Photo courtesy of WildVerbs
The stench was overwhelming.
It filled his nose and stuck to his clothes, setting him to retching as he covered his mouth. The gulls didn’t seem to mind, though, as they picked merrily away at the rotting meat and blubber hanging from the putrid carcass.
Another one. He’d gotten the call, and arrived to find the remains of a right whale rotting in the summer sun. It was the third one in less than a week. He hated these assignments: the smell, the joyful squawking of the gulls as though they mocked his discomfort. They weren’t troubled by the string of recent beachings. To them, this wasn’t an urgent crisis. It was a buffet.
He’d worried about bringing whales to this world. Even on Earth, science had never settled on why, exactly, a whale would purposely strand itself, leaving the safety of the ocean to die on the sand. Whatever caused it, it was happening far more frequently here, on this terraformed “paradise”.
Perhaps the whales, too, felt they didn’t belong there.
Written for the FFfAW Challenge – Week of July 10, 2018. Word count: 172. Read other stories based on this prompt at InLinkz.com.
Michael T. Kuester 
So sad that the whales are dying on the new planet. Very touching story because I care about whales. Great story!
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I found terraforming an intriguing concept already as a girl, particularly of Moon or Mars. But these days, I seem more drawn to the idea of terraforming our little Terra, like flooding Sahara, or foresting Aral – or more fanciful still, like sculpting the faces of the Andes, as in the far future of the Commonwealth. 😀
Even so, life probably remains much the same in its principles, whether on Terra or abroad in the stars – in its death and decay just as in its living glory. Thanks for the flash fic! 🙂
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An imaginative take. I like the concept here.
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A much different take on the gulls….who seem to have no problem adjusting to the new planet.
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