“What’s your name?” said the substitute teacher after class to Ellen.
“I don’t know,” Ellen said.
The teacher laughed. She didn’t stop. It seemed like she didn’t stop. Ellen walked out of the classroom. In her next class she drew a picture of a Native American leading an army of turkeys to the White House. The turkeys looked like cupcakes. She drew arrows at the turkeys and wrote, “Turkeys.” After class, a girl wearing a shirt that said “Mineral” approached her. “Hey,” she said. “I like what you drew.” Ellen blushed. “Did you tell that substitute you didn’t know what your name was? That’s good.” Ellen didn’t know what to say. She never knew what to say. “I hate school,” she said. A group of kids walked by and the girl with the “Mineral” shirt went with them. Ellen sat through three more classes. After school she wanted to smash things. She walked home, across a field and a street. At home she sat on her bed. Sometimes she sat thinking, “Ellen … Ellen … Ellen … Ellen … Ellen …” and she did that now. She thought about dying. After a while she lay down. She felt hungry. She stood and a dolphin was there.
The dolphin quietly went, “Eeeee eee eeee.”
“Do you want to play with me?” the dolphin said.
Ellen looked at her feet. “Okay,” she said.
The dolphin held Ellen’s hand.
They went in the backyard and the dolphin opened a trapdoor.
They climbed down a ladder.
Halfway down a bear was coming up.
“Use teleport,” the dolphin said.
“I don’t have it,” the bear said.
“Why not?”
“I just don’t,” the bear said.
“Are you sure?”
“Oh yeah. Wait. I forgot that I had the ability to teleport,” the bear said.
“A sarcastic bear,” the dolphin said.
“A bear. A sarcastic bear. A bear, a dolphin,” the bear said. “A stupid bear. A fucking moose.”
“We have two people so you go down,” the dolphin said.
“Fine,” the bear said. “Life is stupid anyway.”
The dolphin and Ellen and the bear went down the ladder.
There was a corridor.
“Thank you,” the dolphin said to Ellen.
The dolphin hugged Ellen.
“I like you,” the dolphin said.
The dolphin looked at Ellen.
The bear scratched the wall a little.
“Thank you for coming, Ellen,” the dolphin said.
Ellen looked at her feet.
She had plastic sandals.
The sandals were green and blue.
The bear made a quiet high-pitched noise.
Ellen made eye contact with the bear.
“Do you want to come?” Ellen said to the bear.
The bear scratched the wall and looked at the dolphin.
“No,” the bear said. “I wouldn’t have fun anyway. I can’t have fun in groups of three.”
The bear knelt and opened a trapdoor and tried to crawl in but didn’t fit.
The bear stood.
“I don’t need to go there,” the bear said.
The bear had a blanket and it folded it neatly.
“I don’t know,” the bear said. “I’ll go work on my novel I guess.”
The bear went up the ladder.
The dolphin and Ellen walked to a cliff.
The dolphin knelt and opened a trapdoor.
They crawled through a tunnel.
There was a room.
It had a bed, a refrigerator, a Christmas tree.
The Christmas tree had blinking lights.
“Are you hungry?” the dolphin said.
The dolphin gave Ellen a muffin on a plate.
“A little,” Ellen said.
The dolphin watched Ellen eat the muffin.
“Thank you,” Ellen said.
“Do you want cake?” the dolphin said.
“I don’t know,” Ellen said.
The air conditioner went off.
The room was very quiet.
The Christmas lights blinked.
The refrigerator was very quiet.
“Do you want to come over again?” the dolphin said.
“Okay.”
The dolphin held Ellen’s hand and they went to Ellen’s room.
“I had a lot of fun,” the dolphin said.
Ellen hugged the dolphin.
The dolphin cried.
The dolphin very quietly went, “Eeeee eee eeee.”
“You are nice,” Ellen said.
“Did you like the muffin?” the dolphin said.
“Yes,” Ellen said.
The dolphin looked at Ellen.
Ellen sat on her bed and looked at her hands.
Ellen looked at her sandals.
The dolphin looked at Ellen’s sandals.
“Do you want to do something else?” the dolphin said.
“Okay.”
The dolphin held Ellen’s hand.
They went through the trapdoor and the corridor down a ladder into an elevator.
The elevator had mirrors.
Ellen looked at herself and the dolphin.
The dolphin was smoother.
The dolphin put a blindfold on Ellen.
They walked across a rope bridge and Ellen heard hamster noises.
The dolphin took the blindfold off Ellen.
They crawled through a tunnel.
There was a playground.
Ellen walked into the playground and felt very quiet.
She felt very calm.
The dolphin went down the slide.
Ellen climbed onto the slide and went down the slide.
The dolphin went, “EEEEE EEE EEEE.”
Ellen went to the swings.
The dolphin and Ellen did the swings.
“EEEEE EEE EEEE,” went the dolphin.
Ellen looked at the dolphin’s face.
The dolphin’s face looked handsome.
Ellen looked at the dolphin going, “EEEEE EEE EEEE.”
Dolphins felt top-heavy, that year, most of the time, and wanted to lie down. When their heads weren’t on top they still felt top-heavy, but metaphysically. In public places they felt sad. They went into restrooms, hugged themselves, and quietly went, “Eeeee eee eeee.” Weekends they went to playgrounds alone. They sat in the top of slides — the enclosed part, where it glowed a little because of the colored plastic — and felt very alert and awake but also very sad and immature. Sometimes they fell asleep and a boy’s mother would prod the dolphin with a broom and the dolphin would go down the slide while still asleep. At the bottom they would feel ashamed and go home and lie in bed. They felt so sad that they believed a little that it was their year to be sad, which made them feel better in a devastated, hollowed-out way. Life was too sad and it was beautiful to really feel it for once; to be allowed to feel it, for one year. When dolphins had these thoughts, usually on weekends at night, it was like dreaming, like a pink flower in a soft breeze on a field was lightly dreaming them. The sadness was like a pink forest that got less dense as you went in and then changed into a field, which the dolphins walked into alone. Sometimes the sadness was like a knife against the face. It made the dolphins cry and not want to move. But sometimes a young dolphin would feel very lonely and ugly and it was beautiful how alone it felt, and it would become restless with how perfect and elegant its sadness was and go away for a long time and then return and sit in its room and feel very alone and beautiful.
Sometimes when dolphins went to playgrounds alone they did the monkeybars and went to the swings and on the swings thought, “I hate this stupid world.”
They thought, “I hate it.”
They cried a little with the wind against their face.
They felt so bad that they went away.
And found Elijah Wood and told Elijah Wood to go with them and Elijah Wood went — because he thought it was a movie. Elijah Wood and other celebrities like Salman Rushdie rode dolphins in rivers. Salman Rushdie felt proud and famous. And the dolphins swam to islands and beat Elijah Wood and the other famous people with heavy branches. They cried when they murdered human beings, and it was terrible.