∞ ∞ ∞
At this Zeus flicked me from the mountain, which disappeared beneath me.
I flew for what seemed like an eternity, and falling quickly I splashed down into the sea near the island of Lemnos.
No sooner had I fallen into the sea, which was unseasonably calm and warm and pleasant, than a giant fish, who introduced itself in a squealing descant as Dag Gadol, swallowed me alive.
Tumbling into his belly, I was sure that this was it: I would die amid the refuse of half-eaten fish and the waft of intestinal gas.
For three days and nights I lived in his stomach while he swam here and there telling me his life story, which, when I added it up, made him several thousand years old.
It was a boring story of swimming, eating, defecating, copulating, and sleeping, with one minor interruption of three days in which he swallowed a bizarre individual who called himself Jonah.
This man Jonah had a strong aversion to swimming, pigs, defecating, copulating, laughter, sex, and everyone not of his race.
“He was only with me for three days,” said Dag Gadol, “and I told him the same stories I’ve told you about my life. When I was finished, since we had nothing left to say to each other, I considered it lucky when I belched and vomited him onto the beach.”
This piqued my interest.
“If you are the Dag Gadol I have read about in the Bible,” I said, “then it was God who commanded you to vomit Jonah onto the beach.”
“The Bible is full of many inaccuracies and overstatements,” said Dag Gadol.
“As far as I can remember—and understand that I have a prodigious memory—I grew tired of Jonah’s ramblings.
“Endless discussions about the so-called desert god Yahweh and his superiority to all, Jonah’s endless hand-wringing over having offended this god, et cetera—all this grates one’s stomach.
“There was a lull in our conversation, I vomited, out he went. Am I to believe that Yahweh manipulated my gag reflex? Come to think of it—”
Deep down in Dag Gadol’s gut came a rumbling.
“I must surface,” he said, “something’s afoot.”
∞ ∞ ∞
We shot upward—up and up toward that open sky of hope that I thought I’d never see again, up toward that vastness that by comparison to the strictures of the whale’s belly seemed nothing but an eternity…
Then broke through the surface.
Dag Gadol’s belly heaved. It constricted, clenching around me so that I thought I would choke to death.
But just as suddenly he relaxed, and a strong foul pestilential storm passed through his intestines.
“Goodbye,” cried Dag Gadol.
He had opened his mouth; the light of day crept in.
With his mouth open Dag Gadol belched with what must have been a hundred decibels of power.
He spewed me along his slimy tongue, then vomited me onto the Texas coastline at a point on Galveston Island just south of the Valero Corner Store from which I walked home vowing to Zeus to dedicate myself to his command to spew forth.
Epilogue
This ordeal was unlike any trial I’ve ever had. It is one I hope never to have again. I can put up with a lot of things, but this voyage was one serendipity too far.
Given the circumstances, Dag Gadol was insensitive; he struck me as an asshole and a know-it-all whose solitary life in the ocean and the infrequency of his communication with other creatures puts luck on their side.
To be fair, this may not be his fault.
I leave open the possibility that my impression of him could be the result of the whale-human impasse that, beginning with Pirates for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in 1711, we have been warned about in both historical records and contemporary commentary.
