Dolphin Dreams

by Lyle Nicholson

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE JOURNEY

  CHAPTER TWO ARRIVAL

  CHAPTER THREE RECEPTION

  CHAPTER FOUR AWAKE

  CHAPTER FIVE THE BARTENDER INTERPRETS THE VISION

  CHAPTER SIX BY THE LIGHT OF A MAYAN MOON

  CHAPTER SEVEN DREAMS OF SWIMMING

  CHAPTER EIGHT DISAPPOINMENTS ALL AROUND

  CHAPTER NINE MEETING THE PATRON OF CANCUN

  CHAPTER TEN TEPEU’S LESSONS ON TIPPING

  CHAPTER ELEVEN NIKLAS DOES RECON

  CHAPTER TWELVE MARIA TELLS HER STORY

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN MISSION UNDER THE MAYAN MOON

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN A TAIL OF ESCAPE

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN AWAKENING TO CHAOS

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN MEETING OF THE COMPAÑEROS

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN MALCOLM OUTLINES THE DILEMMA

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN WAITING

  CHAPTER NINETEEN VAMOSE

  CHAPTER TWENTY FLIGHT OF THE DESPERADOS

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE NEW ARRIVAL

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

  Dolphin Dreams

  Lyle Nicholson

  Iguana Books (2012)

  *

  Niklas Okkenon, a professor of electrical engineering at a small university in Finland, travels to Cancun, Mexico, to deliver a paper on new breakthroughs in wireless communications. His life has been spiraling downward with a recent divorce and fights with this teenager daughter. Niklas needs this conference and the acceptance of his paper to give credibility to both himself and his university. A series of events collide when dolphins keep Niklas awake at night with their splashing, and they soon enter his dreams. The request they make of him will change his life – if he agrees. Dolphin Dreams is a novella that asks the question we might ask ourselves when we see dolphins in captivity: “What are the dolphins thinking?”

  Copyright © 2012 Lyle Nicholson

  Published by Iguana Books

  460 Richmond St. West, Suite 401

  Toronto, Ontario, Canada

  M5V 1Y1

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise (except brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of the author or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real people or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors imagination and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Publisher: Greg Ioannou

  Editor: Rachel Small

  Front cover design: Jane Awde Goodwin

  Book layout and design: Stephanie Martin

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Nicholson, Lyle, 1952—

  Dolphin dreams [electronic resource] / Lyle Nicholson.

  Electronic monograph issued in various formats.

  Also issued in print format.

  ISBN 978-1-927403-35-8 (EPUB)

  I. Title.

  PS8627.I2395D64 2012 C813’.6 C2012-907817-4

  This is an original electronic edition of Dolphin Dreams.

  This Book is dedicated to my lovely wife Tessa, who knew what a dreamer I was, and married me anyway.

  CHAPTER ONE

  JOURNEY

  Before Niklas Okkonen visited Cancun, Mexico, he had never been in trouble with the police —had never even gotten a speeding or parking ticket. He lived the life of an honest citizen of Finland. Had Niklas Okkonen, the professor of wireless communications at Tampere University of Technology in Finland known what lay ahead of him, he might never have boarded the plane in Helsinki for the conference in Cancun.

  Niklas was forty-two years old, a father of a sixteen-year-old daughter named Ansa, who “didn’t want to see him again, alive,” her words, and a recent divorcé. His wife, his college sweetheart, had fallen out of love with him as his dreams had faded. She now roared around town in a new Volvo with his old friend Vilpas Heikkien. Vilpas was the vice president of a prestigious software company and provided Niklas’s ex-wife with everything she could want. After all, what are good friends for?

  After taking the train to Helsinki, Niklas had boarded a KLM flight to Amsterdam, then a flight to Mexico City, then a short flight to Cancun. Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, around three or four in the morning in some time zone, after the children had stopped crying on the plane and the man in 24D began snoring, having had enough to drink; Niklas began to look at his life. He ran it forward and backward, put it on pause and ran it in slow motion —no, it still did not make sense to him.

  Born in a small village in Finland with loving parents, Niklas excelled at school and in sports. Ice hockey, Finland’s passion, was his passion until a knee injury sidelined his hopes of playing in his country’s national hockey league and becoming a Finnish export to the National Hockey League in North America. Eighteen years old, with his sporting hopes dashed, Niklas joined the Finnish Navy. Swimming had been his rehabilitation from his hockey injury, and when a doctor suggested he become a navy diver, Niklas had agreed. He became a demolition team diver, and all of his anger with the world dissipated when he attached large quantities of C-4 explosives to underwater structures and blew them up.

  Niklas loved diving: the time underwater, his breath ascending upwards in bubbles, the underwater sounds, the silence. The silence was precious. Even at a young age, Niklas had had acute hearing. Sounds that others could not pick up were loud to him. They were like energy. They resounded and they pulsated. Underwater, the sounds and the energy were still there, but on mute.

  In Finland’s military, the standard term of service was twelve months, and Niklas stayed an extra year just to enjoy the diving —the blowing things up wasn’t bad either. When he left the military, he started university. Energy fascinated him, and he decided to study electronic engineering. A bachelor of science was followed by a master’s, which was capped by a doctorate, and Professor Niklas Okkonen then shared his brilliance in a position in Tampere University’s engineering department.

