Waves

On the sixth day, the Devil was walking around, enjoying God’s fresh creation, when he started to get annoyed. Almost everything was perfect: the trees, the breeze, the sun. He was on a beach, feeling the sand between his toes, looking out at across the flat blue sea. Almost everything was perfect, except that the animals would not stop talking.

The foxes were talking about the wolves, the wolves were talking about the bears. The bears were talking about the elephants, and the elephants were talking philosophy: what’s it all about, why are we here? The birds and the fish were arguing about sky versus sea, and which was best. The ants were discussing their schedules. A monkey had been following him for half the morning trying to guess his name: is it Tom? Is it Harold? Is it Balkwizzig?

All this talk was driving him up the wall. Why couldn’t they just shut up? What was so important that they had to flap their lips and beaks the whole blessed day? Finally, he’d had enough.

“Hey, Mr. Monkey—”

“It’s Sam. My name’s Sam.”

“Right. Let me show you something.” He reached down and picked up a rock. “Watch what happens when it hits the water.” He threw the rock into the sea. It broke the surface, threw a little splash straight up, then disappeared, but something amazing happened, too, something the animals had never seen before: a ring formed where the rock had sank, and the ring grew, it expanded and spread. Smaller rings appeared evenly in the center, and also spread, but they were increasingly smaller until they disappeared. The ripples got smaller and smaller, too, as they spread out across the water. A minute later the water was still again.

“Oooh! Wow!” cried the monkey and all the other animals, who had never seen waves before. 

“Pretty cool, huh? You try it.”

The monkey picked up a rock, threw it in the sea, and the same thing happened. The animals oohed and aahed.

“Someone else try. Throw a bigger rock.”

A bear picked up a rock the size of a dog and threw it in the water. The splash was bigger, the ripples were bigger, the waves spread longer and farther. The animals cheered.

“Wow!” cried the Devil, “very impressive. Can anyone here throw an even bigger rock?”

A young bull elephant strutted to the front of the crowd, picked up a boulder the size of a horse with his trunk, and hurled it out into the sea. The splash was tremendous, the waves were enormous, they spread out as far as the animals could see, they crashed against the shore, and the water didn’t calm for a full five minutes. The animals hollered, applauded and praised the elephant’s strength.

“Okay, that was amazing, but do you want to see something even better?”

“YES!” cried the animals in unison.

“Okay, but you have to promise not to talk until the wave stops spreading. You have to promise not to talk until the sea is calm again.”

“We promise!” cried the animals.

The Devil reached into his pocket and took out a special rock, a rock he had stolen from Heaven itself. He made a great show of holding it up to the crowd so they could see. He showed it to the animals on his left, then he showed it to the animals on his right. “Okay… ready… watch carefully, and remember, no talking until the waves stop.”

And the Devil threw the rock into the sea. And there was a splash, and there was a wave. But instead of getting smaller as it got farther away, the wave got bigger. And when it crashed against the shore or against rocks, it bounced back, sending another wave to mix with the first.

The waves got bigger, and spread wider, and crossed paths, and combined with and canceled each other out, and never stopped, until the whole sea, and ocean, and all the waters of the world would not stand still.

The Devil smiled, snapped his fingers, and laid down on the beach, enjoying the sound of the waves crashing and the silence of the animals.

This is why there are waves, and this is why animals don’t talk.

Written by Robert Austin for an upcoming book of stories, Devil Tales.