Oh To Be A Seal

• Rasha Yangco, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2018

When I swim in this place of never-ending water I feel free, like I’m a spirit with no boundaries. But life can change in a second. For instants, it was me and my mother free spirits swimming together. Then all of a sudden my mother’s free spirit was gone. Why? I always ask myself. What happened to her? Though I was soon to realise that those greedy humans were the ones behind my mother’s disappearance. I realise I will never see my mother again. Why do I know this because it’s like a seal's well-known danger, once a human takes you your gone forever? At that moment I thought nothing was worse. My mother was gone. I still might have been a free spirit in the ocean but who is one when they are alone, no more with the one they love.
Though of course, those humans found a way to take me too. Maybe they take every free animal from its home. The humans corner me into a cliff where I have nowhere to go except their arms. I cry out for my mother but remember she’s gone, which only makes me cry louder. They put a rope around my neck and drag me to some sort of moving rock. At least I think it’s a rock, although when they open a part of it and shove me in it, it feels to dry and too cold to be a rock. I get bumped around back and forth. I feel like I’m moving when I really am staying in the same place. This feeling is much worse than a storm out in the sea. I continue to cry hoping someone or something will hear and come to my rescue, but soon realise it’s no use. I stop crying and lay down and just imagine the crashing of the waves, those waves will forever stay in my mind.
I wake up to find myself in water! I go to swim around when I realise this is not the endless place of water I call home, it’s like water in walls. I can only swim in this certain area. I look up to see HUMANS looking at me I go to swim out towards them and give them what they disserve when I once again remember there are walls I cannot see but can feel. I start to think if I keep swimming from one wall to the other without touching them maybe I will feel like I’m in the ocean. So my quest to feel free starts now. I swim to one side then back without touching the wall and close my eyes. I picture myself in the ocean. It doesn’t feel like the same thing but it’s as close as I’m going to get. So back and forth I swim till I, once again be free in the ocean and find my family although I know I will no longer ever be with my mother again.