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At the end of the day I passed through the Florida keys and out into the Atlantic Ocean.

Well? What more do you want me to say? I know what you're thinking. The truth is, I thought of nothing besides breathing and swimming. My brain and humanity were a volatile concoction. The mix killed my wife's fiancée and abandoned my pregnant mate. Each side raged on so savagely I struggled to keep them down. By the time they burned off the Keys were lonely arches stretching across the sea behind me.

My thoughts returned at dusk. I remembered the attack the day before, how humanity and my brain ceased arguing and took control of me. My brain knew how to speak, but only humanity knew the words to use. In that sudden time frame I appeared to be neither dolphin nor human. I remembered the blood in my mouth kicking in predatory instincts- the exhilaration of attack, the tease of flesh and blood, the power over another's life. But in the end I couldn't justify what I'd done to him. This was the man Aimee chose to share her life with, and I killed him. I tried to recall our pleasant 'conversation' moments before the attack, but all I saw were his feeble eyes swollen with fear, blood pouring around the bone in his ankle. How could I have been jealous of this man? Of course I hated him; he's the lecherous scum fathers warn their daughters about. Yet, we both loved Aimee. And he'd been there to love her. How could I hate him for that? I forced myself to imagine him pouncing onto Aimee, tongue lolling below savage eyes, moving in to deflower the shrieking damsel. But spite proved too weak to change my mind.

The hardest part was thinking about Isthia. The last time I'd seen her I was fresh from the attack, spewing nonsense and avoiding her pleas. Where was she now? She couldn't understand the man on the beach, and couldn't make sense of her mate's speak. Imagine the distress of living between two beings and not understanding either one. I saw her, wide-eyed and pacing, piecing together my absence and the man's howls of pain. Imagine the fear of seeing his blood trickling into the sea, knowing full well what it would bring. No creature would make a long trip with promises of food and accept the absence of it. She would have no place to hide from the teeth of hungry creatures realizing they'd been cheated. And with a pregnant female, there was more....

I snapped my jaws, jostling myself out of that vivid apparition. I felt the loose tooth at an odd angle against my tongue. That tooth served as a reminder of my last contact with a human before a permanent life in aquatics. Every time humanity appeared on my brain it pressed against my nerves, causing bolts of pain in my jaw. Humanity was a parasitic phantom, but at least it gave some notice before showing up.

Nightfall. Wisps of clouds brushed the upper atmosphere, shading me from the moon. Desolate night sky, reflecting nothing upon an empty ocean, waves bouncing against one another and never crashing. My senses strained at the void. Sonar had nothing to echo off of, whistles had no one to hear them. Eyes open, eyes closed, echolocation or none, there was no difference. Calls of migrating whales echoed across the emptiness, silent as they reached my ears. The maternal squeeze of the ocean lightened as she relaxed, her watchful eye losing me behind clouds and black sea, her frozen sunlight penetrating faintly through the haze. No senses running, no thoughts spinning, nothing. It was induced micro-sleep. I couldn't even tell if I had a body.

By morning I traveled 150 miles, roughly estimated. Turning back at this point was useless. On the other hand, I was hopelessly lost. In the open ocean there is only water and air. Miles above, miles below and more on every side. As a person I based direction on certain cues- sun sets in the west, moss grows on the north side, check the map.... As a dolphin, I relied on intuition. The sun offered little help, as determining its position meant floating at the surface and craning my body awkwardly to face it. The few times I didn't scald my eyes, I ended up just as lost and confused as before. Hours passed like minutes while swimming, and without the urge to sleep I had no idea if it was morning or afternoon. Was the sun in the East, or had it moved to the West? And was it true-West, or West-ish?

Then I realized how difficult it was truly going West-ish. After traveling in one direction for an hour or more, I'd stop and realize my body was drifting the wrong way. So instead of traveling West-ish the whole time, I'd unknowingly traveled Southwest-ish. The open ocean's pull on me was tremendous compared to the Gulf. Migrating in a pod made all the more sense now. With all those bodies swimming and scanning, the relative directions would be static. It was easier back in the Gulf- keep the shallower waters on your left and follow until you reach the Keys. If only I had some point of reference! A traveling partner! Oh, Isthia, I'm such a fool! I'm sorry!

Eventually the sun and all its useless glory set in the true-west and nightfall welcomed me. My headlights, my sonar, kicked on in full gear. I made company with myself to avoid going mad.

