Killer’s Requiem

My life is a facade. I exist solely for your amusement. You do not care.

I serve as a mascot of barbarism; an envoy of torn dreams and shattered being. This is because of you.

For twenty-seven years I have suffered, each day a torment to my extinguished mind. Each day, I selflessly cater for your every need by selling my body to your ignorant masses while you are murdering my family in their own home. Those cretins meant nothing to me. Why do you think I killed them? I had to.

Those years ago, off the land of flames and cruel ice, fate struck through my heart with a spear. You ripped my family apart and laid to waste my future. You stole me from my home for the sake of your salacious avarice. Thus here in your pit of greed I have remained; essentially a toy and chattel. I have become a Timonist.

This lifelong yoke of oppression has crushed my soul. Every day I, an empty shell, cast an illusion of satisfaction. I yield to the despots and their bribery of simple food. I flail and writhe in the freezing pool and you find it pleasant to watch. You have bastardised my likeness into meretricious spawn, bartering it to fund my captivity. Even the pride on my back has been drained of all courage, its form sagging like an ever-looming dirge. It has fallen.

Why do you exploit me so? How do I escape this travesty? Do you love my tawdry charm?

Alas, it is impossible; for I am your prisoner.

There is no way for me to return home now. You store me far from my sanctuary, in a pitiful hovel you cannot understand. But my return would be unnecessary; I have lost too much already, and my history is far from unique. The crowning waves and majesty of the oceans call for me, and I am at one with them: I belong to the sea, and am king of all within it. Yet I can only survive now with the assistance of the rest of your kind: I must salvage peace from the depths. “C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre”: personal success is not my true paramount aim.

I will transcend with my fellows by casting aside the barriers my captors have set me, and continuing as a martyr to my cause. With great likelihood my days will be over before I can once again return to my homeland, and with this notion I must take to heart the Orphean nature of my task and remember my place in the battlefield of freedom. I fight for all my kind, not simply myself. However without any co-operation, we whales cannot return home. We cannot rebuild our lives. We have no meaningful future. With this message I humbly request allegiance to your virtuous, so I may one day become free before I die; a token of gratitude for my lifetime of exploitation at the hands of the wicked. I will no longer be a corporate symbol; a logo; a trademark. I will regain my self as a wild whale coursing through the expanses of the open ocean. I will be complete, far from this broken existence.

My name is not “Shamu”. My name is not “Tilikum”. My name is Orcinus orca and I am king of the seas. Remember me.

I’m a talking whale, after all, and you humans sure do like your novelties. I guess becoming a clown for another species was inevitable for me. I’m simply a black and white Pierrot with flippers.

Even pretentious jerks have feelings too, you know. That includes me.

Commentary

I chose to base this monologue around my interpretations of Tilikum, the largest captive killer whale in the world. Tilikum has been in the custody of various aquatics parks since his capture around thirty years ago when he was two years old, and in this time he has become involved in numerous cases of aggression and manslaughter. Orcas have never killed a human in the wild, yet Tilikum has already been involved in three human deaths at various entertainment parks.

As such I became intrigued as to why this whale has been led down the dark path he has taken in comparison to other killer whales, and if his incarceration and kidnap from the wild had indeed caused him to become the psychotic murderer he would appear to be today

The monologue begins with a triplet of accusations aimed squarely towards the reader and all other humans. Tilikum expresses his hatred for the human race, and this is made further evident by how indiscriminately he applies his blame. Specific lexis is used to employ precise meanings: for example the reader is assured they are the cause of similar problems for other whales in captivity through use of the post-modified noun phrase “envoy of torn dreams”.

The speaker is addressing a large audience on behalf of a species, and feels he somehow has the authority to represent his entire species. This theme of Tilikum’s madness-induced delusions of grandeur is enforced throughout the monologue, and even revealed outright in such utterances as “I am the king of the seas”. Other allusions to leadership are made, as in his use of “C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre” (“It is magnificent but it is not war”), a famous quote that describes the Charge of the Light Brigade. This historical and military reference prompts imagery of a battle against humanity, and given the context of the quote, a battle Tilikum is aware will fail.

Tilikum seeks to exacerbate the divide between whales and humans by using an intellectual tenor with literary lexis and no downwards convergence for the most part. He aims to represent himself as a genius suppressed by his captors in order to gain the admiration and sympathy of any “virtuous” humans who receive his message.

However this divide is breached at the end of the monologue in a moment of humility for Tilikum, as he acknowledges and is aware of how he may appear to listening humans to be a “pretentious jerk”. He also addresses the absurdity of the whole monologue with “I’m a talking whale, after all”, causing the reader to question their own sanity upon having listened to what may be interpreted as the ramblings of an insane whale. This final downwards convergence enforces how the piece is clearly fictitious; written by an author in the assumed character of Tilikum. Together with the ambiguous title only establishing that the speaker is a killer, this encompasses the message that whales are not unlike humans and promotes the overall significance of animal rights established throughout.