Dolphying Logic/What Does it Mean to Die

Inside Cover/Back Cover:

Renea found herself in a desperately lonely situation after losing her best friend, Rachel. She was eternally anxious which kept her from reaching out. After time feeling drained and disassociated, Renea befriended a man 8 years older and fell victim to his alluring words. 

After meeting him, Renea comes to her senses and flees into the darkness unscathed. Running across the beach barefoot leads her to station against the rocks before she finds someone in need of her caring heart: a dolphin in her last hour alive.

Maybe Renea can pull through after all, and be reborn.

Sand cut the bottoms of Renea’s feet as she fled the morose boat house. The owner shut off the lights and watched her scramble over the beach dunes on the starless night. The sky was beginning to lighten, leaving it moody navy blue in hue, hardly speckled in the fog. The moist salty air burned Reneas rum-stained lips, absorbed into her lungs, and made her eyes itchy. The strong wind pushed her aside, throwing sand at her uncovered thighs. 

Without light, her shortbread floral-patterned sundress looked grey, sad, and dull; hardly contrasting with her blank paper skin. The puff sleeves protected her shoulders from the icy winds and November temperature and Renea’s back tingled against the unlit boathouse, forcing her to look over her shoulder. The broad-shouldered man stood, arms crossed, in his dark polo half-tucked into his khaki pants.

Renea found her footing in the sand and propelled herself along the private beach, tears running down her cheeks before the wind dried them. She made it a few yards before her tears became cries erupting from her mouth, her freshly manicured hands reaching to cling onto her rings into the night. Renea spotted boulders in the sand ahead, and she decided to rest there, catch her bearings, and escape. Her hands clung to the harsh gravel on top of the sea boulders as she pulled her body among them.

Instagram messages pinged a message request: Avery1998 wants to message you. Renea paused her rerun of Stranger Things to read the message from the potential friend: he said nothing of importance; in fact, she cannot remember what he said to lure her in. Her heart felt better talking to him, healing a little bit each day he called and declared her beautiful.

She shivered and cried among the rocks, scratching her arms with sand as she tried to warm up. The sand never left the crevices of her palms, not even after she wiped them on her clothes. She rubbed her arms and squeezed herself, listening to the sea. 

The wind died down after a minute and Renea noticed the whimpering coming from the other side of the boulder. She rose to her feet and looked over the barrier, met with a bleeding soft-grey dolphin stuck after high tides. Renea gasped and looked over her shoulder at the distant building and with no sight of the property owner, Renea felt safe to crouch between the rocks and reach her hand out steadily to the heaving creature. 

The dolphin shrieked weakly and flopped nervously, spreading blood further along her body. The moon hardly gleaned through the fog, leaving her to look dim and grey rather than her natural blueish-grey tone of beauty and grace. Her flesh was ripped from a fight with the boulders but she continued to thrash: terrifying Renea. 

“Hey…hey…hush. Shhh…” she whispered, hoping the dolphin would understand her words through tone; but she still flopped pathetically between the rocks, attempting to leave the human girl's reach in this vulnerable moment. Renea petted her, hushing to soothe her anxiety as much as the dolphins. 

Calls of distress stopped echoing through Renea’s head as the shrill-voiced animal calmed and sat still, heaving despondently with periodic screams. The calls sounded like the spark of flint on a lighter, scct scct tick into Renea’s ears, yet she remained undistracted while analyzing the predicament: the dolphin tail was wedged between two massive boulders. They crushed into her dermis, causing red waves to pulse out. Shadows turned it into a black blanket trailing down into the sand. 

Sharp rocks in the sand scratched and stabbed into Renea’s shins as she settled on her knees, moving slowly as a beached turtle adjusting her body among the rocks. 

“Hey, Renea,” he messaged her. She messaged back immediately.
“Hey!” she typed frivolously. “I missed you today.”
“Did you eat today, my love?” he asked.
From day one, he asked about Renea: how she feels, her sleep, school projects, etc. 

“Renea?” popped up on screen. She had been staring at her screen, betrothed from the human decency of her beloved. She responded simply before a phone call came through. 

