A Dolphins Dream

by Carlos Eyles

  Moses unshouldered the sack and gave Compton a look, looking again this time from toe to head, stopping at his eyes and nodding approvingly. “I see the sea has done its work on you.”

  Compton laughed. “You can see it? You are a marvel.”

  Moses walked to the kitchen and deposited the goods. “It is not a difficult thing to see, eh. The sea does its work on us all, keeps us clean in our bodies and in our minds, that is the gift of diving in it everyday.”

  Compton scrutinized him with the eye of one skilled in the ways of deception. “You know a great deal about diving for someone who doesn’t dive.”

  Moses’ face grew dark and he licked his lips as if looking for words. “I am a fisherman, nothing more than that.”

  “Well,” said Compton, “I had an incredible experience in the water this morning. I felt so,” he hesitated, searching for a word, “connected. It was…”

  Moses held up his hand to halt any further conversation. “It is not a good thing to talk about what you did. Do not cloud your mind with talk. It weakens the strength of the teaching. Stay with the sea, learn about it and about yourself. The teaching of Aprosa is very important but the teaching of the sea is even more important. You can go nowhere without the teaching. Abraham said it would not work unless the teaching was right.”

  “What wouldn’t work?”

  Moses licked his lips again in search of an answer. “I must go,” he finally said and hurried to the boat. After shoving off, he turned to Compton. “Do not stray from the teaching. Understand the sea and you will understand yourself.” He then poled off the reef, fired up the outboard and motored around the point without ever looking back.

  9

  Compton awoke late in the morning and wandered down to the kitchen where he found Aprosa sitting on the bow of his boat gnawing on a chunk of coconut. “Bula,” he said and waved. Compton returned the greeting and came down to the boat. “You have been diving, eh?” asked Aprosa. “I can see that the small fish have let you into their house.”

  “How can you see that?” asked Compton without his usual skepticism.

  “A piece of the sea is on your face, eh.”

  Compton reflexively wiped his hand across his cheek, causing Aprosa to laugh uproariously. He patted Compton on the shoulder. “Come, we go into the water and find the real teachers.”

  “What do you mean, the real teachers?”

  “The small fish are not smart, they are like children, eh. The hunting fish, the ones who eat the other fish and the ones you will hunt, are very smart. You must learn how to get close to them.”

  They put on their gear and entered the water, Compton following Aprosa through the coral maze and out along the edge of the coral line where the bottom began to drop away into water that appeared to be at least sixty feet deep.

  Aprosa pulled the snorkel from his mouth and spoke to Compton. “From where the coral ends in the deep water to forty feet inside the reef line is where the big hunting fish hide. Every shot should be the kill shot, eh. If you miss the kill spot the grouper and the snapper take the spear to the deep holes and you have to dive deep to pull them out. To get close for the shot you must trick them. They are curious with intelligence, eh. So you fall to the bottom lie a dead man, with the gun out and ready, but no movement. They come in very slow to see who is this dead man on their reef. Sometime you hold the breath two minutes before they come in close for a good look. That is when you take the shot. But there is pressure in the deep water, eh. Pressure on the ears and face but mostly on the heart. This pressure on the heart does not hurt like the others but it affects the mind.”

  Compton nodded as if he understood, understanding nothing.

  “I show you.” Aprosa took several deep breaths and dropped down. In the gin-clear water the bottom looked no more than thirty-five feet away but Aprosa became smaller as he descended in a motionless glide and Compton knew that it must be far deeper that it appeared. Aprosa reached the bottom and settled on a large boulder in the sand. Small yellow and black tropical’s danced about him as he waited on the boulder. After a minute he extended his arm in ultra-slow-motion and pointed off in the direction of the reef wall. A large fish lay next to the wall and was slowly weaving its way towards the boulder. In what seemed like an eternity the fish came to within ten feet of the boulder. Aprosa then lifted off and in that movement the fish turned on itself and exploded away into the wall of the reef, the concussion of its tail sounding like a gunshot. Aprosa ascended in easy, powerful kicks, the long bladed fins bending nearly double from the stress. He reached the surface, exhaled and seemed unaffected by the lengthy breath-hold and ensuing ascent. Perhaps, thought Compton, it is not as deep as it looks.