It feels like I'm traveling North, so I'm probably going West. Better to keep going. Maybe I'll hit Maine in a few days and freeze to death. Or, maybe I'll wash up on a Carolina shore and starve to death. I've always wondered what things were like out East, minus the funny accents. If I make it past the States, maybe I'll go into Saint Lawrence and pretend to be lost. I don't think anyone would be much help, besides putting me on TV. Local or national? I wonder what 'stupid lost dolphin' is in French. Better look my best if I'll be on Quebec news. I should gain a few pounds.

As this went on, I found myself scanning behind me. After two days of desolate ocean, the presence of another creature felt overwhelming. Whoever was behind me kept a steady distance of roughly thirty miles. My echolocation could barely detect it, and the intervals between sending and receiving were long and steady. On one occasion the pings returned instantly and froze me in place, frightened and ready to fight. After calming myself I realized a fish has darted in my path not fifty yards behind me. The unknown creature hadn't gained any significant distance and I pressed on, my turbulent thoughts growing increasingly uneasy.

Hours later the sun broke across the horizon and, thankfully, against my backside. My assumption had been correct, and I wasn't destined for another night of deep-sea mania. Following this direction would have me in Florida's shallows by sundown. I planned to find a cozy, bustling bay to bide my time and hopefully lose track of the unwanted straggler. The straggler, I'd discovered, who had kept on my track the whole night. Scanning for it created some issues- slowing down to decrease the return delay, ensuring my head didn't move, missing my mark and stopping to face it head on. This creature was no bigger than a period dot when I received the sound waves. But it maintained size and, more importantly, direction. During the night I'd pressed my luck and intentionally swam off course. Still, the blip remained directly behind me, knowing me as I knew of it.

Towards midday I turned my scanning towards the sea floor. At first my pings shot to the bottom and were lost for good. Hours later I began catching their faint static after every burst. Soon they were bouncing back almost as soon as I sent them. The shallows! How I'd missed the seabed! The alluring creatures with webbed feet, the invertebrates and their clasps- the burrowers! I took a hearty breath and dove, watching sunlight wane about me, down to the perpetually compacted sand of the seabed. I dug my rostrum deep, relishing the scratch and sting of flying soot. I ascended to the surface with a mouthful of goby, as intended. Of course, now I think I had become like the old-time mariners, adrift in the wettest desert on Earth, succumbing to the delusions of loneliness. At the sight of land they would leap from the boats, whooping and hollering, to kiss the scorching sand of a far-away shore. I can't help but think I'd have done the same.

Compared to open ocean, the shallows held an irresistible heat. Sunlight in open ocean sinks through the water, weakening as it goes, burning off its energy. But in the shallower waters sunlight eased through the waves, greeting the sea-floor and ascending back to the heavens. During my travels I'd lost significant body fat, attributed to exertion and apathy. The frosty open ocean offered me no mercy, forcing me to continue swimming or freeze to death. But in the shallows, the sunlight welcomed me home. It greeted me with every breach, rubbed my cape at every breath of air. I rolled onto my back below the waves, fins splayed out, embracing the mid-day blaze.

Micro-sleep. How can I describe those dreams? Milliseconds of time spent conjuring vivid fantasies, synthetic memories. Ruse yourself, go up for air, return to another time and place. A man much like my brother toasts to the newlyweds seated around changing entrees, in a room with shifting designs. Ruse yourself, go up for air, and return. I watch myself digging at the sea-bed, using my rostrum like a shovel. Hit the dirt, push it in, apply leverage, toss it to the side. Hit the dirt, push it in, apply leverage, shink shink shink....Ruse yourself, go up for air, and return. Porcelain against my flippers? Bath water dries my skin, fluorescent light burns my eyes. I'm not wholly uncomfortable. A woman enters the bathroom with the face of Aimee and the body of my mother. She holds a comically large salt-shaker. "This will help ease it, honey". Ruse yourself, go up for air, and return. I'd swear I'm back at summer camp, hosted in the hills of California. I survey the area with vague recognition. The lake's volume has multiplied, its amenities altering and disappearing with every glance. They're hosting record attendance this year, somewhere in the tens of thousands. Campers lined up at the waterslide, eight stories tall complete with a barrel roll. I sit on a bench, watching the scenery mold and shift around me. A little girl about my age walks up and sits down. Her pale brown hair falls across her shoulders, along a red striped swimming suit. I try to face her and only see her from my peripherals. She places a hand on my shoulder, stiff and masculine. "It's getting close, Gregory."

