The wife often attempted to explain the fullness in her head by equating it with pests. I have ants in my head today, she’d told the husband once, after they’d been dating for nearly four months. It was that purgatorial time in the relationship when she felt comfortable enough to say something he might find strange, but hesitant to say something flat-out like I’m feeling depressed or I was on medication for a time before you came along. Instead, she spoke of ants and he laughed...

On the day that the whales came to rot, the seaside town of Prince-au-Mer, which existed in a perpetually indecisive state, found itself teetering on the precipice of complete disorder. Dr. Rutherford and his handsome assistant, who was not a doctor and had spoken very little in public, so was assumed to be as unintelligent as he was handsome, believed that the carcass should be ignored and left to decay naturally. 
         There are many ecological benefits to allowing the whales to decompose...