Theodore Jerome Cohen is the Readers’ Choice in this week’s Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Challenge. The winning entry is decided by the popular vote and rewarded with a special feature here today. (In case of a tie, the writer who submitted an entry first is the winner per our rules.) Without further ado, here’s the winning story:
Whale
by Theodore Jerome Cohen
“That looks interesting,” I commented as Jacqueline revealed a photograph of a humpback whale while she shuffled through the stack of photos in her hands. “May I take a closer look?”
She reached across the coffee table and handed me the photo.
“Wow, that’s one helluva a shot, all right! And you say Brian took this? I can’t believe it. Where was he at the time?”
“Monterey Bay. He’d gone there to do some kayaking last July. That’s one of the best months to see these whales, you know, when they come up from Mexico. Besides, there’s a deep submarine canyon off Monterey, so he was always going up there to watch the marine life.
“Brian loved the ocean. His mother once told me that from the time he was a little boy, he hung around the docks in their New England fishing town to see what oddities the local fishermen might’ve hauled in. He went on to major in oceanography in college and eventually, we came west so he could do a post-doc at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego.”
“Okay, but what happened to him?”
“We don’t know. He just disappeared. If his camera hadn’t been tethered to his kayak, we wouldn’t even have these photos. The one you’re holding? Of the humpback whale? Apparently, it’s the last one he took.”
