The Dolphin
Copyright© 2017 by Colin Barrett
Chapter 12
I see the Maggie by itself nearby, and I come to the top of the water to speak to it.
These humans are more strange than I know before. Now that I learn how they make their noises together I come to know some of their talk. I ask it where do they take Kitik.
This is what I think is so strange about the humans. I think the Maggie tries for long to teach us the speech of humans. But when I use that speech the Maggie acts that it is greatly surprised. Does it believe we are stupid? The human speech is very clumsy, as I think before, and it is very ugly, but I think I say right in their way.
Yes, I say right, for in time the Maggie begins to speak back to me. It says that Kitik is taken to a place where other humans will care for him. I do not understand why there must be a different place for this, but the humans are not the same as we and I understand that this is their way.
But I think again of Kitik’s fear as he is taken away. The Maggie tells me the Jason is with him, and I know that is so, but it is not enough. The Jason says “Tow-bee” when it speaks to Kitik, and that will not help Kitik, it will make him more fearful. I tell the Maggie that the Jason must say his name. It makes me repeat the name, and it still does not say right, but finally it is close enough that I think Kitik will understand. I say good.
The Maggie uses a stick-out part to hold something to its mouth, where it makes its sounds. It seems to talk to the Jason, though I do not know how this can be. But it speaks “Kitik” in the way that it can. Then it asks my name and again I must speak slowly several times before it says close enough that Kitik may understand, and it says my name into the thing that it holds.
After it has put the thing away I ask the Maggie why it calls us by these strange sounds, “Em-ill-lee” and “Tow-bee.” It says that it does not know our names before. That is not sensible, we are not Lone One who chooses not to have his name. Lone One has reasons for his choice, but a name is important; it is the one that we are. I tell the Maggie that it knows our names now, and it should not call us other. I go below to think on Kitik and to rest.
I think, too, of how Kitik is hurt. None are near him when he takes hurt. How is it possible that he is hurt when he is alone?
A memory comes to me. Once when I am small and still with Mother we come upon a strange creature. It is like octopus but very different, all the stick-out parts go one way. We swim close and it sends out a liquid toward us. The liquid is dark and nasty, and some of it strikes me with force. Mother laughs at me as I swim away fast. She says the creature sends out the liquid to protect itself.
Can it be that humans may send out hard things in the same way, with force? Is that how Kitik is hurt?
I think of the loud noises the human makes just before Kitik takes hurt, and the sharp noises that are a little the same as the noises in the water when Kitik is taken. Is it that this human makes hard things strike Kitik?
I do not know how this may be so, but I think perhaps it is.
A human has hurt Kitik!
Is this what Acou means when he speaks of his shadow?
“Exactly what the hell did you have me say to him?” Jason burst out. He’d just returned from the Flagler facility and had almost run onto the apron looking for Maggie.
“Well, did it work?”
“Did it work?“ he expostulated. “Christ, Maggie. I went in and said what you told me like a good little boy, and dammit, Toby went apeshit. They’d just got him out of the cradle in that friggin’ truck with their own sling, and moved him into whatever the hell it is that passes for a sickbed in that place, and he was being nice and quiet and easy, and then I said what you told me and it was like an explosion! Shit, he started squirming and tossing like there was no tomorrow.”
“But what happened?” she asked.
“Well, the first thing that happened was they threw my ass out of there. I mean, hustled me right out the door. Couldn’t get rid of me fast enough. Told me they needed to keep Toby down, slow, couldn’t have him upset like that.”
“And?”
His ire fell away, and in its place was something like a grin. “Well, like I said, bumping me was the first thing. But the second one was, well, about five minutes later they came out and told me his vital signs were back up. They’d been real nice to me all the way there, but I kept getting the feeling they were just trying to set me up for the big downer. They were talking all this medical shit I guess they figured I wouldn’t understand, but if you listen it’s not that hard to follow and it sounded like they thought he was going downhill pretty fast.”
She was smiling so broadly that it threatened to consume her face.
“Anyhow, that’s what had been happening. And I was getting more and more scared, and— well, then you called, and I said what you told me. Kitik and Minacou, right?” She nodded, the smile still suffusing her face. “And he went wonky, and they bounced me, and then lo and fucking behold he’s by God coming back!”
“Yes!” she exclaimed, pumping her fist in the air.
“Which brings us,” he went on, “back to what I asked to start—which is, what in the name of God was it you told me to say?”
“His name, babe,” she said, her smile still wide. “Just his name. Kitik. And hers, his mate, Minacou. Just names. But they matter, really matter.”
“Maggie, he’s Toby—”
“No! That’s just what we’ve been calling him, Jason, in fact I just got my butt chewed out for it. He’s Kitik and it’s important.”
He looked at her strangely. “What, you got a God-o-gram telling you the name and we got it wrong? How would you know that?”
