ABSTRACT
Two conflicting images are imprinted on my mind. In one, two boys in a colourful, double-ended dingy lean over its edge, arms outstretched with hopeful hands, eager to touch the humpback calf. In the other, two men rest their hands on the gunwale of the pitch-tarred hull, as a humpback whale surfaces, turning with a trusting eye to investigate them, just as the harpoon strikes her head. Two hands — one reaches to touch, the other to kill.
