The burning cold water pressing against me. The pain feeling good, somehow. Pushing off and floating in the frigid water. Six degrees Celsius. I lay back and float on my back and look up at the moon. Breathing steadily, bearing it all silently.

I turn to swim back to shore, to find purchase on the sandy bottom with my numb feet. A man is there, wading in, making noises of discomfort.

“You walked in so casually,” he says. “Not a flinch.”

“I’m good at hiding my emotions,” I respond.

We chat a bit, our heads bobbing above the still, black water. His daughter playing on the sand nearby.

I end my swim, towel off, robe up, and flip flop back along the seawall home.

The next morning, I gaze across the misty, rainy harbour while holding a warm mug of tea.

A dorsal fin breaks the surface.

I grab my binoculars. Focus to the location.

And again, a tall black dorsal fin cuts the surface, rises, and falls. A male orca. From my apartment living room.

A gift from the ocean.

Was it from my sacrifice? All of the hours that I have scanned the ocean landscape for a whale, one appears the morning after I push myself into discomfort in the witness of the great, wide ocean.

The ocean that presses against me is the same ocean that presses against that whale.

I duck my head under into the cold. Salt in my mouth.

Everything burning with cold.

The man. The whale. The moon.