Even Sharks Know Fear

We can taste their fear, feel it washing over us with each panicked kick, see it in the chaos that one glimpse of us brings. We can feel the shouts and frantic screaming even below the break. We are the horrors of the sea. The shadows that lurk beneath every wave. The blades that cut the tide. They never learnt to read the depth of our eyes, too dark and alien for their soft, warm minds. Their inability to understand us made us a threat, a challenge to be bested, and so like everything else they find in the world - we were hunted. They caught us, turned us up-side-down and in-side-out, took what they wanted and discarded the rest. Then they labelled us as killers.

There are others that are kind, more forgiving, most are cautious still but without the blood-chilling terror we are so accustomed to. These ones we like, these ones bring us hope, these are the ones that give us a reason to continue to be gracious and patient. We hope that one day they will all give us the same chance that we have given them, perhaps we will not be driven to hunt them with intent. We do not wish to be driven from our homes in fear just as they presume we drive them away in their ignorance.

None of them truly understand though. The strange iron-bloods from the land mark us with tags and follow us in their boats, they try to understand us, try to understand the ocean and the depths they cannot reach. But they do not understand, they have yet to learn to respect the ocean mother and all she embodies.

We play out part, swim in circles and try our best not to lead them astray. We are the curiosities they study to try and answer the questions they cannot answer themselves but we know that sometimes it is best to not swim in water you’re not welcome in. We do our best to guide them or avoid them but we all have our stories.

I was younger when I came close to one that was laying on the tasteless white; they looked like food, moved like food and I didn’t think to care that they didn’t smell like anything at all. I got too close and I didn’t realise until I felt the strange white they were laying on, until I tasted their fear. It was like a sharp buzzing of horror and surprise; and yet still they moved slow, too slow, they were not my prey; by then it was too late. I tasted their blood; it was warm, bitter, and strange. I stopped chasing, stopped biting and swam away. But the damage was done and my freedom was lost.

Not long after the strange iron-bloods tagged me, an accessory of irritation on my fin for weeks until the time dulled my awareness of it. Still I am ever vigilant. I pick my paths with care, follow the same route, try not to swim too deep, too far, or too fast. They may be ignorant and hateful but that does not make it right for us to follow that same path into blind action. They are also a gateway to all else that dwells beyond the sand and even us cool-blooded sea dwellers know how their consequences wash over all else they come into contact with. We would not wish that on anyone, ignorance be damned.

So instead we will be the shadows that instil a healthy hesitation, we will be the creatures that create caution, we will be the fin of fear that cuts the tide and the shadows of something dangerous always beneath. Because the Humans have yet to understand the most basic thing; that even sharks fear what hides below us in the deep.