As they cross the liminal zone between this world and the next, the pilgrim and the whale king feel an alteration in their perception of reality. Had they been shot? Are they falling? Was that Spider Man? The line between concrete interaction and ephemeral perception is blurred in this world of wonder, imagination, fear, love, laughter, dreams.
The pilgrim's world is rich and vibrant (with a side of GNOME FLOWERS and APPLE SAUCE). The whale king's world is heavy, over-educated, ripe with ambiguity and essentialist ideology (reeking of ELEPHANT TUSKS and DONKEY TAILS.) The fissure in space that formed this ambiguous liminal zone slowly closes around the whale-king's kaleidoscope flukes.
The fissure's tightening grip reminds the whale king of his old-days as a colorful cachalot (long before he became the rainbow rex physter macrocephalorum that he is today). The pressure of the collapsing fissure translates to the helpless feelings he had back in '62, the year the men came. They'd been coming for his race long before, thirsting for their oil and fat. But it was in 1762 that his family was destroyed. He remembered the horror as he saw his mother and father, his brothers and sisters, wrenched from their primeval, aqueous home. He recalled screaming out words of damnation to the cursed giant squids as he saw the harpoons pierce his sister's breast. (The 30 year war with those bastard squids had wreaked havoc on the physter macrocephalus infrastructure. The humans, seeking their sperm oil and spermaceti, were able to easily capture his weakened race.)
As he thinks about these things, the fissure's grip turns the whale king's chromatic flukes to a pastoral hue. A small tear falls from the while king's eye.
The pilgrim, meanwhile, smiles brightly as the flowers laugh gaily and the bunnies snuggle her waist. She calls out in laughter, giggling from bunny tickles, "Onward whale king! Onward!"
The whale king sighs and shakes his head. The past and the present merge into one complete void. As the void forms and matures, its eyes open. The fully formed void stares at the whale king and the pilgrim. They stare back.
Suddenly and dramatically the pilgrim yips and the whale king's variegated tail flips. They are released from the fissure's sphincter-like grip. As they float forward through the void of blurred reality, the pilgrim prepares to enter a celestial world of light and sublime pleasure. The whale king prepares to face the darkness of memory.
The earth is salted with tears of joy and sadness.
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