“Lavonda’s Porpoise” by Angelique Fawns
Second Place Winner of our Winter 2024 Flash Fiction Contest
A cool breeze from the mountain overlooking the ocean bay goose-pimples my sun-virgin skin. As a two-hundred-pound woman over the age of sixty, I’d normally never be caught dead in a bikini. I suck in my gut, feeling like a corpulent whale lined up next to four sleek dolphins—all younger than me, but obviously just as desperate for cash as I am.
You see, on this dark web reality show, you can die. Snuff TV. My bowels loosen as I remind myself why I took the risk. Maybe it was the $500,000 prize money. Maybe it was the chance to finally see someplace other than downtown Detroit. No matter how great the odds I may not survive, I’ll do whatever it takes to help send my grandkid, Ty, to college.
The two muscular men and two uber-fit women are stretching and shaking their limbs in preparation. I stand still, no point in flaring up my arthritis earlier than necessary, and stare at the blue, callous ocean.
A real dolphin jumps out of the frothy waves. Her sleek snout opens and she’s laughing at me. Who can blame her? Viewers can place bets, and I’m the long shot. The other competitors look like even money racehorses in their neon bathing suits. The show logo, “Ultimate Survivor” is stitched on all our butts. In glowing sequins.
They didn’t tell us much on the producer’s private jet. The others were all too busy guzzling champagne and mugging for publicity photos. I was envisioning Ty walking through the gates of Harvard II.
One of the camera crew pulls out a trumpet and blasts a few notes. Just like the Kentucky Derby. The show host plasters a grin on his face. He’s a vintage Ken doll. Flowered button shirt, baggy shorts, and shellacked flawless hair.
He addresses a drone carrying a camera. “Welcome to the premiere of Ultimate Survivor! Those who don’t make the boat will be left to float. The first back to shore wins!”
Sweat trickles down my brow. What does he mean “left to float?”
I raise my hand, “Can I bow out—”
The trumpet blasts again, and the other four contestants charge into the water. Sand kicked up from their heels momentarily blinds me.
Ken gives my back a little shove. “The camera’s rolling.” He nods to a sharpshooter on the mountain.
I’m not being shot and left to die on the beach like an old crab. No matter how crabby I am.
With a lurch, I splash into the sea. The boat bobs about a mile out. It’s tiny. Sucking in great gulps of air, my thick arms cut through the waves like a cheese slicer. Though the other castaways are a lot younger, I can swim like that jocular dolphin. I taught my own three kids and Ty to do laps at the local pool.
Mitch, “the Mensa Encyclopedia Salesman” from Michigan, is the first one I overtake. He’s gasping like a patient at the old folks I worked at. Before they forced me to retire.
A crack on my nose causes me to swallow salty water. That asinine surfer boy from Florida kicked me! Chad “I’m currently unemployed” is slowing down. Too much time vaping, no doubt. I saw him having a quick puff in the change tent.
Shaking off the blinding pain, I overtake Ana, the Mexican beauty queen. She’s fighting to keep her head above water and shivering from the cold. I consider helping her, but she screws up her pretty face and spits, “Back off, Granny.”
My arms shake from exhaustion, but no one calls me Granny except Ty! I kick with renewed vigor and the boat is almost within reach. I see Amelie, the little Canadian ski instructor, clamber into the boat.
With a shuddering breath, I sling my arm over the edge and Amelie grabs my wrist and hauls me up. She looks like a drowned kitten, the short fuzz of her blonde hair slicked to her elfin head. If her skin was darker, she’d be the spitting image of my firstborn daughter. The one I lost to that damned meth—
My arm slips and the whole boat tilts. Amelie doesn’t weigh much, but the dingy is light and threatens to flip on us.
“Hold on, Lavonda!” Amelie leans further over the edge.
Water is pouring into the boat as the lip dips beneath the surface, so I slap her hand. “Get into the middle!”
She falls backward, and the boat oscillates. Before it can steady itself, Chad throws his tattooed arms onto the port side, and we are going to capsize for sure.
Amelie screams, so I dive and swim to the starboard side. Plunging out of the water like that dolphin, I steady the vessel as Chad flops into the boat, gasping like an asthmatic. I kick one of my shaking legs over the edge and somehow make it in. I land on a pile of moldy lifejackets.
The interior is crowded with three bodies. Dragging myself to my knees, I see Mitch dog paddling, his face red, and Ana barely treading water. The mama-bear in me needs to save them. Game show be damned.
“Chad and Amelie, you two go to the other side for balance, I’m going to reach for—”
Before I can finish my order, the boat’s engine roars, remotely controlled by Ken on the beach. My legs give way and fall, the hard edge of the bench bruising my back.
Chad and Amelie tumble off the side, splashing into the water.
I see the drone hover in front of my face as I sit up on the bench. My trembling hands grab the lifejackets and toss them at my competitors. No blood on my hands.
Confetti spews from the belly of the drone.
Somehow I won.
I throw back my head and laugh like the dolphin, leaping in the waves beside me.
That grandkid of mine is going to college.
About the Author
Angelique Fawns is an Acadian speculative fiction writer. Her very first sale was to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. You can find her work in DreamForge, AMAZING, The School Magazine, and two Third Flatiron anthologies. For more information you can visit her website at www.fawns.ca.
The Fantastic Other 