Wake up, shoot up, gasp for air, descend, continue. In all of my careless dawdling I forget what had been troubling me. That creature! How many miles had it gained? Scanning would prove useless, closing in the gap between us. I couldn't waste any more time, focus was the key. In my panic I grew hyper-aware of my navigation and swimming motions. Keep the shallows on your left, bob your head, snap the momentum down to your tail. Bob your head, shoot it to the tail, snap it, repeat. Shallows on the left, breach for air, descend, snap your tail. Instincts began scolding me.

Keep upright! Twist your right fin. There we go.

Bob your head, shoot to your tail, shallows on the left, snap it. Shallows on the left, snap it, go up for air.

Look behind you- can you see it?

No, but it's there.

Shallows on the left, breach for air. My guidance counselor is squatted down beside me, her face weighed down in disappointment. "You've lost your mind, Gregory".

I pick up the pace. Bob your head faster, snap your tail harder- move it! A throb in my tooth, a blurry vision. "Christ, Gregory, you didn't have to KILL him!"

Things kill other things,- my dolphin brain responds. It's a way of life.

Humanity snaps back- "Your 'way of life' is coming to kill US!"

Shut up, both of you! I can't concentrate. Was I on bob or snap? Oh God, it must be getting closer.

Fight it! You've taken sharks before. I'll help you out!.

No, no, I have to keep going on.

"Give yourself up! You're a murderer now. They'll try you and execute you. It's the way of life, remember?!"

My counselor shakes her head, praying for me in her native tongue.

I'm not completely insane, am I?

Not at all.

"Guilty by insanity!"

Face whatever it is. We'll face it down and send it sinking to the bottom!

I guess you're right.

I stopped bobbing my head. The snapping of my tail had ceased. I spun myself around, the shallows were on the right. Breach for air, descend, ease your racing heart. No more swimming. The unknown blip that had followed me for two days needed a face. Otherwise, I might actually be crazy.

After a few moments, long after my mind had calmed, I decided to meet my pursuer. Ideas as to what it may be flooded my thoughts. Could it be a shark? No, sharks are opportunistic hunters. It wouldn't have stalked me for days. Perhaps another dolphin? Probably, it would explain it's ability to match my speed and direction. Was it a pod of dolphins? It could be, in that case they'd be farther than I'd imagined. Hostile or friendly, I wonder? Hostile, no doubt. A pod of rogues, scouring their waters to fight and kill and fuck. I didn't care. I needed a face to whatever stalked me.

The midday sun fell to sunset, shrouding the sea between myself and the distant speck. A mild evening breeze blew across my back as I waited at the surface, taking in one slow breath after another. Potential food slunk beneath me unnoticed, living to swim another day. A sea turtle flapped its wings on underwater gusts ahead of me. She turned a flaccid gaze my way and continued on. Receding tide pulled sand from distant shores, eating them away in a eon-long stalemate. Even that passed me by. Nearby vessels glided through the still sea, disturbing the tense silence with roaring propellers. One drifted close-by, black stomach cutting through water, bobbing as it went, pulling myself slowly along in its wake. I took no notice.

Twilight begat moonlight and, in homage to its affect upon me, I decided I'd gone crazy. Two years of companionship melted off by two days of isolation. Perhaps we'd died in that hurricane, Isthia and I. Perhaps the rescue of the man hadn't really happened. Maybe we were three beings trapped in a hellish limbo- memories appearing as live and tangible as the hallucinations to William Golding's Pincher Martin. It made sense, really. That man didn't exist at all. Why did he have no name? How did a brute like that survive so effortlessly? Could Isthia really care for him as much as she did? And how, hundreds of miles away and doomed to die, could we have saved my one true link to Aimee? It didn't seem plausible, and I'd been turned dolphin from a dolphin bite. Maybe the man had been me, my human self, dead from being cast off years before and returning to limbo with my mate and I. Perhaps it had been him, not a phantom parasite, who'd fought with my dolphin brain. Yes! He'd first looked me in the eyes and saw a glimmer of recognition when we first met, heard echoes of English when we'd last met, loved by woman and pregnant dolphin alike, hated by myself for unknown reasons....it had to be me. The older me, weighed down and changed through stress and downfalls, stranded on an island nobody knew existed. If Pincher Martin's island had been his tooth, this island my older me's gut. Perhaps I hadn't even killed him....

