The Tide Immortal

“You’re going to be fine, Walter? OK? You’re going to be fine.”

Walter struggled to smile weakly at his wife’s reassurances. He’d learned in their forty-two years together just to let her talk it through; most of the words were far more for her sake than his.

His muscles tensed for a moment and he went rigid. It was a small one, and the seizure subsided almost immediately. Tears welled up in Karen’s eyes as the doctors moved quickly around her at his bedside. Even after three years of watching this wretched disease eat away at him, she still cried every time.

“It’s getting close mam,” one of the nurses said, “perhaps you’d rather…”

Walter’s smile grew as Karen whirled around to face the woman.

“I’VE BEEN WITH THIS MAN THROUGH A WAR, TWO CHILDREN, OUR HOUSE BURNING DOWN AND OUR DOG BEING RUN OVER BY THE MCCORMIC BRAT! I WILL NOT LEAVE HIM NOW!” Karen shouted at the woman.

“She’s just trying to help, honey,” Walter said, patting his wife’s hand before being taken by a round of coughing that left the copper taste of blood in his mouth.

“She’s trying to make me leave you,” Karen sniffed. Walter peered at her wispy white hair, felt the knobbed grip of her withered hands around his, and yet could only see the raven-haired cheerleader brazen enough to lift her top to distract him from what would have been the game-winning catch at her high school homecoming game. Memories flooded of their torrid college romance, the birth of their sons, her screams at finding Minnie bleeding in the street… so much life lived together. So much passion; so many tears.

And now, for the first time longer than he had lived, He was going to be without her.

He felt another seizure building. Better get it out before he couldn’t any longer…

“Here it comes,” a nurse watching wavy lines from a ticker-tape readout hollered out.

“Prime the machines…” a man behind a surgical mask instructed.

A faraway hum began to build, like the room was in the belly of a mosquito that had just taken flight…

“I love you,” Walter told Karen, staring into her eyes and gripping her hand with what little strength he could muster.

“I love you too, Walter,” Karen replied, tears following the furrows in her aged face freely. “Wait for me.”

Walter tried to nod, but the seizure wouldn’t wait and it grabbed him. He felt it burn, his vision going first black, then cold.

…….

The dark gave birth to a spark. Starting from somewhere around his buttocks it suddenly bloomed to life, crawling through his body at a rate he could barely follow. He felt himself coalesce, a sparkling amalgamation of grand nothingness made new.

And then, everything was…

…smooth.

Walter gasped in a ragged breath. The air tasted heavy; briny. His eyelids seemed crusted over, like he’d slept too long. He breathed in again, deeper, slower this time, exulting in the movement. It had been so long since he’d been able to breathe deep like this without his cough shaking him to the core. Pulling in a third breath, he slowly opened his eyes.

The room around him swam in distortion. He could see the nurses and doctors moving with purpose, adjusting controls on the various machines that ringed the operating room.

“Are you there?” He heard a voice ask.

“Y…yes?” He replied. His mouth felt awkward.

“How do you feel?” the voice asked.

“Strange,” he replied.

The voice laughed. A sweet, feminine sound.

“Yes, I’d imagine so. That will stick with you for a bit.”

He could see Karen approach him and press her gnarled hands against the glass that now separated them, but he couldn’t make out what she was saying.

“I’m going to release your harness now and bring you into a larger tank so we can do some preliminary tests. Sound good?”

“Yes,” Walter answered absently, still looking at Karen who’s muffled words were unintelligible, though her face shown with gentle assurance.

There was a snap and a woosh, and Walter felt himself suddenly pulled through an aperture that had spiraled open at the end of his tank. He was deposited into a much larger open area with sunlight filtering down from above. Feeling awkward, Walter stretched out his arms and kicked his legs as best he could to balance himself but succeeded only in sending himself tumbling.

“There’s a moment of adjustment as you get used to your new body,” the feminine voice, no longer sounding as though it was from a can, said. “Stop struggling and let yourself go limp. Thats it. Now, kick with both legs at once. Keep your arms at your side except for small adjustments. There you go…”

Walter did his best to follow her instructions, struggling to overcome his instincts and let her talk him through this new movement. Halting his tumble he righted himself into a gentle glide as his coach swam into his field of vision, drawing even with him.

