Did you hear, dear?
From time to time (actually, far too often), getting the news from the news is hopeless. Too similar to overhearing a telephone conversation, one side only, and having to invent the details.
Why, only yesterday, or the day before, a swimmer was attacked. Bitten, apparently. Just over there (as I point across a long stretch of open water). The victim was swimming, near a boat (no, not in the boat). Had to be airlifted to a hospital, they say. No, not dead (yet).
The friends claim to have seen something swimming (hard to believe) and then there was blood in the sea. No, not dead (yet). Must have been a shark, or a seal, or a turtle. Probably a shark, what with all that global warming. They’re coming north, I tell you. I’ve been on that very beach…
No, I don’t have any names. In Cape Breton, so probably a MacDonald, unless she was a tourist. From away. I don’t have many details. Tourists should be warned, right? Don’t swim until you haven’t seen a shark. Like that warning not to swim right after eating. Dangerous times. First, coyotes, and now sharks. Enough to keep one at home with the TV. For security.
Let me see if there’s any new news. Now they say she wasn’t a tourist, and that the attack happened at suppertime. I told you about not going swimming too close to your meal. And she’s still alive. Could have been a whale. They took her to shore by boat, to the chopper. That’s all we know, right now. Yes, in Cape Breton. Who would have thought that such a thing would happen in Canada?