  “You go to the boulder,” said Aprosa. “Pull the snorkel away from your mouth so the bubbles do not tell the fish you are alive, put it back on the way up. Take three big breaths and then dive. Be relaxed, that is the secret of the deep dive, it preserves the strength. Stay relaxed in the mind, do not let thoughts come in and steal the breath.“

  Compton put his face in the water and looked down at the boulder and tried to relax into his breaths while breathing deeply. On the last breath he filled to capacity and dropped down, pulling the snorkel from his mouth and pinching his nose, pushing air into his ears to equalize the pressure. The first few kicks put him into a glide and then he began to fall without kicking. In the first twenty feet he felt light as a bird in flight and comfortable with his descent but as he continued to plummet thoughts began to creep in when the bottom appeared no nearer. He continued to drop and relieved the squeeze inside his mask by blowing a bit of air through his nose. He was dropping at a faster pace than expected and his ears hurt and were in need of more air for equalization. The pressure on his body was considerable and the boulder still seemed another twenty feet away. In mid-water he could endure no more and turned to head back to the surface but instead of ascending as expected he continued to drop and, upon that realization, began to kick furiously and crawl skyward with his arms and hands gripping water that would only slip away. The effort halted his descent and slowly he began to rise but it had stolen his air and now with legs driving hard against the tonnage of water from above he felt a weakness overcome him. Panic welled in his throat like vomit and a sickness came. He was still a long way from the surface and now out of all air. The pretense of control having left him, he succumbed to the terror of his drowning. A lightness enveloped him, as if he were floating to the surface. He thought he had died but it was Aprosa’s strong arms around his waist lifting him to the surface. Upon reaching the surface Compton expelled the stale air like a whale and took heaving gasps that left him dizzy.

  His breath eventually regained itself and when it did, Aprosa led him back to the beach. They sat under the shade of the orchid tree in silence until Compton uttered, almost to himself, “I lost it. I panicked.”

  “To dive deep on the reath is not an easy thing to do, eh. There is many… I don’t know how you say it.”

  “Barriers, obstacles?”

  “No, many…,” Aprosa made a cutting gesture with his hand.

  “Levels?”

  “Yes, this is it, many levels. First the breath, then the pressure, then always the mind, and the legs must bring you back.“

  “I thought it was over, I thought I was going to drown.”

  “No, you were a long way from that, eh. You could have made it by yourself.”

  “It didn’t feel that way but thanks for helping me. That last twenty feet was like the end of a marathon race. You hit the wall and there’s nothing left.”

  Aprosa nodded. “We start small and work down to the bigger water.”

  “I’m not sure I can do it, my body feels so weak.”

  “It is not a weakness of the body. Soon your legs will be strong, that part is easy, just a bit of work. It is the mind that holds the fear and makes you feel weak. The weakness feeds the fear. They work together, they satisfy each other, eh. First you show
the mind that the body can do the dive. The mind does not trust words that it believes will weaken it. When the body can do the job, the mind will leave you alone.”

  Aprosa rose as he finished and headed for the boat. Compton did not walk with him, staying beneath the tree. They waved to each other as Aprosa poled away. Compton watched him go until the horizon had swallowed him up. In the clarity of the unblemished vista his frailty revealed itself. This is the second time in two weeks. I am unraveling. The delusion of myself as competent is exposed like used film. Hell, the delusion of myself as a man is exposed. I am a boy among men with these Fijians. His gaze rested first on the orchid tree, then the beach and finally the sea. I have stumbled into a realm that is truly authentic only to discover I can barely function in it. He paused and, with knowledge only the thoroughly defeated understood, realized he could not survive in this place. When Moses comes with the food, I will leave his place before I kill myself.