I turned, conquered and laborious, back on track. Keep the shallows on the left, but they all looked so different. They rose and fell, undulating, a tan creature in deep sleep. It must be me, I thought, my older me; the man on the island. He's asleep on his back and I'm swimming above his stomach. He must've cooled off in the water and dozed off.

Despite all this, I didn't feel a sense of closure. What, then, was the speck I'd seen? Chalking that up to delusion was too easy- nay, dismissive. Regardless of my current mental health, an ember of vitality burned in that spot. It encased my head, fogging my senses, shuddering my spine. Lingering rationality piped up and, fresh with acknowledged lunacy, began piecing things together.

Crazy? Noo, not crazy at all! Why that speck's as alive as water that squeezes you, alive as the gunk from your ass! It's not a creature anymore, you know. Used to be but, damn it all, you must've fallen asleep! But I was watching- there you were, swimming alone, off in your own little world. Must've been some business going on there, poor guy, you weren't answering to anything! I tried it all- I chucked rock, I bit your tail, I shoved a torch up your asshole- nothing! Well, ONE of us has to be the designated driver, why not me? So, I'm steering you Northwest-ish for a few miles and, whaddya know, a fly came out of nowhere! Here, in Atlantic! Big old sucker it was, too, wings like chainsaws. Before I had time to swerve yourself away, SPLAT! Right in the eye! Ass goes into head, all is quiet. Well now, you can't see a thing! So I put you on cruise control, climb out the other eye with a stick, and poke that bugger off! Nasty thing it was too- you should've seen its Momma! Waving all six fists at me, shouting something in her odd fly-language (maybe Greek?) and off we go. So you see, it's all real simple. That speck was no more than fly ass stuck on your eye. You're like that terrier from Richard Addam's The Plague Dogs_. You know, the one with the escaped experiment dogs? One hallucinated a lot, believed the inside of a barn was his head, and the flies buzzing by the windows were flies buzzing behind his eyes? Crazy little guy, but he WAS down half a brain. Can't tell what your problem is._

I tossed my head about until it started to hurt. So this is what it's like being crazy. Not as fun as I'd expected.

A sudden presence clouded the sea around me. Warm and rhythmic, like a heartbeat, it pulsed in my ears stronger than ever. Was it another hallucination? I scanned shakily in the water ahead of me. Nothing. I turned and scanned towards Africa- nothing. Warily, mouth ajar and trills escaping my blowhole, I turned to face my tracks once more. A short burst of sonar rocketed towards the specter, hidden amongst the haze of sand and sea. Moments later, an image projected on my internal vision, forcing my jaw shut and eyes open.

Two miles away. the speck matured into an undoubtedly female dolphin. Sonar waves slid across her melon and down along her body, not an kink or bruise to halt them. Fins splayed out, a perfectly sculpted angle, keeping her afloat. Rostrum connected to tail along a stream of soft flesh and bone. She bobbed near the surface, rose to catch a breath, and descended, gaze affixed in my direction.

It was her. There was no mistake. Her design could be seen from ten, twenty miles away. Every crafted curve, every precise angle, the frictionless skin she lived in. All along, it had been my mate, my teacher, my lover, my patient consulate and the carrier of my child. I took off at top speed, leaping from the water at knots unmeasured. Oh, Isthia! My compass, my protector, my ease of mind- she'd come after me! No sharks, no distress, no dying man on her back. She made no movements as I blasted her with pulse after pulse of sonar, watching her shadow grow. Could it really be her? It didn't matter. She could be fin or fantasy, and I wouldn't care. The ability to see her, sense her, tell her everything, it was all that mattered.

Less than a mile away, her outline appeared in the distance. I breached for air and heard her do the same. She was actually here! I whistled the name I'd repeated so often in my head the past few days.

"Isthia!" Silence, only the splash of my re-entry to the sea. "Isthia!" The faceless dolphin speck stared at me. It appeared curious. "...Isthia? It's me! Listen, I-" "Gregory?"

She whistled my name, halting me suddenly. That tone, that unique tone, familiar nonetheless....I didn't think I'd ever hear it again.

She swam towards me, coming into view beneath a beam of moonlight. I saw her; a tiny gaunt figure showing bones under skin, pectoral fins rigid and trembling, eyes near-white in terror. "I finally found you," whispered Spinner.