seal & baby

It was either early evening or early morning—I am not sure which. The light was dim, the sky streaked with dusky pinks and blues, and the moon was shining softly. There was a vast lake or a sea, the water very still and quite shallow but dark. Though it wasn’t murky, I couldn’t see through the water to what might be swimming below. It was time to wade out to where I had earlier set some kind of fishing trap to see what I had caught. Some other people, mostly men, were also wading out to their fishing baskets. The men were wearing long wading boots to protect their legs from unforeseen dangers. I was concerned as, although I was wearing boots, they were not wading boots and only came up to just above my ankles. I was aware of my skin on my legs gleaming white in the moonlight as I cautiously waded into the cool water. It was very quiet. Further out I spied a large seal watching me. The seal slipped under the water and swam toward me. I hurried back out of the water away from the seal but the seal pursued me onto the sandy shore. He (or she, I am not certain) opened his mouth and closed it gently around my arm. His teeth were strong but he did not bite me; it was as though he was showing me that I could trust him. He wanted me to go back in the water. I scratched his back and belly like I would a dog, and he seemed to like it. He moved around and closed his mouth around my other arm, still careful not to hurt me. I began to relax.

I woke and when I went back to sleep a while later…

There was a knock at the door. A woman and I answered the door. I was a small child but I was thinking as an adult. I felt like I was both the woman and the child. A seal was at the door holding a beautiful baby in its black shiny flippers. The baby had dark hair and eyes and was very young—close to newborn. The baby spoke to the woman saying “Will you hold me now? Are you ready to love me?” I could sense the baby’s urgency to be in the arms of a mother who was warm and dry, rather than cold and wet. The woman took the baby from the seal and said that she would love this baby the most, that this baby would come first above her children. I understood that the baby had been in the pool downstairs, waiting, for at least nine months, and that somehow I hadn’t acted soon enough, that I should have gone down to the pool and into the water long ago to bring the baby home. I couldn’t fathom why I hadn’t and why the seal had had to leave the water and make its way up flights of stairs to bring the baby to us.