Aynee · Yoday'a

Modern fantasy elements (not of the usual elf/vampire/boring ect sort) lyrical and unusual (by which I mean weird), and looking for any criticism that would improve. Warning: not for the squeamish.



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It started with the woman who gave birth to a dolphin.

She arose three hours after the sun, unaware of her pregnancy. But when she stood at the sock drawer a shiver went up her arms and then water splashed down to her feet. That was the minute of before and after, and later she said she felt two people inside of her. One was the real her who didn’t understand what was happening. But there was another deep, sleeping her who rose up and took over, and that her went to the hall bathroom.

She filled the bathtub up with cold water and took off ever shred of clothing, her pajamas and underwear and even the hair-tie on her wrist, until she was fully naked. She hunkered down into the bathtub and held on to the water taps for support.

Then something moved inside of her. She said later it hurt a bit, like a hard pinch stays tingling in your skin, but then something wet and loose came and it was the most free she ever felt. It was sliding out from her innermost and then there was the release of blood, and then nothing, and she turned around and saw the dolphin.

It was swimming uneasily, pumping his wrinkled little tail to get up to the surface. It was blue-grey with white spots on its belly and no larger than a house cat.

That was when the normal part of her, still watching from her mind, began to cry. The other her accepted the tears but reached out for her son. She held him to the surface on her arm, and in the other collected the placenta that had fallen to the tub floor. She was only four days from her last period.

She stayed like that, crying and holding on to the dolphin, until he could swim on his own. He did little flips in tight circles, brushing against her leg, fat and slick and full of rubber flesh. He seemed confused and frustrated under his happiness, as this new her had this bright colored joy under her tears, until the dried up and there was a strange chilled calm. Then she stood and walked outside, naked and dripping, ignoring the later hour that meant the arrival of adults. She went to her herb garden and planted the placenta under the chocolate mint with her water-wrinkled hands. It was early spring and still cold. Especially naked in the morning, and she curled up in the grass as her nipples grew hard and bumps broke out all along her shin where the tub water dried into the nothingness of air.

That pause, she said, was when the real her could finally surface. And she was scared and horrified. She should call animal control – the hospital – the police; obviously she was hallucinating, what if she was dangerous? She went through what happened over and over again, from the water falling to the water filling with life, trying to figure out what went wrong, what had happened when and where. Her stomach clenched up and she felt sick and terribly frozen. But also she was worried for the dolphin, and when she made room for that longing the new her came back. Shh, she told herself, like a mother, everything will be okay. She held on to her normal self to comfort, feeling her hand cradling her cheek, but like another’s caress. She again brought up the list of concerns. No, the new self said, you must know this is real because you just saw it happen. But how? she wailed, and there was no answer. The other her told her the important thing was to keep going. The new self said, I’m worried about the dolphin too – not where he came from, but how he is. I’m worried about our son too. Then the everyday logical her fell to the ground and made the choking sound of crying, but with no tears, and submitted herself to this.

When she got back up, she was the other self, but it seemed familiar and calm, like the return from a fever. Now she was empty and still and dry. She stood and brushed scout ants off her knees and went inside. She went to the bathtub where her dolphin son was trying to maneuver in such tight circles, in this room of fluorescence and scented shampoo and tampons. She knelt down and took him in her arms and started peeling off his skin.

It was difficult to get off – she really had to dig her nails in – and he kept squirming out of her grasp. He was really quite strong. But finally she could yank it up over his fin and down to his tail, and the thick silver coat came off in her hands. In the bathtub was a human baby boy, who she quickly rescued and dried and comforted as he squalled in confusion and dimorphic disarray.

She pulled on a robe and some shoes, and took him and the skin to her car. Later she could not recall any of the details of how it was done or how long it took, minutes or hours or days, but she drove with him in her lap and, occasionally, nestled in her arm, sucking sharp at her breast. He was intensely hungry and every grasp of her nipple filled her with increasing anticipation.

At some point, she reached an inlet. The sand felt familiar and so she felt no embarrassment leaving her car abandoned with the keys and clothing still inside. She walked on the rough particles of rock feeling its history calling keenly to her, walked naked into the lapping tongues of surf, walked into the water that filled her being with a mindless serenity, walked into the hard swarming waves that hit like a heartbeat. They went deeper and deeper until she had to hold him over her head, and when she could only plant toes to the shifting seabed she wrapped him back up in his skin. The little dolphin swam forwards and back, so obviously leading her forward that it seemed excessive. So she followed, swimming farther than she thought she could, farther than she ever had before, and the shore was only a fuzzy outline separating the waters of the sea and sky.

He stopped and started crying out. It was a sharp scratching whistle that made her ears ache until she slipped down, and then under the shifting sunlight-dappled surface it sounded like the plainest, simplest language she could imagine. She waded and listened and waded until dark shapes appeared around her. She said before they got close enough to see, she already knew who they were, and that they felt like god to her bones.

