Under the harsh color of the tarp rows of dolphin lay beached in the shallow water, rivers of scarlet following from their slit throats. Other dolphins’ bowels where strewn across the waters, some dolphins were still living and writhing wildly like the body of a decapitated snake. The dolphins were shrieking as four men in wading boots and yellow water repellant jackets sloshed around in the bubbling red waters navigating among the dolphin genocide. The men laughed and made jokes while patrolling the slaughter. Some dolphins were wriggling mindlessly while they bled, and some just laid there in despair. One of the fishermen advanced toward my location where the newly captured dolphins laid quivering, defenseless. I ducked down as he took a large harpoon in his hand and let out a hearty guffaw. Then with one motion he lambasted a dolphin. I gasped and he shot a look my way. I ducked down behind the shaking dolphins and submerged myself in the crimson waters to hide from the murdering fishermen.

Then one of the merciless men said, “Montero, I heard something over there!” “Then why don’t you kill if it’s bothering you,” One replied. His cackle pierced the air. “No, I don’t mean a fish, you twit,” He replied, aggravated. “Oh god not the American again, is it?” one of the men questioned. “Well look what we have here,” said the other, his voice hardly distinguishable among the screams of the frantic dolphins. I closed my eyes; sure to be killed by the blow of one of the fishermen, as the screams of the suffering dolphins got louder and louder, but nothing came.

“Save the Japanese Dolphins!” someone protested. I opened my eyes and peered out from my hiding place of blubber and blood among the rows and rows of dolphin casualties. And there at the edge of the tarp in the shallow waters was a girl and boy, who looked about twenty years of age. They were saying things in English and screaming at the fishermen in poor Japanese. The young man was taking pictures of the devastation and the girl held a sign protesting the carnage of dolphins for meat. I read the sign again. That is impossible, I thought. But the more I thought the more I knew it wasn’t. There had been shortages on fish meat before but it has not happened for a while now. But I realized that the fishermen had no personal vendetta, they were killing the dolphins for fish meat, falsely labeled fish meat.

The girl yelled again, but this time it was in English. The fishermen approached the young activist and looked at them irritated like they were bugs that needed to be squashed. The boy taking photos of the dolphin slaughter saw me from his position, “Hey!” he shouted but his shouts were answered by harpoon, which had struck him square in the chest. Another snicker filled the air with malice, as the boy froze, expressionless, and fell over dead.

The girl screamed with the dolphins and backed away from the place where the man was slumped over in the crimson tide. The villainous fisherman waded over in his tall black boots and took the girl by the hair and slammed her into a pile of dolphin remains, red ribbons flowing from their gutted bodies. The girl contended with the hit and knelt down in the tide. Her wet blonde hair was plastered to the side of her face as she implored for mercy from the cold-blooded killer. She was answered with a slap that knocked her down once more. She yelled in agony as he brought a whaling hook down on her. She screamed and groveled away in fear begging for mercy. He struck once more. She screamed again and raised a hand for help, disfigured, and stained red. And the fishermen bought the hook down once more.

The pulp of the girl’s body washed ashore as I knelt hiding, frozen by fear. I had witnessed a murder and had to escape this watery hell where the most innocent creatures were shown no mercy. The man had taken the camera that the boy had used to snap pictures and was trying to dispose of it when I realized what I had to do. I had to make a run for it and now was my time. So I jolted up from my hiding place and ran toward the open waters, I just had to get away from the tarp. I was about at the edge of the tarp in waste high water when the men spotted my bloodstained clothes. Their yells echoed in my ears as I dove down out of their view deeper and further away trying to escape the horrors of the southwest cove and the scream of the dolphins that replayed inside my mind. My lungs tightened again and I had no choice but to go up to the surface and reveal my location.

I swum to the surface and was greeted once more by the humming of motors and the screaming of dolphins. I looked around and found myself near the warehouse, which stood idle that very morning. Dolphins were being herded in the blood red waters. Fishing boats surrounded the cluster of dolphins the red water splashing against their sides. The fishermen on the boats were armed with large weapons and paddles and were keeping the helpless dolphins at bay. The delirious dolphins were sticking their head up out of the water so their view was better of the confusion around them. I looked toward the docks where a crane had hoisted 3 dolphins by the tail so that they looked like they were dancing in a deranged manner, completely out of water. Their tales were bleeding profusely from the cuts the wires dug out that suspended them; one of the dolphins was spewing blood from a gash in its side. Then a fisherman with a grotesque smile on his face slashed a suspended dolphin’s throat bringing his wild dance to a halt. The blood ran down the dolphin’s curvaceous body and dripped off its nose and into the red water below where other dolphins thrashed about demented. To escape the cluster of anxiety where the dolphins thrashed I dived beneath the surface, where dolphin corpses limply floated around, but was blocked by a net. I understood now. They had herded the dolphins into one big trap. So they could torture, kill them, and make a profit of their meat. I swam back up and forced my way through the lid of dolphins that crowded the surface. I searched around desperately for a weakness or a way to get out of the pit where the dolphins were being tortured. Suddenly a sharp pain shot through my body. I looked down at my chest where a shiny red spoke was protruding from my chest. It glimmered red with my blood. Then my body went cold as the sharp object was pulled out of my back. I fell back into the water and started to sink slowly, the blood running from my wound. The salt filled my lungs and stung my eyes, as I sunk deeper. The stinging acute pain slowly faded as my blood mixed with that of the murdered dolphins of Taiji, and I joined the dolphin corpses in their watery grave.