DORSAL FINS

What I have so far of my book, Dorsal Fins. More to come when writing continues. Dorsal Fins is a humour/sci-fi book about dolphins taking over the world, and the subsequent human resistance.

DORSAL FINS

P.1- WHEN DOLPHINS RISE

by Ivan A. Dalby

 

PROLOGUE

 

Merriam-Webster defines a dorsal fin as “a flat thin part on the back of some fish (such as sharks).” In layman’s terms, it’s that triangle thing on a shark’s/dolphin’s/whale’s back. Wikipedia tells me that a dorsal fin’s purpose is to “stabilize the animal against rolling and assist in sudden terms.” Harkening back to layman’s lingo again, it keeps the animal straight up and helps it turn. Though you could probably comprehend that anyways.

Dorsal fins are one of the poster boys of evolution,

among such amazing assets like opposable thumbs, which we humans use to do things like grab stuff, like your phone, in which you’ll use opposable thumbs to text your friend about grabbing lunch, in which she’ll use hers about where to eat. Us homo sapiens might think that these opposable thumbs, these hallmarks of evolution, are part of what make us the dominant species of Earth, among other reasons like our emotion, biology, and language. This thought is always in the back of our minds, somehow, but yet- it’s utterly wrong. We think opposable thumbs put us above other species, but not above the ones with dorsal fins.

         Specifically dolphins.

         In Dolphinian culture, the dorsal fin has always been an object of worship, mystery, and is very nebulous- yet serves as a symbol of great understanding, togetherness among the Dolphinians, and, surely, superiority among humans. We all know a dolphin’s intelligence is respectable, but not enough research has been done to bring forth the truth that compared to dolphins, we’re just plain dumb fools.        

         You may ask how it came to be that we never found how they live. Well, it may surprise you to know that we don’t, and may never will. Once upon a tragic time, a curious marine biologist named Nakumbe Mawumbo searched to find how dolphins lived- he, too, believed in the superiority of the Dolphinian culture- but the dolphins, which just outright hate humans, ganged up on him and attacked him before he could find the answer to his question. Nakumbe never came back from his mission- all thanks to the nefariousness of dolphins.

         A question that may also pop into your head is how the Homo sapiens came to be hated by dolphins. How did we become such figures of fear and hatred? The list is long- all Dolphinians are required to have the list in book form in their household, the book is entitled The Atrocities Of Humanity and is 477 pages long- but I’ll bring up the most important reasons.

1.)  We never treat dolphins with respect. We adore dolphins. We put them in zoos and watch them swim, to the adored smile of children, there’s that whole thing called SeaWorld, aquariums- but even with our knowledge that dolphins aren’t too dumb, we’ve never consulted them for anything. This, this is a terrible act in Dolphinian culture. No scientific breakthroughs have been accomplished with the help of our dorsal fin friends, if we can even call them that, but they’re much smarter than we are.

2.)  Humans can be real jerks sometimes. This goes for everyone. Dolphins are insanely spiritual and pacifists, or at least were until Click came along, and despised war. Humans love war, and have been in countless wars. Dolphins don’t like that fact. They didn’t.

3.)  Humans can also be quite jerks to any animals. Dolphins are opposed (that was an evolution pun right there) to zoos. Humans love the “animal jails” that dolphins hate- they’re “literally kidnapping animals and trapping them in boxes that are cruel renditions, almost mockery, of their natural habitat.”- Flipper, undercover agent- The Atrocities of Humanity, Chapter 13: Animal Cruelty, page 298.

4.)  We’re utterly obsessed with ourselves. Every TV host is human. Every celebrity, for the most part, is human. Have you ever watched a reality show about gorillas? (No, Keeping Up With the Kardashians doesn’t count.) Or about giraffes? No. We barely even consider animals. We are veeeeeeeeery selfish as a species.

Those are just some of the reasons that dolphins 

hate humans. There are 27,964 in the Atrocities, but these- called the 4 Means, are essential to the Dolphinians. Extreme Dolphinains have these inscribed on the walls of their houses. Such is the nature of their ways. They just plain hate humans, if you haven’t gotten this.

         But the dolphins, being such peaceful creatures, never really got this point across to humans. They just let themselves be treated like animals- they are- but they were never fine with it. It’s like when an annoying cousin comes over to your birthday party, but you never wanted them there, so you just let him be because kicking him out would be impolite and rude.

