"My best friend is a dolphin and sometimes it’s weird."

November 24, 2021 7:18 AM

"In your first conversations with them, you’ll probably want to refer to all you’ve learned in the past year’s intensive study of dolphin history, culture, and ritual. Maybe you want to put them at ease, or maybe you kind of want to show off. I’m telling you not to do that, because you know nothing." The science fiction short story "Share Your Flavor" by Jenifer K. Leigh has a fun friendship between a human and a dolphin who commiserate about their relationship issues.

From "Share Your Flavor":

Kwix’ut turned to see a male dolphin swimming up to her in what even Vanessa could recognize as a mating stance. Kwix’ut’s disinterest was very clear, even though the combination of quick speech and dolphin slang overwhelmed the translation device on the communicator affixed to her jaw. The male dolphin didn’t take her seriously at first, but she slapped her tail hard against him, and he backed away.

“Thanks for the warning,” Kwix’ut said, and then made her little trilling noise of disgust. “Hey, I think it would be a fair exchange, since we helped you humans fix that climate mess, that you help us dolphins get over all this terrible mating nonsense.”

“It took us hundreds of years!” Vanessa said. “And a lot of work. And we don’t want to step on any toes, you know? Your culture is your culture.”

posted by brainwane (6 comments total)

Fun read!

It would be nice to have another species save the planet for us. Childish thought, I know. But that’s what we are, children. We came to the party and broke all the toys, and now we half expect someone else to fix it all.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 8:03 AM on November 24, 2021 [2 favorites]

That was a nice little story. Thank you.
posted by blob at 8:05 AM on November 24, 2021 [1 favorite]

Awwww, that was so sweet! I'm glad she found a male dolphin that doesn't really want to charge at her! (Straight females will also understand.)
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:29 PM on November 24, 2021 [1 favorite]

That was such a fun happy story, a glimpse of something wonderful.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 4:29 PM on November 24, 2021 [1 favorite]

That's nice! Love it!
posted by bbmic109823 at 3:16 AM on November 25, 2021 [1 favorite]

Nice. I like a story that is short but still gives me a lot to think about. In my personal measure, that's what art is for.
posted by AlSweigart at 7:42 AM on November 25, 2021 [1 favorite]