Page 139 - Dark Matter Issue5 Part II

None of the pool elders knew what had happened. One or two stared at Miranda, as if

searching her for fire, for rockets, for blasting caps. Only one elder, a blue-haired lush

half swaying in the water, looked at the community mural, and traced with her hand the

back fin of the nearest dolphin.

Miranda had burst into tears, and was inconsolable, first in the pool, in the drafty corridor

where she waited for her father, and then at home, in the quiet, dark, empty rooms

where her father first cried, then drank, then told her stories of mermaids and sea

mammals, and the terrible price of land legs.

Today, on the pleasure cruise boat, was the eighth anniversary of Cassandra’s rapture in

the pool. Miranda, motherless orphan, watched the dolphins, her hands twisted and

white around the tourist boat’s railing. She felt her balance shift with the curvy roils of the

mammals just off to starboard. For a second, she relaxed her own grip, and felt the salt

stick on the tender palm of her hand. Then she resettled, grasped, keeping herself from

mounting the rail and jumping high up to the sun, deep down into the green wave.

Miranda congratulated herself on her levelheaded denial of those desires. Just like

passing up a cooling gin and tonic, the tinkle of ice cubes like giggles in her ear. Like

passing up a genteel glass in the local gallery’s exhibition opening, Chardonnay slipping

in past murmurings of pastel appreciation. She was strong, and her feet were firmly

planted on the Astroturf of the pontoon deck.

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