Perfect Moment

That’s what it was:

Surreal.

I skipped down the rough cobblestoned path. I was warm; the weather was often nice in the later months of the year in Florida. Feeding time was over and I begged my aunt for a coin. A quarter, to be exact.

Because it was slanted and steep, I was running down the trail, almost hitting several poles on my way down. Actually, now that I think about it, I collided with one of them. I was in such a rush, however, I didn’t notice my own pain. I was excited! But I was doubtful.

My plan, my technique, was one that I had learned from my mother. My eccentric mother used the same technique, though never had it worked so perfectly before.

I pressed my nose against the scratched glass, which wasn’t the best idea. Strangers stood around me, half of them speaking a different language, and I knew they were from another country. Those people all probably breathed on my same glass. Oh, gross. At that point, we were getting no attention. They ignored us completely, unaware we were even alive.

This was why I was doubtful. They did it often; they didn’t care; they were hungry; they thought it was feeding time; they were playing. I was not surprised. I could already imagine the alien’s thoughts: “I came all the way here, for this! Ridiculous! Outrageous!” I felt the same.

My cheeks were flushed; I was still warm against the chilly glass. People were leaving, and a toddler ran in front of me several times, stepping on my feet. I was annoyed, not for her stepping on me and ignoring me completely, but because she separated me from the glass.

A few humans watched with bored gazes. They were still ignoring us! How rude! Some foreigners had cameras, studying them intently, but were just as jaded. Nothing was going on.

I tapped my quarter on the glass, and rubbed it in a circle a few times. I glanced around; no one had noticed me, no one could tell what I was doing. They were busy wandering: “We should leave. Let’s catch a show. One should start soon.” If those were my aunt’s words aloud, I would have agreed, and left, never to be known being there. They ignored us. They were being rude.

I sighed. I had stood there, a million times before with the same result. Why was I there?!

And then, one of them turned. I tried to catch their eye; it was my only chance!

I rubbed the quarter in a wider circle, still going unnoticed by the tourists. The strangers couldn’t see the quarter; it was hidden by my two fingers.

Alas, I didn’t catch them! They still ignored me, they still went on with their business. I huffed against the glass, leaving my own germs for the next fools that bothered watching this, waiting for this!

Though thoroughly irritated, I remained, while all the foreigners to my right shuffled away. They were smarter than I was.

I peered over my shoulder at my aunt. She was taking pictures of my tiny cousin, Lahna. When she caught me looking at her, she gave me eyes that said: “Forget about it. Why are you keeping us here?”

But I was stubborn. Stubborn like my eccentric mother whose grand idea this was. She was the only reason I was there, even when she wasn’t. It was her fault. Her genes. Her magic.

I pressed my face to glass once more. I probably looked like a pig from the other side.

And then it happened. The surreal moment. Almost as if they had decided: “Well, you’ve stayed long enough. I guess we’ll come around.”

They turned their head at the perfect angle, and I got them. For the first time in my life, I had caught the attention of a playful bottlenose dolphin.

And let me tell you, I lit up like the Sun had just exploded. I probably blinded a few people in the process too. But it had worked! My stubborn, eccentric, and brilliant mother’s technique had worked!

I drew wide circles with my quarter and the doll came swimming towards me. I wanted to see where I could take him, if I could lead him, so I started skipping backwards to my right, thankful that those tourists had left. I kept the quarter pressed to the glass as I moved right; my aunt gasped in joy when he followed.

My jaw had dropped to the core of the Earth. It was impossible!

Of course, due to my pitiful luck (which was none at all), I hit the wall and dropped my quarter. The doll went zooming off like dolphin Superman underwater. He joined the others while I was left with my impressed aunt.

All I could think to myself was, “It was a fluke. He was probably just swimming that way by coincidence.”

I mean, really? Was it that possible for some stupid dolphin to follow a little coin? No, it certainly was not (not to me, anyways).

Some new people had arrived, lured into the trap of boredom and monotony. Stupid dolphins with their stupid smiles! Who did they think they were, to just forget that we want to take pictures and ‘ooh’ and ‘aww’ at them!

It was especially embarrassing when I dropped my quarter for the twentieth time and it actually fell down the drain. Perfect. I had to take Lahna’s quarter, and I wasn’t sure why or how, but that quarter brought me better luck than the first.

I immediately caught another doll’s attention by drawing circles and this time I skipped backwards to the left and the dolphin followed carefully. Abruptly, I stopped and skipped backwards to the right.

And the dolphin followed again.

I teased it until it drifted away, possibly to tell it’s friends, possibly because it was pissed off that I wouldn’t stand still. Either way, I was satisfied. I could have left the underwater view formerly known as Boring As Hell, but I wanted to experiment more. I wanted to practice my new found superpower more. That last time had been no coincidence!

I was proud of myself, as well. I had possibly, single-handedly saved tourists from a terrible trip. Though that seemed a little too prideful to admit.

Another one swam by and with my mighty circles, I drew them in, and as a test, I stopped. I didn’t move back and forth on the glass, I just stayed in one spot. And the doll stayed too.

I jumped with joy and amazement. I could hear people gasping while I did myself. I kept the doll there, until I moved down. And it moved down. I moved up. It moved up. I kept them at eye level for a while. That was the first time that I had ever looked a dolphin straight in the eye. They were large, round, and brown. You could see their emotions in their eyes. They were beautiful. You could see them thinking, pondering: “What is that? Who is that?”

The doll captured my heart when they blew a ring bubble. A ring bubble! In the shape of a heart! Okay, it wasn’t in the shape of a heart, but I could still hear the words it whispered. “I love you.”

I love you. Words interpreted by a ridiculous teenage girl with an eccentric mom who taught her how to do this. “I love you, too,” I whispered and pressed my face against the cool glass. My skin was now cold, but my cheeks were still flushed.

And they spoke to me! Oh, if only ‘Eeek-eeek-eek’ was more attractive than it wasn’t. My heart, my stomach, everything was fluttering. I secretly wanted to break out in to song and dance, in front of all those strangers, all those dolphins. It was undeniably one of the greatest moments of my life.

But moments pass, and when they do, they become memories. This moment was so great, however, that I had to go back again before the day was done, to wave to them with my secret weapon: a quarter.

I was able to do it several times, with different dolphins or the same one every time, I’m not sure. Yet, many times I got the same result. Eye contact, ring bubbles, ‘Eeeks’.

Those moments, those minutes in time.

I wouldn’t believe you if you told me that a moment as perfect as this occurred in the past millennia.

I wouldn’t believe you because it wouldn’t be true.