The Dolphin's Song

The ocean always invites me in with open arms – gentle, frothy waves which tease and lick my toes, making fickle promises of an unknown turquoise paradise. Ever since I was a small boy, the sea has summoned me this way. It seduces me with irresistible mystery, the depths of which we mortals can never truly understand.

Each evening, I swim the length of the shoreline, and allow the icy chill of saltwater to saturate my body as it seeps into every crack and pore, cleansing me of earthly desires. The shimmering waters embrace me completely and I ask the sea to reveal to me its timeless secrets of creation and destruction.

But, for me, the sea is silent. It does not tell me what I want to know and the gulls laugh knowingly from above, dipping and twisting in flight as their talons skim the glassy surface.

Please, I ask again. Are you there? Answer me.

Still the ocean is not fooled, for it knows I do not belong. My legs and arms thrash about gracelessly and my swimming is mechanical and laboured. Limbs start to ache and cramp. I slowly sink further and deeper into sulky blue oblivion, but inevitably the sea spits me out.

My lungs are balloons and I cannot help but float upwards towards the sky. I emerge with seawater in my eyes, spraying clumsy droplets in all directions, like fire embers in the orange light of the evening sun. The illusion is broken by the bitter cold water and a wind that whips my wet, salty skin. I stumble towards the shore with legs of leaden jelly and my feet sink into the soft sandy earth. Golden waves swell and crash, in the shallows, pushing me forwards out of the water in the same way a bouncer throws a troublemaker out of a bar. A wave gives me one final shove on to the land and I fall to my knees, grazing them on broken shell and shingle.

My belongings are halfway up the beach. I snatch up the towel and huddle inside it shivering. This is a ritual I perform every evening – always alone and always at sunset – and I sit listening to the lament of the ocean until the light fades. It whispers of memories and regrets.

My brother and I had grown up with the sea. Our skin always tasted of salt and our hair was matted by sandstorms born out in the deep, blue beyond. It was my brother, three years my elder, who taught me to swim, slowly and with patience, even though I never truly lost my mammal awkwardness. On the days we didn’t have to work or study, we’d soak ourselves in sea spray from morning until night. At sunset, we’d race against each other, swimming along the shoreline – although I would never win; my brother was more fish than human with sleek supple limbs that glistened bronze in the sunlight. He’d dive and undulate with the swells of water, in tune with the timeless rhythm of the tide. My grandmother claimed that his birthmark, a small crescent moon next to his right eye, meant that he had been marked by the gods of the sea. For, as everyone knows, the sea is slave only to the cycle of the moon.

The jagged cliffs start to cast long shadows on the rusty sand as the sun dips lower. I remember how my brother and I would jump from these rocks which capture deep pools of water at high tide. The water cut like knives on impact but, addicted, we’d instantly swim back to the rocks and dive in over and over again. Dolphins would sometimes visit the pools when the water rushed in from the ocean and my brother would always throw them any fish he’d collected in his bucket that day. They learned the sound of his whistle and they’d raise expectant heads out of the water and chatter in excitement when they heard him. As long as my brother was there, the creatures would chirrup and laugh, swimming in circles, while we sunned ourselves on the rocks like limpets.

My brother tried to show me how to call and feed the dolphins myself, but they refused to listen to my guttural human tongue. Instead they would tut and click at me before slipping away like quicksilver. My brother would just laugh; his half-moon scar always became misshapen and creased whenever he smiled. Then he’d leap in after the vanishing dolphins, his athlete’s body as shiny and nimble as a porpoise.

He once told me that scientists believe all life came from the ocean, and that humans evolved from sea creatures. As with everything that came out of my brother’s mouth, I listened in rapture to his words. I wonder if this is why people are so fascinated by the sea – because they still share a forgotten ancestry with the creatures of the deep.

Those days with my brother always seemed to be sunny and cloudless, although realistically I know it must have rained sometimes too. In my memory, the rain came later, starting as an imperceptible drizzle before becoming perpetually overcast and grey. There were dark days when my brother would withdraw into his own crab-like shell and not let anyone else in. I’d often catch him gazing out at the surf, his eyes mysterious and unfathomable as the ocean itself. He’d disappear for the whole day without telling me and return with red peeled shoulders and smelling of salt.

I thought it must be my fault. At that age I was eager to do everything my brother did – my small footprints always followed his larger ones in the sand – but I could not keep up. In the evenings we’d still race the shoreline as usual, but each time he’d push himself further and further into the deep waters where the sea turned from aquamarine to midnight blue. Dorsal fins would sometimes overtake us as we raced, sprightly and agile creatures swimming towards the dying sun on the horizon. Gasping for air, sooner or later, my limbs would seize up and I’d have to turn back. And so I would wait for my brother on the shore, while he chased the dolphins, shivering with a wet towel wrapped around me.

The nightly swims grew longer as time went on. Alone on the soggy beach at nightfall, I’d convince myself I could hear the ocean singing and the dolphins cackling in response. Stars would twinkle in the twilight and I’d fret as the moon grew brighter and the night blacker, but my brother would always return and wipe away my tears with a strong, reassuring arm. His half moon eyes would dance and he’d tell me I had no need to be afraid.

Until the night he didn’t come back.

When they found me on the beach that night, my body was racked with sobs and I refused to leave the water’s edge. Delirious and feverish, they had to drag me away kicking and screaming. Hours had passed since sunset.

The sea has taken him, I cried. He has gone away with the dolphins.

For three weeks I lay in bed with hypothermia, caused by the wet towel and the chill of the night. My dreams were all blue and green, and my tears tasted like the ocean.

When my body finally recovered, I awoke to a different world. No longer would I lie on the sunkissed rocks with my brother listening to the dolphins sing. Nor would we shriek innocently as we raced across the skyline against the setting sun. I would swim alone and there would now only be one set of footprints etched in the sand.

Several years have passed but the memories still linger. I sit on the beach now, watching the ocean turn from blue to black, as I did all that time ago waiting for my brother to return. My skin has started to dry, but solitary droplets trickle pleasingly down my arms. The last rays of sunlight have turned the sea as red as blood.

I often ask myself whether it’s the ocean which haunts me or if it’s me who haunts the ocean. Each night I watch the horizon until I can no longer tell where the water meets the sky. I wait until the sea is as black as an oil slick, speckled with silver darts of flickering moonlight.

They never did find my brother’s body for the sea has a way of keeping secrets. Nor have I seen dolphins swim in this bay since the night he disappeared. Although, seafarers will sometimes speak of a school of dolphins, which swim further out to sea just where the water turns dark. The leader is said to be a male bull, with a crescent shaped scar just above his right eyelid.

Since ancient times, people have liked to say such things. The sea’s majesty tends to incite those with a penchant for myths and legends, but little do I understand such mysteries as I gaze upon the voiceless ocean.

My eyes move upwards until the murky waters merge with the night sky which is blanketed with constellations of billions of stars. Each star embodies its own cosmos of possibility and creation. The white crescent moon looks down on me and smiles.

Tomorrow I will come back and ask the ocean yet again, if it will give me back the brother it has taken from me.

And still it will not answer.