I am toki, p.1
I Am Toki, page 1
Copyright © 2023 by Gianni Perticaroli
ISBN: 979-8-9878321-6-5
Published by Sungrazer Publishing LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from Sungrazer Publishing.
For my Family
Contents
I Am Toki
1. Hello
2. Lolita
3. The Way I Look
4. My Home
5. Questions
6. The Ocean
7. The Show Begins
8. Masks
9. Jennifer
10. Errol
11. Joe
12. Li’l
13. The Show Ends
14. My Life
15. Grievances
16. Gloom
17. Irma
18. Irma Arrives
19. Fury
20. Everything Blows Away
21. Murky
22. Irma Passes By
23. Jennifer Again
24. Sentinel
25. Soaring High
26. Mates
27. Babes
28. Alone
29. Hugo
30. Fins
31. Despair
32. Gone
33. Dead
34. Companions
35. No Music
36. Closed
37. No Fish
38. Signs
39. Still Closed
40. No Shows
41. Free
42. Theory
43. What If…
44. Memories
45. Mountains
46. Growing Up
47. Games
48. A Perfect Life
49. The End
50. Terrified
51. Captured
52. Hunger
53. Closed Sea
54. My Story
55. Fear
56. Like Me
57. Predator
58. Protesters
59. Absence
60. Apathy
61. More Apathy
62. Anger
63. A New Face
64. Sir
65. Applause
66. Goodbye
67. Interview
68. Something Happens
69. Farewell
70. Agitation
71. Doubts
72. Good Toki
73. Box
74. Awakening
75. Rage
76. Emptiness
77. Something In The Air
78. Emotion
79. Happiness
80. Surprise
81. Sea Pen
82. Signals
83. Another Show
84. Sunrise
85. Exhausted
86. Dreams
87. Ken
88. Confidence
89. Hunting
90. I Wish
91. Pod
92. Outside
93. Home
Afterword
Author’s Note
Glossary
Orcas
Killer Whale In Captivity
What to do?
Acknowledgments
Resources
I Am Toki
A missed opportunity…
Hello
My name is Tokitae. It’s a strange name, isn't it? But it is not as difficult to pronounce as it looks.
I am an orca.
But I don't live like a regular orca.
Lolita
That’s my real name. That’s the name everyone knows me by. When people cheer for me that’s what they call me, but I don't like it. I don't feel it is mine.
I recently discovered that the people from where I was born call me Sk'aliCh'elh-tenaut. Now that is a really difficult name to pronounce. I can't even pronounce it myself.
I prefer Tokitae. This is my name. Tokitae, or simply Toki, the killer whale. It's beautiful and it sounds good. In the Chinook language, it means "bright day, beautiful colors."
The Way I Look
Raise your hand... or a paw... or a wing... in short, raise whatever you want if you’ve seen an orca before. This also applies to film, TV or in photos.
I am just as you have seen.
My body has two sharply contrasting colors: black predominantly at the top, and white at the bottom. I may be big, but I am fast and agile. When I’m in my environment, no one can defeat me. When it comes to strength and power, I have no rival. This both frightens and fascinates humans.
I come from the same family as dolphins. Can you believe it? It's a connection that started who knows where back in time. We have a pretty extensive family tree, actually, which includes all kinds of dolphins and even false killer whales… I have no idea what they look like, but I sense they're supposed to look like me.
Dolphins are weirdos. I have met several of them and they are not all that nice. There are some that suffer from delusions of grandeur.
My Home
I live in a tank inside a habitat created by humans, which they call a "water park." The exact name of my home is the Miami Seaquarium, where I do shows twice a day, at 12 noon and 3 p.m., every day of the year. It's a routine I’ve memorized by heart by now. I know what I have to do and how I have to do it, and I don't even need Jennifer and Mark to prompt me to do it anymore.
Jennifer and Mark have been with me for several years. They are good people. They are in charge of the team that takes care of me and my performances. Jennifer is in the tank during performances and sometimes even performs with me. She was the one who taught Cindy, Karen, and Susie how to stand on the tip of my snout, but no one has done that for a while.