Her face lit up while the phone tinged and twinkled for attention. His profile picture popped on the screen and she was taken away, disassociated from reality.
During their conversation, he slipped in compliments among his inquiries. Renea’s health got better; she could eat and drink, she could sleep at night, and her hygiene massively improved. On day one, the attention and care drew her in.

“Hey, my dove. How’s your back? I know your backpack is heavy from the textbooks. I do not miss high school, haha.” he sent an array of emojis.
“Yeah, it’s bad. Not a great day today, too. I remain thinking of Rachel every day. Why the hell did I push her away? Damn.” She shot out of her thumbs.
The tapping of the phone keyboard honed her head into the screen, distracting her from the teenage pain she faced alone. No one at home or school treated her human, let alone shower her with adoration like he did. Her life was centered around her phone after the first hello.
 

Renea realized her tears stopped. She had been sitting with the dolphin for a few minutes, perplexed and dazed, having no time to recover before stumbling upon this lost soul. The dolphin flopped, drawing her from her brain and into the world. The wind felt colder than before she retreated into her lobes, but she was grateful to feel it again.
“Shit…” she mumbled. The dolphin started to panic once again however she calmed herself and stared at Renea, whose eyes welled with pity: this intelligent creature had beached herself. She needs someone to help…but what can I do?! 

“Hey…stay calm…” her hands scanned the air above the dolphin's body, unsure of how to comfort her, or if touching her was a bad idea in the first place. Her hand landed beside her dorsal fin and she petted the dolphin for several minutes striving to soothe either of them. 

Renea’s hair whipped around her head from the wind but she paid no mind to the pumpkin strands whacking her face, however, she recalled her phone was still at the boat house. Her heart sank upon realizing she could not help this dolphin any more than she was. Tears streamed down her face and her throat closed, causing her to sob and heave, becoming too shaky to continue petting the somber creature.
 

After a while, Renea adjusted and sat with her back against the rock and feet out in front of her. Her sandy hands wrapped around her chest as she leaned her head back, crying into the night, but her wails hardly stabbed through the roaring of the wind. The water was calm during low tide, a contrasting beauty reflecting the soulless moment only yards away. 

She calmed herself after a bit and was able to see through her saline sadness; the dolphin was staring at her, wiggling her flippers in the sand. Renea thought she had frightened her, which only made the tears start again.

“There’s nothing I can do right…” she mumbled, directing her speech to the dolphin. “I shouldn’t have gone out tonight. You’re probably thinking the same thing, huh? What happened to you…?” her hand reached slowly for the dolphin's head, however, she raised her nose and rested it against Renea’s palm; as if trying to calm Renea down of all things. She smiled and chuckled at the gesture before resting her hand on the dolphin's forehead and petting her other hand on the dolphin’s nose.
Renea looked out towards the sea and she noticed the sky had gotten significantly lighter. The mainly blue hues started lifting lighter and a small hint of orange was visible through the fog. She reckoned only half an hour or so until the sun was up.
“...My name is Renea,” she whispered to the dolphin. “I think I’ll call you Crystal if that's okay.” Of course, the dolphin didn't answer, but Renea felt the name was right for her. This was a listening set of ears, even if she didn't speak English. 

“Crystal, how in hell did you get stuck like this…? It’s insane…” Crystal chirped and wiggled her fins, stirring up sand. The wind died down to a strong or mild breeze, allowing Renea to hear the clarity of the dolphin's voice: it twinkled through her head, unlike any white noise audio could. 

A smile took hold and Renea scooted close to Crystal, lifting her head into her lap and delicately petting her. The flow of ichor had ceased, she noticed, it was left as mud on Crystal's back. Renea examined her tail crushed between the sharp boulders and took note of the crab walking toward the scent of blood. She watched it as it crawled over the dunes before being knocked over by the wind. Its legs sadly skittered in the air, leaving Renea to reach her foot out and flip it over. It snapped at her toes but missed before it skedaddled from danger. 

