\chapauth{jidohanbaiki} \chapter{The Ocean} The abrasive ocean waters lapped dangerously at his flippered feet. Luke Bavarious was a marine biologist who took his job seriously. He set his rusty bucket of herring into the sand with a crepitating flatulence. In the distance, gray blades pierced the ocean, coming closer and closer. There was a portentous whirring and clicking, growing ever louder and more frantic, interrupted only sporadically by the crash of waves. Bavarious took fistfulls of herring in his fists. The herring were slimy and slippery, so he squeezed the herring hard to keep them in his grip. The bodily fluids from the herring leaked between his fingers. He proceeded towards the malicious noise of the ocean, slowly but determined, holding his fists of herring up to the sky, as if in defiance to God. He stopped once the ocean reached his hip. The gray blades swarmed around him. Luke smiled bitterly. ``Come and get it,'' he intoned. Gray beaks poked out of the water, searching, wanting, smiling. But those smiling mouths opened to reveal long rows of tiny, but sharp, brilliant white teeth. Luke tossed the disgusting, smashed herring into the waiting maws. ``Eat,'' Bavarious said, almost cursing. ``Eat!'' he commanded. The dolphins splashed around him, taking their fill of the herring, letting the herrings' slimy bodies slide down whole into their stomachs. Bavarious began to laugh, at first just a chuckle. Then he threw his fists covered in herring eyes and herring guts into the air and erupted with demented revelry. ``Yes! Eat! Eat!'' he screamed, his voice shrill with hysteria. Luke Bavarious was a marine biologist who took his job seriously. He was also a marine biologist who would leave no slight unavenged. Little did the dolphins know that the herring was poisoned. --- Donny had no legs ever since he could remember. A long time ago when he was a child, he had lost them in a car accident, or so he was told. He was also told that he also lost his parents. Every day after school, his aunt would drive him out to the ocean so he could swim with the dolphins as therapy. ``You're thirteen now,'' she said bitterly as she drove him towards the sea. ``Don't you think it's time you stopped swimming with those stupid fish?'' ``They're not fish, and they're definitely not stupid.'' Donny said, folding his arms over his stumps. Once at the dock, his aunt rolled him in his wheelchair over the wooden planks and tipped him into the waters below. ``I'll be back in an hour,'' she shouted down to him. ``I've got to go to a meeting at the bank.'' Donny floated, belly up in the ocean, his horrid little stumps flailing uselessly. Soon, he felt something slippery slide underneath him. It was his friend, Moon Dancer the dolphin. Donny petted Moon Dancer's nose as he dreamed of the freedom he would have if only he could become a dolphin. Then he sensed distress from Moon Dancer. Donny grabbed the dolphin's head and pressed his face to it. ``Take me there,'' said Donny. He grabbed onto Moon Dancer's fin and they sped towards the horizon. It was a wonderful feeling to move so fast and freely, but the ride did not last. They approached a contorted figure in the waters. Donny swam over to the struggling dolphin. ``Star Wave! What's wrong?'' Donny asked. Green bile and rust colored blood vomited from Star Wave's blow hole. Star Wave opened his mouth and vomited out the poisoned herring bones. Donny screamed and then vomited himself, and soon, vomit mixed with tears in the ocean water. Attracted by the blood, a shark appeared and landed a killing blow on Star Wave, putting him out of his horrid misery and spreading violent red blood through the ocean. ``Take me to who did this.'' Donny thought at Moon Dancer. --- Miles away, Luke Bavarious dropped another bucket of herring onto the sand with a squelch. He took fistfulls of poisoned herring, and entered the ocean. In the distance, dolphins schooled. ``Come!'' Bavarious commanded, his powerful fists dripping with poisoned herring entrails. ``You think you're so smart!'' he spat. ``But you won't ruin my scientific research any longer! I was going to prove that you only had fish intelligence, but you ruined my data and now I'm the laughing stock of marine biologists!'' The dolphins did not come, but lingered on the horizon tauntingly. He pounded the water with his herring fist, making a horrid squelching noise. He then went farther and farther into the ocean, until the water was up to his neck. The dolphins then swarmed around him. ``Eat!'' He said, scattering the herring. He laughed and laughed. Then he burbled as bitter, salty water flowed into his mouth and nostrils. Moon Dancer swam up to him and spat a poisoned herring in his face. Bavarious grabbed the herring and beat Moon Dancer with it. ``Eat you stupid fish!'' Then a different dolphin swam by Luke's legs, then around his body. It came out of the water and faced Bavarious. Bavarious screamed. The dolphin had a human face; it was Donny. Bavarious fainted and drowned. Years later Luke Bavarious' bones were found washed up on shore, but no one ever found Donny's. His aunt was thrown in jail for his murder. From behind bars, she would mutter about dolphins with human faces endlessly until one day her cellmate couldn't take it anymore and strangled her to death.