         And this state of hatred and acceptance lasted for all this time. Through all the world wars, in which the dolphins just looked at us condescendingly, the Great Depression, through everything since dolphins and humans came about.

         That is, until Click came along.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                      CHAPTER ONE

 

 

         The Californian beach in summer really should be a world wonder. The Sun is high and bright, the water’s feeling good, you can play volleyball in the sand, you can get tan- it’s really a great time.

         And I haven’t even been there!

         But if you venture out deep enough into the Pacific Ocean, you’ll see one if it’s greatest wonders. No, it’s not Atlantis- that’s a story for another time. It’s not a sunset. You see that every day.   You may have seen this in movies, but it’s even better to see in person- even though I wouldn’t know. This amazing thing I’m alluding to- is DOLPHINS!

         Dolphins. Those sea creatures we all adore. They make such cute noises, they’re smart, some of them are famous, they jump do that little jumping thing for you to see while you’re riding the Titanic… they’re just DOLPHINS!!

         But all that ballyhoo aside, you really should hate dolphins. They’re evil. They want us all to die, in a gory manner. They’re planning to take over the world. You would know this if you read the prologue. Did you? I hope you did.

         If you happened to be here at the right time, you wouldn’t know it, but if you surfed far enough into the ocean and went deep enough, you would bump snouts with one of these dolphins. A quite evil one, to be exact.         

Beside him sat his fuel, the most famous Dolphinian book, The Atrocities Of Humanity. The book that described everything humans did wrong. As said in the prologue, if you read it, there are 27,964 reasons and counting.

         25,965 now. Jacob Sartorious.

         The Atrocities is in every household. No house is complete without it. It’s the reasons most Dolphinians hate humans. It details, as I said, everything humans have done wrong. Right down to movies humans have made, like Men In Black II and Green Lantern. It also touches on cringe worthy music videos, (shockingly, “Friday” by Rebecca Black does not make the list, because dolphins actually like that because of it’s patriotism.  It was an undercover plan by the Dolphinian government to kill humans through a terrible song, but it never killed anyone- it just ended up being a really bad song.) Strange foods, bad books, and corrupt politicians, among a constantly increasing number of things.

         That Dolphin, who is reading that book, his name is Click. He hates the name. He once told people to call him Knightfin, but nobody went with it. So he just went by Click.

         Click hates most everything more than housewives love watching Ellen and soap operas. Humans? Hate it. Compromises? Hate it. Losing? Hate it. Click wasn’t evil all the time, but when he was, yeesh- it was like Darth Vader met Jason Vorhees and had a baby, which was Mike Myers, who had a baby with Frankenstien. Times a hundred. There are, in fact, two things Click likes. Dogs and 80s love songs. But he hates humans more than he loves them.

         Beside Click, brooding, dark, and irritable Click, sat his faithful buddy, and perhaps more like servant, Bubba. Bubba was a…. strange thing. The relationship between these two was weird. It was like an oblivious dictatorship. Libertarians would compare it to cell phones- they control your life, and you don’t even know. Bubba was nearly Click’s pet: Bubba did what Click told him, and happily. He’d get the remote for Click, if asked, even if it was two feet away. Or two fins away, if we’re talking with the Dolphinian measure here. He’d do Click’s errands, and when necessary, his dirty work. It was magical though- it was the perfect relationship. They never argued. They just got along, because Bubba is an idiot who oddly likes being controlled, and Click is an egomaniac with a god complex who thinks he can do anything. He was cheerful. Very cheerful. He bounced off the walls every time of day. He rarely ever said anything negative, and when he did, his ecstatic voice made it seem like sarcasm. He would do anything for Click, but he didn’t know why. And now he was engulfed in Click’s latest scheme, which was taking over the world because of Dolphinian superiority.

         The things dolphins do.

         As Click sat with his snout pressed into his book, Bubba swam in circles like a child during the peak of a sugar rush. He was like this all the time. He’d read the Atrocities once. That, in itself, was an atrocity. Most Dolphinians read the book regularly. It was held in a stature usually reserved for celebrities and the 1 percent, but Bubba was just different.

He never had much of an affinity for it, mostly because he was too dumb to understand it. He had no clue what escargot was, or who Justin Beiber was, or exactly what made Mars Needs Moms so bad. But since Click worshipped the book, Bubba did, too.