She laughed in a strangled tone. “No God-o-gram. An Emily-o-gram maybe. Or really a Minacou-o-gram, because that’s who she is, Jason, she told me!“
“Huh?” he said inelegantly.
“Jason, I’ve done it!“ she said exuberantly. “We’re communicating!
“Or no, I haven’t done it, that’s bullshit,” she went on, abruptly deflating. “Minacou did it, not me. She talked to me, my language, not me to her. And then she read me out about the names and just ducked underwater and left me to stew. I think,” she added wryly, “I’ve been reduced to second-class citizen, or scientist, or whatever, or maybe not even that much.”
He was gawking at her in astonishment. “Can we slow down just a hair, Mag?” he asked carefully. “You over the edge? Hallucinating? You on something you haven’t told me about?”
“If so it’s a pretty widespread hallucination,” she responded flatly. “Kitik seemed to react to it, didn’t he? Toby?”
His mouth hung open for a moment. He exhaled sharply. “Start from the top, Mag,” he said. “I was gone for, what, three hours, four? Please tell me what in the motherfucking hell of a Goddamned french-fried rutabaga went on here in those few hours that I just happened to miss.”
Step by step she took him from Minacou’s first question to the dolphin’s final scolding about names.
He could only shake his head, flabbergasted. “I’d think you were making it up, but Toby’s—Kitik’s—reaction ... Hey, wait a minute. If she was that worried about, uh, Kitik, how come she’s not up here now asking me about him?”
Maggie turned and pointed. The dolphin was lying easily on the surface several yards out in the lagoon.
“She’s listening to us. I think she already knows.”
“Well...” Jason took a couple of steps toward the lagoon. “Uh, Emily, sorry, Minacou,” he started. He looked at Maggie. “Listen to me, I’m apologizing to a dolphin for using the wrong name.” He turned back to the lagoon. “Minacou, do you want me to tell you about Kitik?” he asked with exaggerated clarity.
The dolphin twitched her big fluke to move toward him. “Know,” she said. “Maggie right. Listen. Talk hard. Listen better easy.”
“Easier,” Maggie murmured. “Yes, I imagine it is.” Jason could only stare at the animal as if he’d never seen her before.
Again the fluke moved, and now the dolphin was immediately in front of Jason. “When Kitik come back?” she asked, looking squarely at him.
“Uh... ,” he floundered. “I don’t know. Soon, I think. A few days.”
“‘Days,’” Minacou repeated. “Long?”
When he didn’t respond immediately Maggie intervened. “A day, one day”—she held up a single finger—”is the time from when the sun rises until it rises again. When it first gets light, understand?”
“Yes.”
“A few is more than one.” She held up first one hand and then the other, fingers spread. “We don’t know how many, but not many. Understand?”
“Good.” The dolphin was momentarily silent but she made no move to leave. “What name that?” she asked. “What you show.”
Maggie lifted up her hand and looked at it. “That?”
“Yes. What name?”
“Well, this is a finger.” She extended her index finger again. “I have ten of them.” She held up both hands and wiggled her fingers to demonstrate. “The whole thing is a hand, I have two hands. And these are my arms. Understand?”
“Yes. Not ask always, I say.” Maggie’s mouth dropped open; cheeky little dickens, she thought. But the dolphin was speaking again: “What down parts? What name?”
“‘Down parts?’” Maggie puzzled. Her eyes reflexively lowered. “Oh, here?” She lifted one leg.
“Yes.”
“Legs. Two of them, too. And a foot at the end, here, and”—she kicked out of her sandal—”toes.”
Minacou ducked quickly under water and as quickly re-emerged. “Talk hard,” she said. “You listen.” Shut up and pay attention, Maggie translated to herself. But the dolphin was continuing. “Ask many. Not talk good. More good soon. You help. Un-der-stand?”
“Yes,” Maggie responded. Then, impishly, she added, “You don’t need to always ask. I’ll tell you if I don’t understand.”
The dolphin turned and gently slapped its fluke against the surface to send up a small spray of water toward her. “Not ask I. Not ask you. Good. Talk other time. Now—” she emitted a string of clicks and buzzes that seemed to end in “Kitik.” She submerged.
Jason looked down at the ripples. “A sense of humor too?” he laughed. “Hey, Maggie, I never said. I mean congratulations! You damn well did it!”
“Well, like I said, Minacou really did it. But I guess I helped, at least. And you too, babe.” She reached out a hand to touch his cheek. They stood awkwardly for a little that way, but then the moment was lost as the dolphin suddenly broke water in the center of the lagoon in one of her patented massive leaps, perhaps the highest they’d seen yet.
“She’s celebrating,” Maggie said quietly. “I think that’s what she said when she left. She’s making her own celebration for her mate.”
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