The Narwhals of My Childhood

Image of Narwhals from the 1972 Edition of Time-Life’s “World Wildlife Encyclopedia”.

What was it about this image of Narwhals that held me spellbound as a child? I spent long hours looking at this picture trying to understand what I was seeing. Not knowing what Narwhals were exactly, I did not know if they were bound to the sea, or if they could lumpily heave themselves onto the land like walruses and seals. I couldn't imagine how they turned their rubbery bodies around on such a shore while holding their tusks aloft like clock-hands. I did not know that they were dead.

It was nevertheless, to me, a sad picture, full of longing and isolation and tragedy. These fish mammals did not seem to be for each other, or adapted to the rocky shore, or ready to return to that empty sea. The cold blues and distant continent put this scene at the bottom of a world. How long had they been there? What were they waiting for? Were they mythological?

I think though, that I must have had an inkling of their deadness, else why the tragedy I saw in every inch of this scene? But it's hard to tell when you don't know what a thing is supposed to do, if they are doing it or not.