Blue

• Maya Bayfield, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2022

Blue, blue, blue. Everything around me is blue, from the teal blue ocean that meets the arctic blue sky, the colour I dread most. Even inside I feel blue. "ARGHHH!" I scream, as a slimy thing passes my foot, it swims towards the surface and the sun catches the maya blue of its fin, a shark fin. I close my eyes, 'this is it', I tell myself. This is where I die.
However, after a few moments nothing happens, I slowly open my eyes and gasp as I see a face inches from mine, yet not a shark face. It grins. “Hello,” I whisper. “What’s your name?” The dolphin gives me a confused look. “Hmm, Dale?” I suggest. He flips his tail in disgust. I suggest more but he refuses. “You are impossible! You Hinto dolphin,” I roll my eyes. But the dolphin starts leaping in and out of the water. “Hinto, huh?” My mum had taught me that Hinto was to describe beautiful blue eyes or ‘blue-haired.’ He seems to like it, even though just the mention of that colour pained me.
Hinto looks at me with a puzzled expression, almost as if he was asking; ‘How’d you get here?’
All I remember was running out of the hospital, where my mother died, with rage and depression because of the awful blue disease that had killed her, even though the colour was her life, then I ended up here.
‘Splash!’ He flips his tail and dives into the water. After a few minutes the dolphin flips in the air and drops a bunch of things from his mouth into my hand. “Huh?” I look at what he has discovered. Each thing is like a solid memory of me and my mum. An electric blue shell, like the one when we went scuba diving, cerulean blue seaweed which was home to a family of fish we saw. I then carefully picked up the last sea-find. “A Comet Sea Star,” I whisper. Suddenly a flashback enters my mind, one I didn’t even know I remembered.

“Darling Bleu, this is a Comet Sea Star, do you know why it is so special?”
“No, mummy, why?” I ask in wonderment. It was a beautiful sapphire blue species, my favourite shade of blue.
“Because it is rare and special, and goes on its own adventures, foraging for food... Listen, Bleu, I have named you this colour because it means the world to me, and I need it to mean the same to you. No matter what happens, this wondrous colour will always be a way of happiness in life and a connection for us. So hold onto it…”

As the memory fades and Hinto looks at me with a shy grin, the blueness in my stomach starts to fade, from a miserable gray-blue space to a wondrous sapphire blue presence of happiness and hope. “Thank you Hinto.” I grin at my blue surroundings, and know everything is going to be alright. “Thanks mum, thanks Blue.”