I quickly slipped into wet-suit five minutes before the show was supposed to start. I threw my clothes into my small half sized small green locker in the locker room, before sliding my feet into a pair of black water shoes and left the room. One of my coworkers Collie passed me a bucket of fresh herring and gave me the okay to start.
After adjusting my waterproof microphone that was clipped onto my black wet-suit with dark blue strips, I took a deep breath and turned on my mic, before confidently walking out onto the stage.
"Hello everyone! Good afternoon!" I said, as I walked out and greeted the audience that sat across from me in front of the massive whale tank, shoulder to shoulder.
"And welcome to our first performance show here at Oceanlife! I, Katie will be your host throughout the show and who knows, we even have some special guests that will be appearing today; So sit back, relax and enjoy the show!".
As soon as finished saying the welcoming intro, I gave Collie the signal to open the water gate to release Luna, Riptide, and Fin from their holding water pens and into the massive show pool.
As soon as I did, exciting electrifying music began to play on the overhead speakers and right on cue the killer whales began to zip around the show pool, jumping up high in the air in sync.
The audience's attention was immediately sucked into the show and they began to cheer, watching the powerful apex predators of the ocean gracefully leaping out of the water, despite how crowded the bleachers were.
I let out a giggle of laughter before I spoke to the crowd again. "Wow, our performers are really energetic today" I said, before I knelt on the cement ground and flicked the water with my fingers to signal the whales over to me.
The trio of orcas instantly came over to me and looked up at me, waiting for the next instruction like we practiced.
"And they can't wait to meet you. These three beautiful young adult whales are Riptide, Luna and Fin. Luna can you wave to audience?".
With her right big pectoral fin, Luna lifted it out of the water as she tilted her body and gave a few waves with her fin to the crowd. Once she finished her trick, I rewarded her with a herring before I moved on to the next whale.
Once I introduced the two other whales to the audience, Collie unexpectedly came up to me from behind and whispered something that I would never forget.
"You have to get into the water with the whales, Sarah can't make it to the show".
Oh God....
I turned to look at Collie and nodded my okay to her, letting her know that I understood.
"Now for some spectacular water tricks that will leave you all in awe,".
I signaled Fin and Riptide to do some laps and leaps around the show pool, Luna could have more space for me to ride her. I signaled her to come closer to me and as she did, I gently got onto her back, with her dorsal fluke up against my back.
Once I got on her, Luna quivered.
"Ssshh easy Luna; It's okay. We're just going to do some water jumps," I said calmly, slowly rubbing the oval shaped white eye patch that's behind her small eyes.
I signaled her to go (and I'm very thankful that Sarah had taught me this signal and trick for moments such as these) and Luna took off, swimming strongly with her caudal fins.
We began to rip around the pool, splashing the front row seat audience with a huge wave as me and Luna zipped by. However, the crowd enjoyed it because they cheered even louder.
After a couple of laps around the show pool, Luna swam towards the middle to jump up high in the air with her whale brothers Fin and Riptide.
But unexpectedly, the trick jump didn't turn out like I hoped.
As Luna leaped up in the crisp air above the pool, Fin and Riptide jumped up on opposite sides of her, leaping up higher than she did.
But Fin jumped too close to Luna and didn't go up high enough. His caudal fins slammed into me in mid air and sent me flying back down to the water with them, before hitting the water hard and blacking out.
The End