Last night, between a cheese sandwich and some other funny dreams I met the Prince of Whales.

I was sitting in the bathtub scrubbing my back when all of a sudden this enormous sea monster emerged in front of me, spluttering and splashing and making a horrible mess in the bathroom.

The species was a 100 ft blue whale but his actual color was of a very distinct burgundy red – maybe cetacean royalty is colored differently than the ordinary whale.

The mighty creature seemed to be of the no-nonsense fraction, no small talk, no niceties but coming directly to the point:

“Mike,” he roared (and so surprised was I to hear him speak that I didn’t even bother to tell him that my name is not Mike), “listen, it’s all in vain, whalekind is destined to be extinguished.”

I started to protest but he went on, unmoved by my weak attempts to be heard.

“Stop all this whoola-baloo about 'don’t hunt the whale'– we don’t deserve any better. For centuries we didn’t stand up for our rights; now it’s too late.”

I had no clue what “whoola-baloo” meant (was the whale Australian?) but I was temporarily distracted by some soap that had run into my eyes and I started to cry.

My tears must have touched the whale’s heart for his voice became softer.

“You are a kind soul, Steve,” he said, apparently ignorant of the fact that my name is not Steve, “but your tears are wasted on us, save them for some worthier cause.”

He frowned (as far as I could recognize) and said gloomily:

“Our time is over, we had our chance and didn’t use it. History will trample over us and ridicule us…

“Your majesty,” I dared to intervene but he shouted me down.

“I’m not the King, sir, and thank goodness for that. My old man is demented, lies on the edge of a rock three miles deep and spends his days picking anchovies out of his teeth while listening to esoteric music. Beeping and sirring and whistling – 2 minutes of that and I become aggressive.

You can call me Charlie…” he ended a bit incoherently.

“Listen Charlie,” I said, “this is a misconception. Most people love whales and are aware that we need them…”

“What for?” he interrupted me impatiently.

“Uuuhm…biodiversity I guess…” I mumbled little convincingly. “Anyway it’s really just the Norwegians and the Japanese that still hunt whales so it’s certainly…”

“They are excused since they do it for purely scientific reasons. In a way they are more honest than most others. Come to think of it – splashing water on us only because we decided to have a sun bath on the beach – can you think of a more bizarre waste of time for innocent school children?”

I noticed the growing sarcasm in his voice and felt helpless. Personally I had never helped to slaughter a whale; I had indeed never even gone fishing, come to think of it – but still…

I made a last attempt: “Charlie, a good friend of mine knows a local politician. As far as I know his specialty is traffic and questions of public transport but maybe I can convince him to organize a…” The rest of my words drowned in more splashing and spluttering and the sound that a fountain makes coming out of a whale’s breathing hole.

“I have none of that, Bill,” shouted the whale whose face had become even redder as far as I could see in the dim bathroom light. Pointless to say my name isn’t Bill. What would I have given in that moment of time if only I had a chance to help this poor monster to feel a bit better, let alone save all the other whales from their destiny of extinction. I would have gladly changed my name to Bill or Mike or whatever…but I was aware that this kind of action has never helped an endangered species. There was nothing left to do except that Charlie helped me wipe the bathroom floor and tidy up. At least my wife wouldn’t have reason to be upset.

Silently he pointed to the plug and I pulled it and with a last gloomy look into my eyes he  disappeared.

I recently read in the newspapers that Japan has been granted an annual increase of 100 whales. Science is alive and kicking.