  Niklas could have taken a position at Nokia, the major wireless provider in Finland, risen up with the brightest stars of the industry, and made millions of dollars like his friends. But Niklas was fascinated with learning. Teaching became his passion, and his students loved him for it. They would fan the passion that Professor Niklas Okkenon instilled in them and join the myriad of companies that thrived in the Tampere University area, a mini-version of California’s Silicon Valley with long winters and much vodka drinking.

  Niklas met his wife to be, Kaarina in his first year of University. She told him her name meant “pure,” and he was smitten from the first time she flashed her pure, blue eyes at him. Kaarina was small but sturdy, almost a Laplander in stature, with high cheekbones, a soft smile, and long, blonde hair. Compared to Niklas, a tall, dark, brooding Fin, she stood out like a diamond.

  Their courtship was a whirlwind, fueled by passion and poetry and long-Finland-summer light that led to a stormy marriage that somehow lasted sixteen years, until the past autumn. Kaarina had continually asked Niklas to leave the university and take a position in development with one of the numerous software or wireless companies in the city. All the companies would double or triple his salary, and the yearly bonus would allow them a country house by the lake and trips away from the long Finland winter.

  Niklas would n
ot do it. Teaching was his first love, and his dream was to research how energy moved. Energy as sound, energy as light, energy as waves —all this fascinated him, and to harness his energies for companies for profit? Well, it didn’t seem right to him. And his students, one year after another, always amazed him with the questions they asked.

  Now he sat in seat 26E on the KLM flight from Amsterdam to Mexico City in economy in the middle of March. His daughter, who had once hung on his every word, now just hung up on him when she answered the phone. Niklas had taught Ansa how to scuba dive when she was twelve years old. They used to go on diving trips together, to the cold Baltic Sea, where their bubbles rose together to the surface, and twice to Egypt and the Red Sea, where they had floated for hours over the bright coral, using hand signs to point out what they saw. Now, no communication from his daughter —only silence.

  His doubts about his life came at him like cars going the wrong way on a rush hour freeway. He had watched a program once about police pursuing cars on freeways in LA. The cars fleeing would always speed to the other side of the freeway to escape, hoping the police would crash in the oncoming traffic. Invariably, the ones fleeing would crash. Niklas wondered if perhaps he had gone against the world too much, felt too much, reasoned too much. He sat back, hit the recline button, and felt his seat ease back a merciless inch. He sighed, turned off his light, and tried to sleep.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ARRIVAL

  The KLM flight arrived in Mexico City late, but it did not matter, as the Mexicana flight to Cancun was delayed due to mechanical failure. Niklas sat in limbo, jet lag, and his own body odor until they finally called the flight.

  His plane arrived in Cancun at 5:45 p.m., and he followed the other passengers towards customs, then baggage. He had to pee. No doubt about it, his forty-two-year-old bladder was in distress. During the last hour of the flight, a very cute Mexicana flight attendant had offered him a Corona, and as he could never refuse a pretty lady, he drank it. A mere fifteen minutes after consuming the beer, the plane started its descent. The seat belt sign came on, the airplane began pitching as it bounced on the warm Atlantic sea air, and Niklas rode his ever-filling bladder all the way into Cancun.

  After passing smiling customs officials, smiling baggage handlers, and all other smiling Mexicans who smiled much more than anyone from Finland, Niklas found the WC, el baño, in Spanish and reprieve. He relieved himself at the first porcelain fixture he could find, and then proceeded to wash his hands. There beside him, a small, brown, wrinkled man with smooth, gray hair was smiling at him and offering a paper towel. His perfect teeth and eyes gleamed.

  Niklas took the towel and remembered that tipping was customary in Mexico. He had recently been to France and Spain, where a fifty-cent euro coin was standard. Niklas dug into his pockets, and his hand came out with a five-euro note. He was shocked to see it as it left his hand, and the little man offering the paper towel expressed his gratitude and deftly pocketed the note. A five-euro note was seven American dollars. Niklas had just paid a fortune to take a piss in Mexico. He toweled his hands, walked out of the toilet in disgust, and found his baggage at the carousel.

  The air outside the terminal was humid and warm. Night had descended, and Mexicans yelled to tourists to come to their cabs, their tours, their rental cars, or their buses.

  Niklas dragged his one roller bag and found the hotel shuttle designated by his conference. Before boarding, he found a money exchange booth and exchanged some euros for pesos. He found 1 euro equaled .60 of a peso. The man who took his bag got two pesos —Niklas was not cheap, but he was not about to fund anyone’s pension.

  The shuttle bus drove through the Cancun night, passing armed checkpoints. The police were working to keep unwanted elements out of Cancun —basically anyone but tourists or those who worked for the tourists. Niklas sat in the backseat and finally reviewed his emails and texts on his phone. There was the usual university traffic, students wanting more time for papers and asking silly questions to answers they could look up, but there was also one from Kaarina, who was very upset. I know what you did, and I’ve informed the police. Expect to be arrested on your return to Finland, you bastard!

