ysabetwordsmith: Damask smiling over their shoulder (polychrome)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This poem is spillover from the August 17, 2021 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from [personal profile] mama_kestrel. It also fills the "Protect" square in my 9-1-21 card for the Platonic Love Fest Bingo. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with [personal profile] fuzzyred. It belongs to the Aquariana and Big One threads of the Polychrome Heroics series.  It follows "The Highest Dynamic of the Human Soul,"  so read that first or this won't make much sense.

Warning: This poem involves using superpowers to fight a tsunami.


"The Choices Humans Make"

[6:00 PM on Sunday, May 29, 2016 in Taiji, Japan]

They floated in the water just beyond
Taiji, what the whales now called Rose Bay.

Steel and Moderato had taken positions
in the deep water just beyond the islets,
with Aquariana not far behind them,
protecting Rose Bay itself and
the patch of wilderness near it.

Nautilus was a little farther south,
defending the the edge of town,
and other whales ranged along
the coast to shelter what they could.

They wouldn't be able to defend
the whole town, but they could
certainly save some of it.

The rest of Japan would
have to fend for itself, and
hope the ten-hour warning
would be enough to save lives.

"Are you sure you want to be here?"
Aquariana asked. If they got
thrown back onto the rocks,
they might not survive.

I am sure, Moderato sent.
The humans have done
a good thing in giving
Rose Bay back to us.
We will return the favor.
Are you sure that you
wish to be here with us?
You are so much smaller.


"You're my friends," she said.
"I don't know if what I do will
make a difference, but I have to try."

The choices humans make are
like ripples in water,
Steel said.
They carry from one to another,
bouncing, dancing. Colliding
.
His thoughts bounded and
echoed in her head. And still
they go on. But you -- the choices
you make are like a tsunami in
the ocean. You change everything
.

"Thank you," said Aquariana. "I'm
glad that I could be here with you."

It's coming, Moderato warned.
The message echoed along
the coast from mind to mind.

Remember, do not try to stop
the waves,
Steel said. The water
doesn't rush forward, it only dances
in place. We must break it up
.

"Disrupt the pattern," she said,
thinking of how water molecules
moved in a circular path to make
waves, instead of moving forward.

When the first faint swell began
to rise above the water, the whales
used their powers to interrupt it.

Moderato shouted at the wave,
the force of his voice pushing at it.

Steel used his telekinesis to move
chunks of water in a checkerboard
so that the forming wave collapsed.

Behind them, Aquariana used
her Water Powers to make a set
of wedges that broke apart
the remnants of the wave.

Then they had to do it again,
and again, until the waves
subsided to harmless levels.

By the time Aquariana
crawled onto the beach,
she was exhausted.

A park ranger leaned
over her, chattering
anxiously in Japanese
before he remembered
to try speaking English.

"Are you hurt?" he said.

"No, just very tired,"
Aquariana said. "Is
there a hotel nearby?
Somewhere that has
a deep bath or shower
so I can get the salt off?"

"Yes, Hostel Oiso,"
he said. "Come. I
will take you there."

Aquariana swept
her tired senses over
the water, and found
the whales napping
with their heads down.

What a great idea.

"Let's go," she said,
taking the offered hand.

Hostel Oiso was rustic and
lovely, with warm wood beams
and tatami mats instead of carpet.

Aquariana indulged in the onsen
to shower off the salt and soak,
then stuffed herself on seafood.

Most of the upper floors held
shared rooms at low prices, but
the manager insisted on giving her
one of the expensive private rooms --
for free -- because she had helped
the whales to break up the tsunami.

Aquariana was too tired to argue over it.
She rolled out the bedding and fell asleep.

* * *

Notes:

San Francisco, CA, USA*
PDT (UTC -7)
Sat, May 28, 2016
4:00 PM
(+10 hours = 2 AM May 29)

Location Local Time Time Zone UTC Offset
San Francisco (USA - California) Sunday, May 29, 2016 at 2:00:00 am PDT
UTC-7 hours
Osaka (Japan)
Sunday, May 29, 2016 at 6:00:00 pm JST
UTC+9 hours
Corresponding UTC (GMT) Sunday, May 29, 2016 at 09:00:00

"The choices humans make are like a ripple in a pond. They carry from one to another, bouncing, dancing. Colliding. And still they go on. But you. The choices you make are like a tsunami in the ocean."
-- Author: T.J. Klune

Red Bay / Rose Bay is mentioned in "To Do the Brave Things."

Taiji, Wakayama, Japan is a fishing village famed for its gruesome dolphin hunts. Here is a map of Japan showing the location of Taiji. This closeup map of Taiji shows its distinctive forked bay.

Hostel Oiso
4201-8 Taiji
Higashimuro District
Wakayama 649-5171
Japan

Hostel Oiso is just south of Rose Bay.

A tea room invites guests to relax with a traditional tea ceremony. The dining room serves authentic Japanese cuisine.

Hostels provide lots of cheap sleeping space in shared rooms. A few private rooms are available at considerably higher prices.

An onsen provides a place for people to shower and then soak.

A tsunami builds on wave motion in water. Break the motion, and the wave collapses. The team uses different methods to achieve this.

Seawalls are designed with pockets and grooves that break up waves. A similar effect may be done with superpowers, as Aquariana does.

Tsunamis race horizontally toward the shore like Slinky toys. If that Slinky can be cut up into pieces as it’s moving, it will weaken and dissipate before it arrives. This, it turns out, can be achieved with well-placed islands.

The pressure of deep-ocean sound waves could be used to stop tsunamis in their tracks, researchers have found, by dissipating their energy across wider areas and reducing the height and speed of these monster waves before they reach land.

Steel uses his superpower to remove parts of the water. Think of it like a checkerboard cube, in which all the black areas have their water removed. Water from the white areas then falls through that empty space, crashing into more water, completely disrupting the pattern. Meanwhile the water that was removed is dropped just ahead of the next wave, creating more friction and turbulence there. Very soon, the water is sloshing all over the place instead of surging coherently.

(no subject)

Date: 2021-10-01 03:15 pm (UTC)
readera: a cup of tea with an open book behind it (Default)
From: [personal profile] readera
I enjoyed seeing this one! πŸ’™πŸ’™πŸ’™

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