Cypress, White Dolphin
Unnatural Recollections #2
Part 1: Strange Places
Cypress
When the boat reached the location, Pine and a few others dived into the sea. They wouldn't let me go down, saying I hadn't sleep well last night and was not in a good mental condition. I watched the bubbles rise from where they submerged, and after a while, even the bubbles disappeared. The sea was a dense green, impossible to see through. The boat was swaying and made me feel dizzy, so I laid down on the deck. The boatman was smoking, squinting at a distant island, and murmuring to himself, “What are we doing in this damn place?” I didn't know how long it took, but eventually, Pine and the others resurfaced, took off their masks, and said: “There's nothing here! Are you sure this is the right location?”
Dark clouds rolled in from the east, the waves started to churn, frothing at their crests, and the boat rocked violently. I put on my diving suit, ready to descend. They couldn’t hold me back. Perhaps I fell into the sea while struggling. There was a massive whirlpool below, and I could hardly breathe. I seemed to see Pine reaching out to me from above, but I kept sinking. Until I saw that sight. On the flat seabed, towering cypresses were neatly lined up. When the undercurrent swept through, the scaly cypress leaves fluttered as if bathed in a gentle breeze. I always knew they would be waiting for me there.
White Dolphin
Merry heard more than once from her father about the conspiracy of the white dolphins. That was before the miniaturization, when her father was still a young man. To prepare for the upcoming miniaturization, the people of V City planned a grand celebration.* The white dolphins living in the waters nearby gathered and plotted to retaliate on the city dwellers on the day of the festival. “What a great opportunity!” one of the dolphins said. “We can disguise ourselves as buoys in the sea parade and launch a surprise attack on the leaders on the main stage. Then we can rule V City!” An elder dolphin interrupted the young one, saying “Have you forgotten the teachings of our ancestors? Although we have been reduced to less than a hundred by the people of V City, we absolutely cannot use violence. But since the sea is no longer a place for us to live, we should carry out our plan of last resort.”
Then a large-scale stranding incident occurred, leading people to believe that the white dolphins were completely extinct. Merry asked her father how he knew this secret, and he said: “A dying white dolphin I found on the beach told me that. I later married that dolphin, and she became your mother.”
* A phenomenon called “miniaturization” is mentioned in some of the tales. The termed used in the original is 小人化，meaning “turning into little people.”
For introductory remarks about the work, see “Coming soon! Strange tales from V City”