Encantado

         My friend died from pink poisoning two nights ago, like a cherry blossom lilting off into the wind. When I heard that she had died, something in my chest thudded like a couple of ruby red grapefruits onto a wooden table. Tears crept to the corners of my eyes, a surprising string of wet drops stained my face. Wiping my nose, I tucked away the last letter she had written me, laughing slightly. I really enjoyed her and her ways, even if they were a little too rose-colored for me.
         No one knows how it happened exactly, except that it was an over-exposure to her favorite color: pink. She had consumed every item of this pigment with never a hive nor rashing, only the occasional upset stomach. Her diet consisted of those messy foods: Toaster Treats and taffies and heart-shaped cookies and ham--all because of the color. Fruitened lemonades and pickled eggs and Tums (only the pink ones), when her body reacted in the way it's supposed to react to pink food. Some say that she was perfectly healthy before she left the country, that she spent her last night at home making flowered luggage tags with a pair of tiny pink sewing scissors.
         How sad, she would never see another Valentine's Day.
         Four nights ago she left for the big lights big city of São Paulo, Brazil. That's where it happened. She had been reading about these pink dolphins that inhabit the Amazon. They are called Boto dolphins, or Encantado in Portuguese. My friend had a love of animals, and could not resist the opportunity to observe the illustrious Encantado for herself. She stuffed her belongings into a bulging vinyl Barbie bag. "The only pink suitcase to be had!"

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         She had never been to the ocean before and when that blushing sun set over those cold cold waves the water gleamed a river rose, and she walked right in. Moving her feet into the sea, she felt warm bath water overtake her. The lungs plumbed with briny juice, her capillaries must have burst like soggy strawberries. Those waves left her skin blued and distended, her belly was soft as chalk.
         Supposedly her body was found with only one alteration: the inside of her mouth. It looked like pitted cherries, as rubies had grown in where teeth should be. "It's strange what time will do to the deceased," I thought, observing the bands of seaweed that had wrapped themselves around her midsection.
         A few days after my friend's death, her mother summoned me to come and collect her things. I entered the parlor, greeted by swarms of sadly arranged gray chrysanthemums. I passed through the kitchen with its pantries full of now inedible pink food, and made my way into her bedroom. There on the floor were piles of felt hearts and long-armed sweaters; tubes of paint in red and white. She had enough to equip a joyous army, to suspend time in a single color and feeling. Staring at her brightly hued effects, I began to doubt that an overdose of rose had taken the life of my friend.
         After her funeral I decided to read more about these famed pink dolphins, the Encantado. Their neck vertebrae, detached, allow their heads a greater range of motion than that of the bottle-nosed dolphins found in Florida. With small, dark eyes peering out over large cheeks, they see surprisingly well. These creatures become quite tame around humans, and are central in many legends in the Amazonian Rainforest. One myth details these mammals as shape shifters, and according to the native people a transformation begins at sunset. As the sky pinkens with darkness, the Encantado strikes. Giving up pink flippers and fins for pink fingers and feet, the dolphin becomes a handsome young man who seduces wistful lady swimmers. All along I had thought, "Perhaps she had fallen in love and forgotten how to swim."

by mindy roth