their eyes. Just as soon as they had appeared, they were gone. Their visit, however, had buoyed him.

The lights along the distant shore seemed miniscule to Jess, a thin line of artificial light separating the vast ocean from an endless glittering field of stars. Jess had the sensation each one of that infinite number reached out to him with crystalline strings of light and held him afloat. Back on shore there was talk of a search party at first light. His parents prayed to the Son to save their boy. He had always been a good boy. Little brother was not worried because in the middle of the night a raccoon had tapped on his window.

Jess began to sink for a second time, but then he felt a warm kiss upon his eyelids. He opened them to see the ocean set ablaze by a brilliant star rising into the sky. It was the greatest of all stars, his sun! As energy ran into his arms and legs, he realized the most amazing thing — this star, his sun, knew him personally! It was sublime in its power and yet he held its energy in every cell in his body. The sun was not going to let him flicker out. Like the whales, the dolphins and the stars, the sun made him light; it lifted him.

There it was — the smile Jess had always found annoying. Little brother waved from a fishing trawler and his smile shone like the sun upon the sea. When Jess was pulled on board, little brother remarked gleefully, “I see you got your Sunday best wet after all!”

© 2012 Jason Sullivan

*The photo is of Dome’s tail. She is a humpback whale that has been visiting the waters off New England every summer since at least the early 1980’s. Please send her your congratulations as she has a new calf this year!