I am not alone in the tank. I share it with Li'l, a dolphin. A pacific white-sided dolphin, to be precise. She's a cool chick. She figured out quickly when to give me space. I would have preferred another orca as a companion, but the track record for such an arrangement is not good.
The tank represents my territory. I spend all my days inside it, and when I am not performing, all I do is swim in circles. It is utterly boring. My tank may seem big to you, but it really isn’t. Perhaps for a goldfish, but not for me.
When I was free, I covered long distances daily. I swam from sunrise to sunset. And also at night, taking advantage of the knowledge passed down from generations of orcas, about the ocean, the currents, and the light of the moon and stars. I loved swimming at full speed, pushing myself with my fins, taking advantage of the shape of my body. Here I can't do any of that. I can only swim in circles. Sometimes I stop and stand motionless at the surface of the water, floating like a tree uprooted from the earth.
There are other animals in the park. I hear their cries, I hear their calls, and sometimes I hear their speech, but I cannot see them. The grandstand around the tank prevents me from doing so. I am sure, however, that sea lions, penguins, and dolphins have their own space in the park, and that some of them perform shows just like me. I can tell by the loud music played, and the clapping and laughter of the humans. It happens every day, at the same times.
Questions
There are so many that I have frequently asked myself, but to which I have never found an answer to, and I wonder if I ever will.
Why do humans keep me imprisoned in such a small tank? I understand that they love to see me, that they are attracted to my power and strength, and admire my performances, but can that be enough to keep me locked up in here day in and day out? What would it be like for a human to live in a place so small that he or she can only take a few steps in a circle without being able to walk freely, let alone run? And not for a day or two, or three, but for a lifetime?
There is another one. The most painful of all questions. I often force myself to forget it because it shields me from reliving the torment I experienced.
What cruelty must possess a human to make him take a babe away from its mother?
I don't know the answer to that, but I know quite well the heartbreak of having experienced it.
I was only four years old when I was taken away from my mother, ripped from my free life, and thrown into a tank.
The Ocean
That’s my real home. It’s not too far away. I think it lies beyond the bowl where I reside, beyond the grandstands.
I can feel it.
It’s the ocean, but it is not my ocean.
The Show Begins
I can tell that my performance time is approaching because humans are beginning to crowd the grandstands as the loudspeaker lets everyone know to go to the Killer Whale Show for the start of the show. The Killer Whale show is my tank.
Big and small. They talk, they rumble, they shout. Humans talk way too much. All the time. They fill the world with their noise even when they have nothing to say.
I watch them from under the water's surface. I see them talking and eating things from colorful bags. I see someone else attempt to approach the glass windows, but the keepers shoo him away. It is forbidden to approach the edge of the tank. Sometimes, especially the little ones, flatten their little hands against the glass, which infuriates the park officials.
The grandstands are crowded, which means that the performance will begin shortly.
The music is turned up. The audience rumbles. A video is projected on a giant screen set up at the edge of my tank. Images of the deep sea and oceanic expanses of water. I'm not sure if they were filmed
The master of ceremonies announces the start of the show. Jennifer, Cindy, and Karen arrive. They move to the beat of the music and settle on the platform in the middle of the pool. Jennifer comes to my side, which means that Karen will take Li'l today. Cindy stays in the middle of the tank and introduces me to the crowd.
"Lolita, the orca," she announces.
I’m not Lolita. I am Toki.
"Good morning, Toki," Jennifer greets me, but she does not smile. I approach her and she rests her mouth on my muzzle. The audience applauds thunderously with approval.
I open my mouth. Jennifer grabs some fish from a bucket and tosses them to me. I swallow them like morsels.
Jennifer asks me to drop in. All she needs is a simple gesture. Other times she uses a whistle.
I know the script by heart, so I do as I’m told, and a wave of water hits the humans sitting in the front rows. Some shriek, but in general everyone enjoys it and applauds.
I come back to Jennifer, and she feeds me some more fish.
But she does not smile.
