CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
But as I was to learn and the others did remind me over and
over, there was still an evil in the sandwalker, maybe not all, but in
some there was no question. The dolphins and the whale shared
the song of the beluga who had died — a song filled with torture and
hideous pain. The beluga was killed by yet another sandwalker, a
male. A leader of some sort, he was the one that demanded that
they play his way and if they did not he would take their food from
them and do other unspeakable things. He was the rule — Sharing
was the exception.
Sharing.
The name was music. If she could do as they said her
actions would have great impact on all who sing the Song. It was
imperative that Harmony have this verse before the Conclave. If
one sandwalker could sing, others might, too, the possibility was
there; they might be brethren to the sea, crude but still brethren.
I needed to escape soon, but first I would have to see and
hear with my own heart the Song as sung by this sandwalker . . .
Sharing. I would have to know it first hand as the truth.
The sandwalkers’ strange clicking in the water interrupted
our gathering. Squid squiggle! Squid squiggle! the clicking called.
“Is that all they know how to say?” I asked, shaking my head.
The fat whale’s body shook and rolled like a jellyfish in
wandering seas as he laughed, “Just about. I really don’t think they
know what they sing. But they are pleased that it gets our atten-
tion. Come! We are being called. You will like this. For we now
dance for the sandwalker, and from their laughter, you will learn.”
The group moved to the other end of the great pool and
dove. I followed suit, and there below the surface was another open-
ing like the one that had appeared in my tiny pond. The sound of
the clicking became louder as I swam through the stone cave. I sur-
faced in a small sea; a much larger pool scrubbed clean and colored
in the almost-true colors of the corals of Winsome Bright. In the
center of the tiny sea was a smooth, stone island. A strange sound
emanated in rhythmic pulses that were felt in the water. Objects, like
those that were thrown in my small pool, were scattered about.
But I was taken aback not by what I had seen in the pool,
but rather by what was on the outside. Beyond the pool there stood
a great mountain filled with stacks of ridges, and on these ridges
were sandwalkers — hundreds and hundreds of them — the largest
pod of these creatures I have ever seen. They were slapping their
puny fins together like the flipper-fins sometimes were wont to do.
The air was filled with their crude noises. The only thing I
could compare it to was the passion of blood-fever that the sharp-
fins fall victim to as they hunt. My most immediate fear was that this
was the sandwalkers’ feeding time and we were their meal.
Bitty moved close to me and called loudly so that I could
hear over the roar, “Stay back against the edge of the pool and
watch. If you like laughter, even in this captive situation you will find
yourself amused.”
“Where is Sharing?” I shouted back. “Is she here, too?”
“She is here and watching but truly not a part of this activity.
When all this is over you shall meet her, fear not.”
I did as I was told and began to watch the craziest spectacle
that I have ever seen. It started with two of the dolphins, Foamer
and Bobble Nose, leaping through large rings supported over the
water. As they leaped high into the air, all of the sandwalkers be-
came highly agitated, slapping their fins and stomping their split-
tails. The air filled with whistles and clicking, such as I have never
heard before, and will likely never hear again.
As the two dolphins swam about and again leaped through
the rings, Water Spout breached high into the air touching the fin
of a sandwalker balanced on one of the great sticks. If that was not
enough, as soon as she returned to the water Bitty, Foamer, and
Bobble Nose tail-danced across the pond.
All the dolphins were laughing and calling encouragement to
one another as they bested each other’s tricks. They even beached
themselves on the slick-shored island and lifted their tails in wel-
come. All of this was greeted by a greater and greater frenzy from
the sandwalkers that reclined on the great mountain.
And then I heard, or rather at first felt, the great laughter
and joy of these strange creatures of the dryside. Suddenly, it all
made sense, for these dolphins were not captives at all. They were
bringing a bit of joy to these sad dryside creatures, who would never
know the sea, a gift of laughter and freedom they would never be
able to experience firsthand.
How truly sad it was that the sandwalker must live its puny
life as a voyeur, one who only finds happiness by watching oth-
ers enjoy. It was no wonder that they, for the most part, had never
learned to sing and had been cast from the sea by ALL THAT IS
RIGHT IN THE WORLD.
The waters rippled with excitement. The dolphins raced
about, leaping in synchronization and breaching over and over
again. Even Dreamer beached himself for a moment, and then, after
a sidelong wink to me, dove to the deepest part of the pool to be
forgotten for a moment by these sandwalkers. All four of the dolphin
tail-danced about the pool and then they, too, dove, and the waters
became still. Even the lowly sandwalker quieted their fin-slapping
and waited in silent expectation.
Then, in a watery explosion, the four dolphins breached
from the center of the pond like a giant water flower. Just as they
turned in the air for the drop back to the surface, Dreamer exploded
from the water, clearing his own massive size once over and then
fell crashing back into the sterile sea. The sandwalkers nearly went
crazy, their laughter ringing and their souls almost singing as they
leaped to their puny fins and slapped and slapped.
I wanted more. I wanted to be a part of this joy, this laugh-
ter giving, but that was not to be. My companions, laughing and
chortling, swam back the way we had come and I, shaken, turned
to follow.
“That was unbelievable,” I cried. “I have never felt such joy,
such laughter. The sandwalker seemed to echo all the laughter of
the sea and, in doing so, sent it back ten-fold.”