A pod of them, small but heavy and blue-grey, surrounded her and her child. They swarmed in dizzying circles, chattering and buzzing and cooing over the little one. He was so clearly returned home that she said you’re welcome out loud as if they could hear and understand.

At this point in the story, she stopped and would not speak for several moments, instead taking nervous sips of raspberry lemonade and brushing her arm hair back the wrong way. It is a sensitive subject, so I will pass to you her warning about hearing this.

The pod and her child swam out, carrying her with them on their fins and backs. It was tiring, keeping hold and swimming this far out into the deep ocean of grey sameness. It should have but didn’t feel cold to her at all, and even the weariness in her muscles pulling felt acceptable. She said that it occurred to her, all of a sudden under the afternoon sun, that she might die like this, here and then. But it didn’t worry her.

Then they stopped and swam in lazy circles, calling out for lunch and holding the younger ones up for a rest in the warm light. There was no one to lean on and she had to start wading, already so tired, and so was relieved when one of the dolphins suddenly turned and swam up to her.

She says she noticed he was male – they were slightly smaller than the females – and had a little wedge missing from the left fin. Then she saw the pattern of white dots on his belly and they went from dots to pattern, and then it was as clear and obvious as someone’s face. In some skin-strumming way she knew he was like her son.

When she looked into his eye and carefree smile, she knew he was the father, without explanation of how. He nuzzled her like a cat and she felt welcomed, but there was a slight hesitancy to the contact too. Then this was the final decision.

Her response was immediate. Yes, she said, shaking her head, and signing, and smiling, and agreeing all the ways she knew how. Then she lay on her back and exhaled, dropping down into the water.

Her eyes were open to watch, clear and bright despite the salt, and she saw him thrust his tail and propel himself on her. They both sank down, gliding into an effortless angle, and she grabbed a hold of him, wrapping her legs around him for support.

This was when he softly slid curved into her – these were her words – and it hurt again, that same pinch, but then quickly she felt warmed and strong and a blooming need. They swam deeper and deeper thrusting toward release until she passed out from want of air.

At this point in her story, she stopped again and busied herself checking the time left on her break. She was blushing, no doubt worried how it must sound to me, but also there was the faintest scent of memory arousal. She gathered herself, caught my eyes and said, after that, she was a dolphin.

She swam and ate and lived with them. Sometimes also they were human – she and her mate would make love with hands on a beach, her sisters and her would go running and fall pasted to the ground and laugh, her son would hunt merry-go-rounds and ride the ceramic horses with the indulgent smile of someone who has experienced so much more. Often it was hard to remember when they were human and when they were dolphin. Often it was hard to remember to distinguish time at all, only the natural beat of tides and shifting electric lines. She communicated with them, simple feeling or long thoughts, but only on things that were basic and mattered. There never was an explanation for what happened – but maybe, she said, crumpling up the straw wrapper and flicking it into the saltshaker – maybe she just forgot to ask. Her son grew up and later they had a daughter. One of the pod died and they dragged his body to the depths so it could be eaten away, and there was mourning, but only loss – not the strange selfish affairs of humans.

Then? This all lasted fifteen years, by her best guess. One day they were human and happened to be in this town in this country, and she went for a walk by herself, which she did every few years. She walked down a paved round and then turned to go further inland where there was a great gathering of pigeons to watch. Suddenly she felt this snap inside her stomach. Then she was in her natural body and this world felt normal again. Real. Solid. Weighted. Afraid, she ran back to the beach, but her skin was gone. Vanished? Stolen? She couldn’t find the pod as people or out at sea. She remembers rushing into the water, but it was salty and cold and strong and kept her back, and she knew it was a stranger to her once again instead of natural air and area.

At this point she slunk down into the booth hid a few weighted tears behind cropped fingernails. I learn that she was lived here since, working as a waitress because they’ll take her without I.D. or passport. She lives around, wherever she can, and has yet to commit to owning much of anything. All of her time is spent trying to find her pod, listening to the reports of sailors or articles of scientists or just wading with a looking glass. Did they abandon her? Did she abandon them? It has been more than a year now like this. She confesses that she has considered suicide. Is there any way that I can help?

I tell her that, first off, it was a skein she had. I can do some research, and she can stay with me in the mean time if she likes. We can arrange payment later. I can’t promise anything; once such a thing is lost, only the owner has hope of ever finding it again, and a thing like that is very rare. But, I concede, what has happened to her is very rare also, and so there is a chance. This claim makes her hug me and then slip away, back into the kitchen, eleven minutes past break.

I tell you this now to explain my role in the affair. I hope you can see how wounded she was, how badly she needed to fix it, why I was compelled to act. I hope that serves as an apology to you, darling, for what happened after. It is the best kind I can offer, along with the reassurance that none of us knew what was going to happen because of it. And how could we have foreseen such a thing? Such a terrible thing. Oh darling, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.