  In the afternoon he went into the sea with the melancholy of one who was saying their sweet goodbyes to a loved one whom they, in all likelihood, would never see again. Swimming to the deep boulder, he watched from the surface as if to reassure himself that it was in his best interests to leave. After all, the week was up and his time here had simply run its course. As the thought left him, he saw a flash of silver off in the deep water not far from the boulder. A shark! Big! No, a dolphin! Gray, moving in flight, cocking its head to one side. It’s looking up, gliding towards me. Compton’s mind shifted modes, the inner-dialogue ceased and his body drew breaths. Unhurried, he dove as the dolphin began to rise toward him. Now twenty feet away, the water crackled of finite electricity like champagne bubbles bursting on his chest. The dolphin was sonaring him, knew him in an instant. The two held the moment, both suspended in their liquid dream. Compton felt a welling in his chest that was not his lungs but his heart responding. Overcome with longing and the intense desire to further the connection he drifted closer and their eyes met in the briefest of moments. His need to breathe shifted the exchange and reluctantly he drifted back to the surface as the dolphin followed for a moment then turned and banked off into the cobalt. Upon his arrival on the surface his mind once again ushered in its dialogue and the moment was lost. What a beautiful creature, it sonard me, touched me. With what? It touched me with something. His breath came fast now, regaining itself, and other thoughts poured in as though they were somehow connected to his breath. With a longer breath-hold I could have stayed around, maybe even swam with it. He hung in the deep water for twenty minutes waiting for the dolphin to return, eyeing the boulder all the while. In that time the boulder had become a reminder, a symbol of the commitmentse did not keep, to himself or to his loved ones, a weakness that he loathed in himself. This boulder is my line in the sand, my crossroads. To run from it is to run forever from myself, my demons. He swam towards the coral wall and went inside to shallow water and began to dive in twenty feet. Each dive seemed to fill him with a welling determination. He observed his mind rather than the sea, and with a new clarity, saw how the pressure at depth would activate it and create a fear out of its demands for a breath, even when he had air enough in his lungs.

  For the next week he watched his mind when he dove to depth but did not listen to it. Instead he listened to his body and the truth it imparted. He was astonished at how his perception of reality changed and how a sense of harmony with the sea began to inhabit his body. When he surrendered to this harmony, a feeling of wellbeing prevailed throughout his internal self. He gave himself over in finite increments to the knowledge of his body and it was becoming his underwater intelligence. It quietly announced when he really needed a breath, and it asked for more strength in his legs so he could rise from any depth and know he would always reach the surface. In the deeper water his body demanded that he stay relaxed when his mind was doing everything in its power to create tension and put anxiety in his heart.

  Every morning and afternoon for two weeks thereafter he dove deeper and deeper and it was in this way that he eventually was able to dive to the deep boulder.

  It was one thing to dive to the boulder and immediately return, quite another to dive to the boulder and wait out the big fish on a single breath-hold. He became strong in the belief that his legs, at the very end of the breath-hold when all air and strength had diminished, would carry him back to the world of air.

  The coral trout and the snapper revealed their hiding places and stalked the boulder watching him as he watched them. They would circle the boulder and other boulders he dove and came so close that Compton knew that if he had a spear gun he could have sustained himself with fish brought home from the sea.

  During the time he was out of the water he became aware that the constant chatter of his mind had abated, that the quiet he demanded of it in the water carried over to the land. It brought a peace that was refreshing and knowable. When Moses came with the fruit, vegetables and fish, they barely spoke. Moses would gaze upon Compton’s face and smile and say, “Things are going well in the sea.” Then he would leave before Compton could muster a reply. He had given up trying to extract an explanation out of Moses for anything. Or even that his one-week stay had long expired. He was in the middle of something extraordinary and it appeared that part of the process was this isolation, which in his solitude he had now grown to enjoy. When Moses last came, neither spoke at all, but both smiled as if some secret knowledge was being passed between them.