She turned back.
“You’re defying logic, Crystal. You have this unrealistic strong energy…after getting trapped, you seem alive. You’re dolphying logic! Haha, get it?”

Crystal had no discernible response yet Renea smiled.

“This is a picture of me from my senior year. I would have been 18, I think. Older than you, haha!” Avery texted, following a picture of a teen guy. Renea had all but realized her predicament: she kept her gaze the other way in an attempt to keep the dopamine trickling in her brain. Avery distracted Renea from class and homework, but she felt alive, and her hopelessness faded away.
“Do you want to come to my boathouse when I'm in the city next week?” her heart stopped. Had it already been a month since she met him? She looked at the calendar, noting how disassociated her past four weeks had been compared to the sluggish pace of her regular depressed life. Every day she waited until she could text him and call him and hear his words: she couldn't even recall the assignments due. She faded away every class until she could click on her screen and tap paragraphs of her heart to Avery.

“Crystal,” she said after a minute of thinking, “I lost my best friend a few months ago.” Crystal sat still, gazing at Renea while being petted. “Her name is Rachel. I… I’m a paranoid freak. I blocked her after yelling at her! It was crazy, damn, I’M crazy!” her anger had barely flowed before Crystal soothed her with a small call.
“You’re right, I shouldn’t freak out right now. Crystal, I don’t know much about dolphins…do you have a best friend?” No response, of course.
“I wonder how long you’ve been out here like this. It must be so excruciating. How could this have even happened to you?” a picture painted in her head: Crystal came to the beach at high tide mere hours ago and got lodged by the receding tide. Renea knew enough about the tides to know how this could have happened, but nothing about dolphins or animal health.
“Damn, I can really only speculate on your life, can’t I? I think, though, Crystal: that you are magnificent. You’re unbelievably calm right now, even at the brink of death. How are you so calm in this situation?” Surely she knows death is impending.

“I won’t think too much about it…” she stood up cautiously, garnering a squeak of disapproval from Crystal. “Hold on, I’m trying to move the rock.” She stuck her fingers in a crevice of the smaller rocks and she lifted for minutes before accepting that she was too weak. 

Her fingertips ached from the penetrative pressure she forced upon them but a pass over the lightning beach revealed a sign that had been blown over. She ran for the steel pole and carried it back, leavening the rock. She pushed the rusty metal down diagonally into the sand, raising the rock a few inches. “Oh my god! I’m doing it! Hold on, Crystal, I won’t let you die under a rock. No one deserves that.”

The fog lifted to show dim red and orange sun rays. It was far from the sun itself, however it lit the beach enough for Renea to perceive the blue tint of her new grey friend. 

The triangular sheet metal atop it served as a boost for Renea to grab and pull, and using all of her tremendous efforts, she got the boulder to roll down the beach dunes. It thudded once it stopped. She turned quickly to Crystal, who seemed shocked by the wiggling of her fins, and she cried out when attempting to move her tail. 

“Crystal, don’t move! It’s okay… I’ll be here with you.” she regarded the large rock down the beach before lifting the sign and placing it beside Crystal. “This is going to hurt, baby, but you will manage,” she said, timidly scooping underneath Crystal's tail, lifting her, and maneuvering her to sit atop the sign. The words private property were now smeared in blood and sand or entirely covered by the dolphin.
Crystal chirped in pain but ceased once Renea placed her down. She smiled and went to pet her but she pulled back upon realizing her hands were covered in ichor. Sand glued to her palms upon trying to wipe them. She decided to give up and smear the blood down her dress. Her sense of emergency stole her regard for clean clothes, trailing hand prints on her shortbread dress. 

Her heart quickened at every pair of headlights passing on the desolate road, but it took six cars passing for Avery to pull up on the shoulder. Her nervous smile and petrified stomach combined into an overwhelming shiver that rolled down her body. He rolled the window down and smiled down at her from the silver Jeep. 

Renea’s excitement caused her feet to twinkle against the ground and her smile turned to a grin as she hopped in the passenger seat. Avery’s sharp features matched his icy grey, blue-tinted gaze, but Renea remained enamored with the hawk beside her.

