PoraBora

Chapter Nineteen

The day exhausted Pora. Bora drifted slowly, conserving the energy he had left after chasing down the scent of chum, but it was not keeping up that tired Pora. The shark did not sleep. So neither could he.

Bora hung twenty feet beneath the surface. In the beginning, Pora swam down to hold on, returning to the surface for air when he needed it, but as the hours went by, he was content with floating on his back above the shark. If he hadn't been exhausted, and his arm didn't throb, he might have enjoyed the sun and sea with his friend.

He had to check to make sure he was still with Bora, on occasion. The furthest he had drifted was when he realized he had fallen asleep, waking with a splash when his face dropped beneath the water. Bora had been just a shape in the distance, then, so Pora made sure he didn't close his eyes again.

The shark swam with both a goal and ambivalence, as if he had somewhere to go but didn't particularly care when he got there. Bora gradually changed his line and speed. He smelled something, or sensed it in some other way, and the only things that could make a shark adjust course were a meal and a bigger shark.

They found both.

A whale carcass hung adrift, recently deceased and not by its current company. Pora mouthed his awe as nearly thirty sharks, as many as had come to eat him and some surely the same, surrounded the once-mighty giant. Still mighty, even in death, thought Pora. Blacktips, tigers, and even a brutish bull tore the best morsels they could from the corpse with their powerful jaws.

They moved with a languid contentment. There was no frenzied aggression. Bora was allowed to join the feast, wriggling his mouth around the fluke of the whale, which was less recognizable for its hour of loss.

They did not writhe over and under each other or hang from the corpse. There was plenty to eat. The timidest sharks kept their distance, Pora among them, until the biggest had their fill and meandered away.

The flesh hung from the body of the whale like strips of seaweed, tumbling with the surface water. Every bite left a cloud of snacks for hungry fish, and Pora wondered if even he could partake. It had been forever since he'd eaten last. The sharks ignored him so far, and one blacktip even allowed him to examine its side as it circled the whale. Its parasites were few, and when he was done, Pora kicked back to the surface.

In hours more, the whale would surely find its way to that starry night at the bottom of the ocean. The sharks would have had their fill, and would be able to swim their routes without worry of their next meal.

Bora clamped hard on the tail of the giant, twisting to pull the meat away. Another tiger shark, who had been there since the beginning, coughed out a piece of whale to make room for more nutritious meat.

The whale continued to drift, and all of its attendants with it. Pora hoped Bora would not take hours, because he did not think it would be a good idea for him to relax his tiring body by sitting on the main course. He thought it best not to float along to the top, either, in case a shark thought he was a piece of the whale.

The sharks kept their distance from each other, scavenged their fill, and left the rest to take theirs. Swipes of tails and snouts were few, and left no lasting harm that Pora could see. He thought bitterly of the behavior Pe's people had created, and not only because his arm had nearly been a sacrifice.

In another hour, as the cast traded in and out, a silvertip replacing satisfied bulls, Bora pointed himself onward, his pace slowed only more. Pora smiled to join him. The shark's kindness had been rewarded by the sea. Pora took his side, reminding Bora he did not need the six pilot fish that hung closely to another tiger shark who passed them, headed still to that generous meal.