There's not much to see inside a whale's belly: forty pounds of sturgeon, unknown, putrid pools, trash bags, plastic 6-can rings, and leather loafers. And maybe a surf board or two, if I was correct in what I felt (it was quite dark).
A few thousand feet off California's Big Sur coast, the whale blew what can only be described as some awesome chunks. The explosion was solid: a skyscraper's worth of steam and waves and more fishy smells. Suddenly, there I was, slime covered and shivering, as surprised to be on land as the day I was born.
On the beach I slept and retched, then slept some more. Days passed, and seagulls gathered when the tide was low. Then, in the hazy unknowing that may well have been the dawn, they found me.
A man and his wife, holding hands and binoculars, braving the morning fog to watch the sandpipers.
She folded her body to the ground (her back was not well) and stroked the hair from my face. "We can change the world together," her lovely voice whispered. I looked up at her greying temples and smiled.
They brought me home and fed me bacon.