It took long for one of them to speak. 

“Hey, Renea,” he said too smoothly.

Crystal sat still on the metal beam as Renea tried to heave her across the beach; she lifted enough to keep her fingers under the bar, hooking her fingers into the bolt pores. Crystal had to weigh nearly 300 pounds, but the shape of the pole allowed it to slowly slither through the sand, creating a railway after it. Small bursts of wind kept Renea focused and alert as she hauled Crystal to the water line. 

The waves delicately hit her ankles until she stepped back onto the beach, collapsing at Crystal’s side. The rays melded together in the rainbow sky and the fog dissipated, allowing every color to be shown to Renea. 

Her eyes were loaded with new mosaic tinges she was sure she pioneered. Has the sky always been this bright? This gorgeous? 

She splashed water on Crystal's skin, garnering small chirps. Renea took in the beauty of the animal and her true colors as the sky lightened, shining upon them before the downpour. Crystal was distinctly weaker, but she still moved her flippers and called for Renea with her lifted squeak.

“Crystal, have you seen colors this beautiful? It's like the sky is cleansing the land. The mist was covering your windsor blubber. And look at my dress…It’s covered in sand and blood, but the colors look beautiful with the shortbread color fabric. Look at the tiny winding flowers they’re my favorite part of the dress…”

Her voice involuntarily trailed off, and her nose ran before her eyes, crowned with volatile tears. It felt as if they were tearing her face apart, but Renea remained unphased as her body reacted to the stress of the morning. She remained looking at Crystal as she blinked slowly and failed to move her fins. 

She stepped out of her sandals onto the soft silver carpet. She smiled, and Avery looked down at her, forming a smile back.
“Soft, right? I got it in the last Hearring season. Stay the night and we can fish in the sunrise. It’s magical out on the water.” she hardly noticed him start to pour rum in two glasses. He handed it to her and she frowned before reluctantly smelling it. 

The urge to conform and have the drink took over and she poured it back. She choked and tried smiling through it.

Renea left prints in the sand away from Crystal's body, feeling clarity among the sadness. There were blisters forming on her feet from the sand and on her fingers from the pole yet she continued. She walked up the dunes as the sun rose high, warming her shivering body. 

A glance around the road revealed a gas station which was sure to have a phone to use. Pace quickened, Renea crept down the street and barged into the store. The cashier didn't look up from his phone as Renea located the public pay phone. She pulled the emergency cash from her dress.
Cll-tink cll-tink cll-tink tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap
Riiing riiing riii-
“Hello?” the girls voice came in groggy.

Avery gripped her arm as she tried to flee the boat house and his voice toughened. She pulled and tried to reach her phone on the wicker coffee table, but he pulled her away and his glare bore a hole into Renea as he pulled her close.

“You’re already here. Let’s have another drink and calm down, yeah?”

Renea yelled no and twisted her arm from his, bolting to the sliding door and running out onto the beach. Avery chased her out but he stopped along his property line, calling a message out to Renea.
“Renea, you’re trespassing. Who would they believe?” the wind hushed him out.

“Rachel…It’s Renea. I’m sorry for everything, and for waking you up. I wasn’t myself before.”

Silence from the other end, spending her coined time. Renea’s foot tapped anxiously before Rachel responded.
“I tried calling you. I was never mad, Renea.”
“I’ve made some bad decisions, Rachel. I miss you. I need you to come get me-” her voice broke. Her vocal cords wiggled as her call continued.

After, Renea gleaned down the road, desperate to see Rachel’s car before Avery’s. The prospective fear caused her body to tighten. Of the silver cars that drove past the gas station, Renea’s stomach turned small and made her nauseous every sighting. After a painstaking twenty minutes and a staggering fifteen cars later, a white sedan pulled into the desolate parking lot. 

Renea stepped out, the sun shining on her blood-stained dress and tangled hair. She wiggled her hands in anticipation as Rachel parked and she seemed to race out of her car up to Renea. Rachel’s natural light blinded her and she burst out weeping, falling to the concrete with a smile. 

Rye Moira Hebert 2025