Dolphinarium

She hated this particular job. In her mind she called them shows. Because of the surveillance and the detailed summaries (recap? synopsis?) she had to write. Why she had to be on the set of the show didn't make sense. It could all be done remotely. She could be in a cubicle with monitors and headset watching the show from the comfort of the good and righteous USA. But they had her on set. Like always. 

In the downtime between, let's call them productions, she liked to do home improvement projects. The most recent was replacing flooring. Something about cutting and setting the tiles in her master bathroom had been so pleasurable. The sounds and sensations of the tile saw, the mixing and scraping of the grout. The smells. Like a puzzle with higher stakes. The smooth cool porcelain like small cobblestones in a little fiefdom of her en suite. She was proud of the job she'd done. She loved walking on the tile in her bare feet. She loved the symmetry of the grout lines she achieved. She enjoyed daydreaming of doing it for a living and being perfectly content with it.

She'd been watching this show, on set, for 41 days. She had no instructions but to watch and write detailed reports. The show was about a man, perhaps 26 or possibly 36, in that inscrutable way swarthy people in this part of the world tended to be, who apparently had nothing better to do than sleep, argue on the phone with his family, go to an aquarium (they called it a "dolphinarium," on the advertisements and signage) and order a different escort each night. 

Even the sex he had with the escorts was boring. They would fellate him and he'd mutter some aggressive words before fucking them on all fours on the red oriental carpet in his room. He never got the same girl but they were always asian and either overtly or vaguely underage looking. They'd be sent away immediately and he'd sleep without showering or anything. Whatever. It certainly wasn't the worst show she'd had to watch. It was probably one of the most boring, in matter of fact. She found it interesting he never ordered champagne or room service for them. That was different from most shows.

When he wasn't bitching on the phone to his family about how they mistreated him, or sleeping until 11, he was at an aquatic animal park. Basically a sea world but much sadder, if you can imagine that. There were no orcas but there were dolphins, a lone beluga, seals and walruses. Penguins. Weirdly they also had two old and lethargic tigers. 

The man loved that place. He'd clap and point and marvel like a child at the animal's routines, which were alway the same. Every afternoon he'd go. Except Mondays when the place was closed. On Mondays his whiny telephone calls reached a nauseating pitch of self pity. She wished she didn't understand the conversations, that's how annoying the calls were. The man always spoke in mostly French to his family. The family were definitely Georgian, and obviously spoke Russian and Georgian but they always spoke French to each other. The family had settled in France, raised and educated the children there, while operating a business in both Georgia and Azerbaijan. Mining or oil or something. That wasn't really relevant to her job on set. She just had to write the synopsis. Highlighting any noteworthy changes, any new characters or plot lines. 

She hated the dolphinarium the most. The camera doesn't lie. Sometimes after hours she'd watch the feed and see the beluga swimming around and around nowhere to go but their small tank. The only diversion its own reflection. No enrichment. No mate. Every day the same. If she were that beluga she'd find a way to die. She'd refuse food. She'd become violent so they'd euthanize her. She wondered if the beluga had come to enjoy her work. Putting on shows. It must have. At least when people were watching it wasn't alone, swimming round and round. 

Back to the star of the show again. He had greasy black hair he gelled forward almost in a caesar style. It seemed like a very dated style but it was the same style as the father and male siblings as well. He had a patchy black beard and shifty eyes. He was wiry and neither short nor tall. On this particular day it was Tuesday and the dolphinarium opens at 1100. The man was still asleep. She zoomed the bedroom feed. He was on his stomach. She looked for the rise and fall of his chest. Nothing. She kept watching for movement as she opened a chat window on her laptop. A wave of giddiness at the prospect of home for a couple of months slammed into her. She giggled. He was definitely deceased. She just knew it. Good. A vision of herself rising out of the Black Sea, a hundred feet tall and striding stone faced and determined towards the dolphinarium filled her mind. She smiled. She was going to get a big iced coffee and a poppyseed pastry on the way to the train station.

That never happened. Instead they kept her on set to watch one brother arrive. He was much worse. Then the father arrived on Episode 67. Each day is a new episode of the show. After several weeks of watching the father's show they pulled her from set and sent her home, first via rail to Sochi, and then she flew from Sochi to Frankfurt, then on home. 

Home never felt like home for at least a few days, usually weeks. Her mom or aunt would always stay at her house while she was on set. And so everything was different. Things were moved around, towels were folded differently. The patio furniture rearranged. The scent of her mother's signature frangrance always lingered. guerlain apres l'ondee. A wistful and sad scent. Saudade in a bottle. 

 It took a while to settle back into her own rhythms. 

On set she always slept easily. Like a machine. She would lay back onto the bed and close her eyes and tell herself it was time to sleep, and so she would. At home it was a little different, her mind would race about home improvement projects. Paint colors. Appliances. Window treatments. Like a child on Christmas eve, dreaming of their gifts. She'd kick her feet beneath her cool celadon green cotton sheets and imagine the lumber and paint smell of the big box hardware store. 

After this show she lay in her bed seeing the beluga swimming in circles. Going nowhere. She imagined herself rising out of the Black Sea, an avenging deity, to destroy the Batumi Georgia Aquarium and Dolphinarium.