  One morning in the middle of the fourth week, Compton awoke to the sound of small waves crashing on the sand. There was harmony to it like music that went directly to his heart. He listened for some time, his mind floating free and he realized that he had grown to embrace this place and of diving on a breath-hold. He had acquired a sense of balance and harmony that he could not conjure on his own. There was a deep sense of gratitude for the sea that Aprosa had shown him and he was pleased with that understanding, pleased that he had not run back to Taveuni and back to a worn out life that had not been working for a long time. Pleased that he found the courage to go forward when all else was declaring he should run.

  A knocking on his open door frame aroused him from the reverie. It was Aprosa, smiling as always, come to pay a visit.

  “Bula, Michael, I have brought a gift.”

  Compton rose from the bed and slipped beneath the netting to shake his hand. “Bula, Aprosa, you arein time for tea.”

  When Compton reached the doorway he saw that Aprosa had in his hand a freshly varnished mahogany spear gun that was five feet in length.

  Aprosa handed it to him. “You are ready.”

  Compton took the gun and ran his hand down the slick stock and tugged on the thick bands of rubber at its end. He lifted it and placed his hand around the grip and on to the trigger. “It’s beautiful, thank you. How much do I owe you?”

  Aprosa took a step backward and the warmth of his countenance fell to a frown. “You owe me nothing. It is a gift.”

  Compton, having realized the offence, apologized. “I’m sorry Aprosa, it’s difficult for me to sometimes accept such generosity. Thank you.”

  Aprosa regained his smile. “It come also from Moses and Abraham.”

  Compton was deeply touched by this offering. He knew these people were next to poverty stricken. He could not imagine where they had come up with the money to pay for such a spear gun and, rather than take the chance of offending further, he said nothing.

  “Let’s try it out, eh.”

  Compton retrieved his gear and as they were walking down to the shoreline he asked, “How did you know I was ready? You haven’t seen me in three weeks.”

  “Moses say he saw it on your face.” He then giggled and continued, “That Moses, he say, ’He is ready for the gun, he finally stopped talking.’” Aprosa continued to giggle and when the truth of it struck Compton, so did he.

  They sat on the bow of Aprosa’s boat and he took the gun from Compton’s hand. “This spear gun is very powerful. It has three big ba
nds of rubber, eh. It can kill any fish in the sea.”

  “Is there extra line and floats or a reel for the really big fish?”

  “No line, no floats, no reel,” replied Aprosa with untroubled honesty.

  Compton knew enough about spear fishing to know that for really big fish you needed a dragline and float. Patiently he responded, “I think you need to have a line to work the fish. To fight against it and tire it out. Otherwise it will dive to the bottom and take you and your gun for a very deep ride.”

  Aprosa shrugged with disarming certainty. “I have no line for the fight. There is no fight.”

  “Aprosa, it is impossible to hunt big fish without a drag line and floats. They would just pull you down an drown you. There is no other way.”

  Aprosa smiled guilelessly at Compton. “When I shoot they die.”

  “That would mean you would have to have pin-point accuracy on every shot, underwater, on a breath-hold, on a moving target. That’s quite a feat. You miss one time and you lose everything.”

  Aprosa shrugged again, “I don’t miss, eh.”

  It occurred to Compton that the size of the fish might somehow have been misconstrued. “Just exactly how big are these fish you are spearing?”

  “I spear a jack last week, was thirty kilos.”

  Compton released a short, sharp breath. “That’s hard to believe. You do this every time? Where do you hit the fish?”

  Aprosa bent to the sand and with his finger carefully drew a picture of a fish. He detailed it with fins and a tail, eyes, gills and a lateral line. “If you put the spear in these places.“ He pointed to a spot just above the eye of the fish and then to a point where the lateral line met the gill plate, near the pectoral fin. “It kill the fish.”

  “It seems you’re taking a big chance of losing the gun. One mistake, off half an inch and everything is history. You have only one spear gun?”

  “Yes. A man from New Zealand gave me the long fins and the snorkel, too. He gone now.”