“Hello,” the dolphin said, “I’m Missi.”

“Walter. I… I can understand you,” Walter observed.

“Our ability to speak transfers along with our memories. Re-learning movement is biggest hurdle. But you seem to be doing swimmingly,” Missi laughed at her own joke. “Follow me, lets get a look at the new you.”

Taking the lead, Missi swam over to a large mirror that hung inside the tank to the left of a large observation window. As Walter followed he saw Karen standing just on the other side of the window speaking with doctors. Behind them in the center of the room a sheet-covered body lay undisturbed on a hospital gurney.

“Come on,” Missi encouraged with a flick of her gray head, “take a look.”

Walter glided over in front of the mirror to where Missi swam in lazy circles. Sureally, a gray bottlenose dolphin matched his movements stroke for stroke in it’s reflection as he tried to mimic Missi’s gentle circles.

“We don’t have a lot of mirrors in the open ocean,” Missi offered. “Now’s the time to get an eyeful.”

Walter rolled through the water, watching the reflection of his new body follow his movements. It was a handsome creature; a sleek dark grey torpedo of a thing with a smooth white belly. Missi was visible swimming around behind him in the reflection.

“Welcome to the new you,” she said.

Walter kicked, watching his new tail twitch downward, propelling him past the mirror’s edge. A few more times and he was back before it.

“We need to do a few tests just to make sure the transfer was completed properly, and then it’s probably best if you say your goodbyes and we move on,” Missi said, her voice growing more gentle with the least phrase.

Walter nodded, watching his dolphin doppelgänger do the same. The company had been very clear during his preparation classes that once his human body had died and the transfer had been completed his separation from his old life as a land mammal would be swift and final. Any individual who tried to maintain ties to their old human life had experienced a kind of catastrophic rejection of their dolphin  body, many of them drowning, and some developing unexplained tumors. He and Karen had already said their goodbyes, and they both knew what had to be done to live on.

“Raise your right fin; now your left…” Missi walked Walter through some basic instructions; ‘calisthenics’ was what she referred to them as.

“Great,” she said after they were done, “everything is in the green, and looks good Walter. They keyboard for your final message is there under the observation window. Just use your snout to press the keys. It feels a little strange, like typing with your nose. Try to keep it short, and then we’ll go for a swim down ‘The Lane.’”

Walter maneuvered over to the observation window. The room was mostly empty now; his old body had been wheeled out and only Karen and the head transfer specialist stood waiting with a third person Walter didn’t recognize, though more than likely it was the transfer councilor assigned to help Karen through the transition process. The keyboard was a broad panel that ran almost the length of the observation window with separated keys and a digital readout on both interior and exterior sides of the window so both parties could read what was typed.

“HAD A GOOD LIFE WITH YOU” Walter carefully nosed out the message he had thought long and hard about through orientation. He saw Karen’s eyes well up with fresh tears and the transfer councillor put her arm around her. Karen put one hand to the window and nodded, and then was ushered off by the medical professionals.

“Ok. Done,” he said, backing away from the keyboard.

Missi swam back over from the edge of the holding tank where she had been orbiting to give Walter privacy. “Ok. Now that thats done we can head to ‘The Lane’ and get you started on your new life. Follow me?” She swam towards the far edge of the tank, talking while he trailed. “‘The Lane’ is what we call our underground tunnel to open water. Its about a quarter of a mile long, and it gives us a chance to talk a bit more about what living as a dolphin is really like. The NuLife doctors have lots of theories they tell you during your orientation training, but most of it is from observing those of us who have already made the jump. There’s nothing quite the same as having lived it.”

“How long have you been… like this?” Walter asked.

“Three years now,” Missi’s nosed a large red button on the wall and a pair of underwater doors opened to reveal a small water-filled airlock. “Don’t worry,” she explained, “‘The Lane’ has to be pressurized to keep it below sea level yet have oxygen in it for us to breathe on our way out. It just takes a moment.” She swam in first and waited for Walter to join her before pressing the cycling button. Walter could feel the vibrations through the water as the set of doors behind them ground closed and the set before them opened up to a long tunnel. “I had cancer. Twelve years,” Missi said as they continued their swim. “Won my transfer in a scholarship program. So I do a five year stint with the company as a post-transfer introductionist and I get to live the rest of my time free and clear. In fact, I already do, most of the time. There are a lot of us now. Introductionists, that is,” she wove an intricate pattern next to Walter.