Masks
I have gotten to know humans quite well, and I know that they are capable of expressing different emotions with just a facial expression. Sometimes, however, they use it to mask what they really feel inside.
Today Jennifer addresses the audience with her usual joyful expression, but it is not sincere, because she is not smiling. Something has upset her. Something has saddened her, and I can see it in her eyes because when it comes to me, she does not wear a mask.
Jennifer
She loves me. I know it, and more importantly, I feel it. I can't say how but I am certain that she does.
And I'm not just saying that. I don't like to waste words unnecessarily. I say this because it was not always like this. With other trainers before her, I didn't get the same vibes.
Everything is easier for me with Jennifer, even performing in front of a screaming crowd. Most of the time, I don’t feel like performing. I would rather remain soaking in apathy. But Jennifer helps motivate me.
I realize that may sound strange because orcas in the wild are not known to be lazy, since there are always so many things to do, things you have to do in order to survive. An orca that doesn't swim, that doesn't hunt, that doesn't follow its pod, is a dead orca.
But here, in the tank, everything is different. Humans bring me food, and I have little room to swim.
I enjoy Jennifer's company and I feel certain that she feels the same. We have shared many moments together. I only recall one time when she was away from me for an extended period of time. When she was pregnant. I could tell she was expecting a babe even before her belly grew. I sensed it and saw it in her eyes.
I keep a pleasant memory of the time when she came back. The birth had gone well, and Jennifer was happy. One day she came to the park, brought her babe with her, and showed it to me. I don't remember the name of the babe, but it was growing well. It was still small and wasn’t walking yet.
I have found, in fact, that humans take about a year before they can stand on their own legs and begin to walk on their own. An enormously long time. A newborn orca must quickly learn to swim to stay beside its mother and together with its pod. Or else.
The moments just after birth are the most critical for a baby orca. The blowhole above her head must open and close to allow air to enter. If this does not happen...
We are the strongest creatures of the ocean, but birth, which for other sea dwellers is so easy and natural, is difficult for us and can prove lethal.
Errol
The heron has arrived. He doesn't miss a show. For him, this is an excellent opportunity to steal some fish. As soon as Jennifer puts the bucket down, he tries to get his beak into it. He is successful in every ten attempts. It’s not a lot, but evidently, it’s worth it to him.
Errol is my friend. Sometimes he comes to see me between performances.
There are also seagulls around. They come for the same reason. Food. I don't know their names because they are always different. They never come in more than two or three. You can tell they have given themselves a rule.
Sometimes they are faster than Errol and steal the fish from under his beak.
I had other feathered friends before Errol. Only those with wings can fly over the stands, past the gates, and land comfortably in my tank.
The first was Gordon. He too was a heron. I remember him well because he helped console me when I was sad. His words of comfort helped ease the pain and misery I felt during the first few months in the tank.
Joe
He was a pelican, and also my friend. He was nice. A big talker. It made me laugh to see the sack of his beak sway when he talked. Our friendship didn't last long though, but not because of me. Joe was insatiable and park attendants had been forced to chase him away because he was capable of emptying an entire bucket of fish into his beak.
Over the years I have tried to make friends with seagulls, but they are not very sociable. They do not like to make conversation and are always looking for food even when they are not hungry. They are real opportunists.
Herons are definitely the best.
Li'l
She does many more performances than I do. She is smaller and more agile. She jumps out of the water forward and backward, does pirouettes, hops on her tail as if sliding on the surface of the water, or swims at full speed around the perimeter of the tank. Humans appreciate.
Jennifer gestures to me and I realize it's my turn. I dive, then push on my tail, resurface, and rotate in on myself. When I fall back into the water, another wave hits the crowd in the stands.
Roaring applause. Lots of applause. Humans clap their hands and shout to express their approval.
And there is still fish for me.
The Show Ends
Usually, at this point in the show, Jennifer would dive into the tank, and I would join her from below and bring her to the surface on the tip of my snout. She hasn't done that for some time now.
Jennifer is not smiling. Something is wrong with her. Something is worrying her.
