The Man in the Grey Suit

Jamie Tolagson checks in from Powell River with his take on a very old post from last May's trip down the California coast:

"Regarding the spotting of the sea lion with the shark bite, I used to see that all the time, living in California. 'The Silent Grey Fellow' has another name, used by surfers, that I prefer: 'The Man in the Grey Suit.' He is the man that you don't want to shake hands with.

Speaking of which, I got to see 'the man' for real, at the Monterey Bay Aquarium about two weeks ago. They have a juvenile great white in captivity in their deep sea tank (which is this giant swirling vortex of giant ocean tuna, hammerheads, rays, seven gill sharks, and one enormous sea turtle). They have had this white for almost 4 months now (which is a world record for whites in captivity, they tend to die in a matter of days). She is a tiny thing, about 4 or 5 feet long, but she definitely has a presence. Every once in a while, somebody in the tank will get too close to somebody else and the whole tank will just explode with movement, fish flying every which way, then slowly subsiding. They keep everybody in the tank well fed to minimize problems.

Which led me to think of a scenario that might be nice in a sci-fi story: The world has been wiped clean of human beings in one blinding flash, but (of course) one person is still alive. The person at some point in the narrative stumbles into an aquarium and wanders through its dark, humming halls. As he walks, we notice that each tank contains only one fish, the fish that ate the other fish in its tank and is now slowly starving to death.

If this were to take place at the Monterey bay aquarium and the time period was right now, I think the protaganist would find one giant sea tuna swimming laps in the deep sea tank. If the apocalypse was postponed for another 5 or 6 months, the odds might go to the little lady in the grey suit."
- posted by cjb @ 2:30 PM