  The note jarred Niklas out of his jet lag and lack of sleep. He knew what she talking about. Last Thursday, just two days before his flight to Cancun, he had parked in the car park at the market he usually shopped at. He got out of his 1999 Skoda wagon, which he called the pride of the Czech Republic, just in time to see Kaarina, Vilpas, and Ansa get out of Vilpas’s brand new Volvo XC60 and head into the market.

  Niklas almost cried out hi, almost waved, but he hung back. They walked away not noticing him. He walked up to the car to admire it, and there, with his head out the window, which was down half way, was his lovely ex-dog, a golden spitz named Kasen. Niklas placed his hand on the dog’s head, and Kasen licked and nuzzled him lovingly.

  His beautiful dog looked fat, downright tubby. He had always been lean, muscular, and full of energy and now looked sluggish and heavy. Inspired, Niklas marched, as one possessed, to the veterinary clinic by the market, purchased a bottle of Laktulos, a laxative for dogs, and then gave his beloved dog a dose. He knew that what he was doing was wrong, and he felt bad for the dog he loved so much, but he had never made a statement to his friend, his wife, or his daughter about how he felt, and it seemed to him that now was the time to make it.

  He had heard from a mutual friend that Vilpas’s brand new Volvo might be a write-off. His lovely dog Kasen had been a good boy, and was probably well relieved.

  Niklas looked up from his BlackBerry. His battery was dying, so he decided to watch the buildings go by. Palm tree–lined avenues gave way to rows of hotels on white-sand beaches. They drove through an area of high-end shops selling designer wear, perfume, and jewelry. The shops disappeared in the dark as they came upon rows of restaurants interspersed with bars. Bubba Gump Shrimp, Argentina Steak House, and Hooters all screamed their margarita prices and happy hour times.

  In the midst of the restaurants and bars, a large police station appeared —a reminder to the myriad of young revelers and drinkers, whom Niklas knew would be mostly underage and over stimulated Americans and Canadians. The police of Cancun would be watching.

  The van finally pulled up to the hotel, the Mayan Dreams Resort at the very end of the hotel zone. Niklas pulled his weary body out of the van and got a whiff of the ocean. He knew it was close. He tipped the driver four pesos and the person who picked up his bag four pesos, and he was about to tip the doorman when his tipping reflexes seized up. He clutched his hand in his pocket to fight the urge. In Finland and other Nordic countries, prices included tips, and people were paid well. Niklas had been warned that Mexico would be different. He felt as if his pockets had become a cash machine for people around him.

  At the front desk, he was given a room, an upgrade, they said. The room, high on the fifth floor, would overlook the dolphin pools and provide a view of the ocean. Niklas thanked the front desk person and almost gave her a tip, then gave his bag to a bellman, whom he knew he would tip.

  The bellman led Niklas out of the reception area —a large, wide-open space with waterfalls, screaming parrots, and a bar full of patrons drinking the all-inclusive liquor —down a long corridor and past the conference area. The conference was already in motion. Niklas was late. His plane should have arrived at 1:45 p.m., and he had planned to get to the hotel by 3:00 p.m. at the latest, have a short nap and quick swim, and be at the conference for cocktails at 6:30 p.m.

  It was 6:45 p.m., and Niklas had not changed yet. He walked quickly past the conference guests in his jeans and T-shirt, hoping his business attire had traveled well.

  They walked past the conference center, the restaurant, the pool, and over a bridge that separated two outdoor pools. At first Niklas thought the pools were for swimming, but then he saw something large with a fin and a tail move and splash. He saw it was a dolphin and stopped. Beside one of the pools, a young Mexican
woman with the most wonderful legs he had ever seen was pushing a long pole, cleaning the pool. She smiled at him, and he smiled back. The dolphin also looked at him, and he thought he saw it smile too.

  The bellman led Niklas to his room, showed him the television and bathroom, deposited his bag on the floor, took his tip, and closed the door with a smile. Niklas was still amazed at how much the Mexicans smiled. He walked out his balcony door and looked out over the ocean. A small convoy of clouds moved overhead, and a fighter squadron of frigate birds sailed in tight formation. The moon was just beginning to show itself, and it cast a glow over a palm tree that waved in the breeze.

  Niklas looked down on the main pool below, where several dolphins moved lazily, circling the pool and nudging one another. Then they flipped over to expose their underbellies. The girl he had seen on the bridge was still there. She sat down beside the pool, and one by one, the dolphins came to her. She held their long noses in her hands and looked into their eyes.

  Niklas had to break himself away from the scene. He could have stayed there, lost in the vision of the girl and the dolphins, but he had a conference to get to —one he was late for. He went back into his room and opened his bag only to find it soaking wet.

  CHAPTER THREE

  RECEPTION

  Niklas took his wet clothes out of the bag that had traveled from Helsinki, Finland, to Cancun, Mexico, and hung them up. Somewhere, probably on the long delay in Mexico City, his bag had lay on the tarmac and been soaked with rain. His suit jacket looked like a wet rag, and so did his dress pants. He had planned on wearing a casual jacket and shirt with no tie, but now he was faced with the jeans and T-shirt he was wearing.