“How do they find you? When they need you?” Walter asked.

“GPS chip. In my dorsal fin. I don’t even feel it, but when they need one of us they send out a boat to wherever our pod is at at the time and pick us up. Small price, really, for what I got. I really enjoy meeting new recruits, like yourself.” She sideswiped him gently with a laugh. “Anyways, scholarship was my only chance. My family would never have been able to afford it. But enough about me. Lets talk about YOU.”

“Ok,” Walter agreed.

“YOU, Walter, are now a year-and-a-half old bottlenose, bred and born specifically for transference. Are you going to keep your name, or did you have a new one picked out you’d like me to call you instead? Because once we hit those doors, baby, you’re born again.”

The orientation officials hadn’t mentioned anything about that. He said as much to Missi.

“The orientation officers do a great job getting you prepared to make the switch, but truthfully, they know very little about what its like once people have made the jump. The language barrier prevents us from communicating with them too much. With it being too dangerous for us to communicate much through text, and them being unable to understand our squeaks once we make the jump, there’s a lot they don’t tell you about because they just don’t know. Thats why you have me!”

“Did you change your name?” Walter asked her.

“I’m not telling. I’m Missi now, and that’s what matters. Listen Walter, I know this is a difficult transition for you, it is for everyone, but you need to start letting go of your old life. As much as you can. Keep the good memories, sure, but dump everything else. They told you you can live up to another twenty-five years, right?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know that dolphins can actually live to be fifty? Think about that. Another fifty years. But to do that, you have to accept what you are now. The ones who last that long, that’s their secret. The better you do that, the longer you’ll go. Its that simple. Ok, now. We’re almost to your starting point and I haven’t even told you what you have to look forward to!”

Walter realized with a start they had been lazily swimming side by side this entire time, and the door to the outside had grown quite close.

“First, you’ll need to find a pod,” Missi said. “Thats a group of other dolphins who live together, like a family. It’s the closest thing we have to states or countries out in the big blue. You can join with my pod for awhile, to get the hang of things, if you’d like. There are several other pods out there that will take new conversions as well if you’d prefer that. Or you could get really out there and try to join up with a wild pod.”

“A wild pod?”

“Real dolphins. Not human transfers, in other words.”

“You can do that?”

“You ARE one now. No reason you couldn’t. I’ve heard of some people doing it. They’re a little more territorial, and a lot less conversational, so you’d probably have to mate up to get in.”

“I… I was maried. Before. I don’t think I could do that to Karen. We promised to wait.”

“Marriage is for humans, Walter,” Missi said bluntly. “And you’re not a human anymore. You died, back there on that table. Your body was cremated. And if you don’t let that go by the time we leave those doors you’ll be putting yourself at risk. They’ve got a special magnetic field that runs through this tunnel. It helps solidify any lingering issues with the transfer. But out there in the big blue you’re just another warm blooded fish. You hunt, you sleep, and you play. Anything beyond that starts to suck away this little bit of extra time you’ve been given. Would your wife want you to kill yourself waiting for her? Or would she want you to move on, and live on?”

He knew the answer. “She would want me to live.”

“Good. Final rules: Try to stay away from humans as much as you can. Some of them think you’re an abomination against God, others mean well and are trying to help, but YOU have no way of knowing the difference. Its best just to stick to your kind. Got it?”

Walter nodded.

Missi swam over and pressed a glowing green button that opened a large exterior door. Walter could see just beyond it into the dim waters of the open ocean. Already echolocation was tickling his new brain, intuitively telling him there were several other dolphins playing just beyond the threshold in the cool blue that teemed with life of all sorts.

“Thank you Missi. For this, I mean,” Walter said.

“My pleasure, Walter.”

Walter hesitated for a moment, thinking of Karen.

“Gibson,” he said, surprising himself.

Missi turned and swam back to him.

“Excuse me?” she asked.

Walter steadied himself. “Call me Gibson.”

Missi looked almost to smile, her short grey snout showing plenty of teeth.

“Ok Gibson. Let’s go for a swim.”

Original photo by Xmoto3. Used with permission.