         “Hey, Bubba, take a look at this- you know that some humans think that global warming isn’t real? And the Hector’s whole country just melted!” Said Click, with his low, gravelly voice. If Dolphinians knew what it was, they’d compare it to Batman.

         “Oh!” said Bubba, still swimming in circles. He was like a constant ball of energy. He wasn’t listening to Click, though. He rarely does. He just nods and smiles, for most everything. It gets him into trouble sometimes.

         Click laid down his book on the ice table beside him. He stared at the ocean above him, and had a look of wonder and ambition on his face. “Bubba, you ever wonder if there’s dolphins like us out there?”

         “Yeah.”

         “Why haven’t we found them? Why haven’t we found the dolphins who share our endless hatred for those beasts above us- who, too, bask in the thought of their destruction?”

         Bubba understood none of this. He’s not too smart, as previously said.          “I’m not smart, Click.”

         Click said in an annoyed voice, “What I’m asking is why we haven’t found dolphins who want humans dead like we do.”

         “Ohhhhhhhhhh!” said Bubba. “I don’t know. We haven’t really looked, have we?”

         “Oh. No, we have not.” Click responded.

         “We should look, then.”

         “Huh. Good idea. But how…?”

         Click started pacing himself, in deep thought. “We could place subtle hints all across town… only the smartest dolphins will know what they mean, we don’t want any idiots joining us…” Click took a glance at Bubba. “…We’ve already got enough of those…. We could go up to every door, and ask to take a survey of how many dolphins truly hate humans… wait, those darned pacifists will throw a RIOT… hmmm…”

         While Click was pacing himself in deeper thought than the Grand Canyon, Bubba had started to read the newspaper. “BUBBA! Why aren’t you THINKI- wait a second!” Click quickly swam over and forcefully grabbed the newspaper from Bubba’s fins. “The NEWSPAPER! Bubba, you’re a genius!”

         “It was your idea, Click.”

         “I’M A GENIUS!” Exclaimed Bubba. “We can place an ad in the newspaper! ‘For people who truly hate humanity and wish it violently dead in a crazed fit of gore, please see Click and Bubba at 2112 Stephen Street, July 24^th, 7:00!’ Ha! We’ve done it!”

         “Dead in a crazed fit of gore? Ain’t that a bit extreme, Click?”

         “No! It’s JUST PERFECT!” For once, Click was in ecstasy. He loved this idea. Now it was Bubba being still and Click swimming in circles.

         “How many people do you think will respond, though?”

         “Hundreds! Thousands! Maybe even more! But I won’t know for sure!”

         So they placed an ad in the paper. And they waited, for a week, until July 24^th came along. They got the party set up, they had bowls of pretzels, chips, even a veggie tray. They had a lot of them. They were prepared for hundreds of people. Perhaps thousands. Click was particularly excited for the party. He was totally convinced of it’s success.

         6:59.

         Click was crying in the corner.

         Two people showed up.

         Bubba swam over and tried to cheer him up. “Hey, man… at least we got two people to show up, right? He, he…” The two dolphins looked concerned and try to glance at Click. One of them was a very skinny dolphin with glasses who looked very unlike an evil mastermind, and one was a pudgy dolphin who you could tell loved guns.

         Click looked over, with tears in his eyes. “Jeez, Bubba.. sniff…. This was a failure. That’s… never happened to me before. I thought there’d be hundreds of people… thousands… look, I even bought extra pretzels!”

         “You should be happy we got two people. We could have gotten zero.”

         “But, still…. You know what? I’m just going to deal with what I got.”

         Click swam over to the other two dolphins, looking oddly determined, and told them this.

         “Alright, ladies. Let’s get this show up and running. You!”- he pointed to the pudgier dolphin of the two, named Ralph- “What are you good at?”

         “Guns. Weapons. Violence. Destruction!” He replied passionately. Ralph was a real weapons expert. He made all types of weapons. Small, large, playful, world-destroying. He once made a weapon that gave atoms in people’s bodies extra protons-  like a lot of them- so their bodies would enlarge until they exploded. Real dangerous guy.

         “Who-ho, there, pal. Settle down there. Now you, twig.” He motioned to the skinner dolphin. “What’re you good at?”

         He spoke in a tremulous voice. “Uh, I’m really smart… he he… and I hate humans…”

         “Not much. But frankly, we don’t have anyone else. You’re in.”

