THE SHARK: Where we live, the water is cold and the menu is short. Great whites, like me. Now and then a whale, like him. Porgy. Stripers. Not a lot of variety. You learn to notice who is big.

THE WHALE: The land around here is the same. Up the hill there is a local university with whales and sharks of its own. They win Nobel prizes. They are famous in their fields. Around them, a great many people blend in, and once in a while somebody stands out, and everybody notices, because there is room to.

THE SHARK: So we went to Miami. In March. For the water.

THE WHALE: Miami is a little the opposite. Not many sharks and whales. A lot of everybody else. The famous ones are there, but they are playing volleyball on the public courts, recreationally, with whoever showed up.

THE SHARK: Different colors. Different ways of talking. Different music. Everybody is musical. Everybody seems to make something. Not everybody. A lot of them.

THE WHALE: And happy. Genuinely. They want to know things about you. They are happy that you found success. Everyone we met seemed to have found some.

THE SHARK: We went dancing. The floor was a coral reef. Here, I am the shark on the dance floor. In New York, too. There, I was one more fish.

THE WHALE: Everybody there plays music, and nobody plays it too loud. Here, hardly anybody plays it loud, and when they do, it is way too loud, and they think it is good.

THE SHARK: We went snorkeling. We did not see much. Some colorful fish. From a boat we would have seen more.

THE WHALE: It is strange how what lies beneath the water sometimes reflects what lies above the shoreline.

THE SHARK: We came home. The water is still cold. I am still the shark. I notice it more.