Art by Jocelyn Soetanto

Content Warnings: mentions of suicide and drowning

Every night, a woman walks along the pier barefoot. I watch her covertly from the water. I used to worry she would spot me, but by the time she sits herself on the pier’s edge and dips her feet into the lapping sea, she is far inside her own world. She has a dolphin’s energy—the calm intelligence so integral to my species.  

I sometimes imagine what she is thinking about. My pod believes I have fallen in love. For a while they snickered, but for a long time they have been silent. They do not understand the joy that comes from watching another forgo the world’s judgement. Dolphins are shifters, we move between pods, and partners, and seas. We scheme as much as the humans do, our brains work so similarly, but we cannot move between worlds. It makes me understand why dolphins in captivity suicide. I keep thinking that if the woman ever steps into the ocean, I will do what my species has always done: swim beneath her and lift her head above the water. I will give her the choice of life. Unlike humans, dolphins are conscious breathers, we know what it is to choose to live.  

In my mind, the woman is mourning a life lost. Bittersweet and nostalgic, the fleeting moments are gilded in rose-coloured glass. She remembers a place where the skies were like fickle gods, bathing the country in torrential downpour until every surface was clean, pure, reborn, ready for the moon’s moody night and the sun-soaked hills of dawn. I conjure images I don’t truly understand: the sounds of people bartering in the streets, the intoxicating smells of cooking food, and gloriously decadent temples filled with a quiet reverence. Perhaps, when she is looking beyond the confines of the horizon, she can forget the towering skyscrapers glistening obnoxiously behind her.  

I shake myself from my reverie. Her life is not my own. It is a very human trait to want what you cannot have. Dolphins should not conform to such egotism.  

The woman is staring at me.  

This is the first time she has seen me. I stare back at her. I don’t know if she can see the intelligence in my eyes; humans tend to be blind to it. I start to make a series of whistles and clicks, and she stands up and steps into the ocean. For a moment, I think I should not save her. It is a moment of weakness. I quickly swim beneath her drifting form and hold her above the surface.  

I feel as if I can see what she imagines. In her mind, the land is plunged into darkness, the soft light of the moon casting the ocean with a ghostly shine. Somewhere else in the world another life is starting, another day is waiting.  

She quietly hoists herself onto the pier. It is silent—the curse of animal-human relationships. Sentience collides. We are one and the same, yet my clicks will never be understood by her human ears. The most I can hope for is that the memories that haunt her floated away as she left the land and entered the sea. Perhaps now she will feel a different world tug at her heart.