         “Woo-hoo!” he shouted. His name was Alberto. Alberto was as smart as a whip. He did college level calculus when he was 2. That should say enough.

         “So,” Bubba started. “To fully get the experience of a human-destroying team, we need to bond as dolphins. SO! Tell us about yourselves!”

         “God. I hate this.” Click mumbled.

         “You- the.. er…” Bubba said warily.

         “Fatter one.” Ralph finished.

         “Yes, if that’s how you put it. Tell us about your life. What’s your story?”

         “Weapons are my story. The end. No more questions.” Ralph said, dismissively.

         “…..okay! You. The other one.”

         “Alberto’s the name. Being smart is my game.”

         “Nice!” Bubba responded. “So. Your life story. Spill the beans, Bush’s baked.”        

         Alberto started to delve into his life story. Ralph and Click started a conversation about how boring and dull this all was. Bubba sat in a chair, looking quite interested in this all. It could have been that he was just being nice, or that he was genuinely interested. It was sad that it could have been either and we wouldn’t know.

         Two and a half hours later, after Alberto had finished his entire life story in great detail, and Bubba was still interested- clearly visible, because he had tears on his face. Alberto’s story wasn’t even tragic. It was dull and monotonous. Bubba still found a reason to cry.

         “Alberto… sniff… that was the best story I have ever heard. It’s… it’s so moving!”

         “I know, right?” Alberto said coolly. “It wows most people.”

         “It did more than ‘wow’ me, Alberto… god.” Bubba was clearly moved by Alberto’s story. The only thing interesting in it was that his great-aunt’s fifth cousin, thrice removed, died. That was it. Yet Bubba was wiping his nose, his face was caked with running tears, and he was out of breath from crying.

         Typical Bubba.

         “God, that was an atrocity.” Click was easily, and obviously, bored by Alberto’s life story and wanted to move along. “Let’s move on to something that won’t put Ralph to sleep.”

         Click motioned to Ralph, sleeping in one of the chairs. “RALPH!” He shouted.

         He awoke with a start. “Guh-ah-w-what?”

         “We’re changing the topic. No one wants to hear anyone’s life story. I’ve never told anyone mine, because no one needs to hear it. Even Bubba doesn’t know.”

         “True. For all I know, he could be a HUMAN… in disguise…” Bubba suspiciously swims over to Click. “Hmmmm…. Maybe you’re not even named CLICK…” Bubba turns around so his back is to him. Then, dramatically, he turns around and says, “Maybe you’re… JAMES BOND!”

         Click stares at him in disgust. “Oh. No James Bond here, people.” Bubba lets out a sigh of relief.

         Ralph then starts a new conversation. “Okay. So. Now that we’ve assembled, what will be our first action? I suggest we start shooting humans.” He takes out a large gun from seemingly nowhere.

         “WHOA! WHOA! Put the gun DOWN!” Click says. Alberto rushes under a chair. Bubba just keeps swimming giddily.

         “No guns? Okay. Your loss, though. Humans are really scared of being shot.” Ralph replies, slightly angered.

         “Let’s not start off our crusade with murder. How about we… er…. Um…” Click starts.

         “Well,” Bubba says, “Let’s start with the fact that we’re only four people, mhm, and that four people cannot singlehandedly take out the human race, right? So, I suggest, that we gain support.”

         “Yeah, sure, but how?” Click replies.

         Then, they started to think. Just some of the brilliant ideas from the brainstorm.

 

-“Shoot people until they agree with us.”- Ralph

-“Strategically take over all Dolphinian cities.”-Click

-“Gain the support of local politicians.”-Bubba

-“Merch?”-Alberto

 

         The list went on and on, until Bubba finally came up with this idea.

         “OOOOOOH! OOOH!” Bubba exclaimed more happily than is usual. “I! Have! The! Best! Idea! EVER!”

         “Spill the beans, happy boy.” Said Alberto.

         “Okay. Everyone watches TV, right? Right. So, we film a COMMERCIAL that will air during primetime! So, then, everyone will be able to see us, and we’ll get tons and tons of support!”

         “It’s our best option. Every other one stinks.” Said Ralph.

         “Alright. Everyone who supports the idea, say I.”

         “I.” Replied everyone.

         “YAY! I have so many ideas! This is going to be fantastic!”

         “Everyone meet back here in two days at 4:00 PM, alright?”

         “Yeah, sure.” Said Alberto and Ralph.