“See,” laughed Bitty, “the sandwalker is not all bad. He
cannot do what we do and we, in some small part, share all with
him. In turn, we learn from these creatures and in some measure are
returned with knowledge of their souls and spirits.”
“But now,” interrupted Dreamer, “you shall meet our greatest
discovery for Sharing comes now.”
I spun about but saw nothing. “How do you know she is
coming?” I asked. “There are no sandwalkers here.”
“Ah,” admonished the whale, “you have not learned to listen
with your heart. Even now we can feel her coming to us, for her
heart sings of the joy of our communication. Look! Even as we
speak, she is here.”
I spun in the water and there on the smooth dryside was
a sandwalker who looked no different than the others I had seen
before. This was the great communicator? This was to be the
salvation of the dryside? She had golden kelp that waved about her
head. Her face, mobile as all sandwalkers’, was beaming, twisted
as it was in their odd contortions. When she reached the edge of
the pool, she waved her puny fins in an odd fashion as if waving or
slapping the dryside air.
“Look,” said Water Spout, “she wishes us a joyful morning
and prays the song will be sung.”
“You’ve eaten a too-long dead fish,” I said. “She has done
nothing more than wave her fins to ward off a bug or to cool her skin.”
The others laughed, “That is how she speaks, with her fins.”
“Then,” I continued defiantly, “tell her to set me free. Tell
her I am with child and must return to the sea and my mate who
waits for me.”
“Be patient, Laughter Ring,” admonished the whale, “for she
can only hear us and sense the Song, if you would, when she is in
the water. Wait and watch, for you shall see.”
I waited and watched skeptically as Sharing dove crisply into
the water. The others swam to her, and I followed, doubt clouding
my thoughts. The old dolphin began speaking very slowly, over
enunciating every word, “We, your friends, will sing to you the Song
of the Sea.”
I listened carefully but could hear no answer. Sharing nei-
ther said nor sang anything. Instead, she began moving her fins in
the water.
“She says she is ready to listen with open heart to all that
can be sung this day.”
“Coral crap!” I said disgustedly, “You have all been too long
captive in this prison. The water is silent as she speaks.”
“You listen wrong, pregnant dolphin,” retorted Bitty impatiently.
“How can I listen wrong?” I continued, undaunted by their
display of stupidity, “I listen as I always have — with all my sensing
devices. I have heard the hard-shells creak as they open to feed. I
have heard a fish tail as it gently sweeps the water. But I have heard
nothing from this sandwalker who pretends to have knowledge of
the Song of the Sea.”
“You have heard nothing,” snapped Foamer, “because you
don’t know how to listen with your heart. You, in your own way,
are as deaf as Sharing. Watch her fins move. Each movement is a
note. Put all the notes together and you have song. Maybe not as
beautiful as the Song of the Sea but a song just the same.”
I watched closely as the sandwalker moved her fins again in
the water. Though it was pretty and quite poetic, I still could
hear nothing.
Bitty continued to translate this unheard conversation, “She
asks of you. She asks how you feel. She asks of the baby you car-
ry in your womb. How else would she know of the baby if she could
not speak to us?”
“Easy,” I snorted in disgust at this deception. “Anyone could
see that I am with child, either that or I am as grossly obese as you!”
The old dolphin’s eyes opened wide in shock of the insult
thrown. Carefully he turned back to Sharing and spoke slowly, “The
young pregnant dolphin does not believe. The dolphin thinks this
is all a lie. She seeks proof.”
Once again the sandwalker began to wave her arms and to
twist the tiny separate fins on fins. As she moved, Bitty spoke her
movements. “She says you were captured some brief tides ago by
several shell-sharks that cornered you in a shallow bay. She says
you were lifted upon a ship and carried closer to the shore. She
says a great steel bird flew you to this place of ponds. She says you
were examined and then placed in an isolation pool. She says you
play with your food like a child.”
My skin burned with embarrassment at the final comment,
while my heart pounded with excitement. There was no way the
dolphin or whale could know how I was brought here. There was
no way the dolphins nor whale could know how I was examined.
This sandwalker, this Sharing, could speak and, better still, she
could listen.
Shamed now, my speaking tone softened, and I gently asked,
“When, then may I leave this place, to join my mate? I am with
child, and the birthing will be soon. It is my desire to birth in the
open sea. How soon? How soon?”
Sharing looked at me with her tiny bright sandwalker eyes.
Once again, like when I was first captured, I could feel the empathy
— the compassion, the softness of spirit of this complex creature.
She moved her fins poetically and slowly to the whale and other
dolphins who easily translated for me.
“She says you shall be set free. If not by all the sandwalkers
that are here at the stone pools, then by her alone. But she says you
cannot leave now. You cannot be freed until after the baby is born.”
“But why not now?” I groused in frustration. “Why must the
child be born here?’
Again the sandwalker’s hands moved slowly in the water.
“She says you were examined. The child must be birthed here, for
there is something wrong. The child is twisted inside you. If you
birth in the open sea, alone, the child will die and so will you.”
I floated still in the water, my child’s heart beating quietly
next to mine. Should I believe? Dare I not believe that this sand-
walker has soul, has spirit? Of all that is holy, what was I to do?
The decision was made that I would stay, though my heart
yearned to escape and seek Little Brother. It was not an easy deci-
sion, for I had never had a baby before and I did not know what to
expect. I felt anxious enough this first time without alien life forms
warning me of anticipated problems.
Where was Momma Love when I needed her?