DANCERS

It is dark, late at night, barely a star visible and no moon. A cold night. Off the portside suddenly, three smooth objects in the sea streaking at speed towards the ship, like torpedoes. These muscled munitions are rockets trailing green fire, and they converged with the ships bow. Dolphins! Ducking and diving, twisting and turning, sprinting and spinning. Each dolphin magically illuminated in the blackness, with a ghostly trail of phosphorescence, whipping behind them, like ribbons of lights as they ride the bow wave, side to side and up and down. The sparkling, streaming trails exacerbated our mutual joy, watchers and dancers, in a shared thrill of the moment, the delight of a performance that for us the watchers ended after a few minutes. But we know the dolphins diving down, away and off, continued their performance for themselves alone, deep into the night, deep into the ocean. For us the audience the glowing tango lasted barely seconds. For them it wraps around them, for life, forever lighting the sequenced liquid lines they draw while dancing in the depths.