An Interwoven Dream

The creature had a rhinoceros’s memory and a fish’s body. On land, the white horse called him too watery; beneath the surface, the shoals called him too heavy. So he lived exactly between sea and sky, translating each world while belonging to neither.

One day the woman in the small boat asked, ‘Which half is the real you?’ He prepared the usual apology. Then a storm overturned the boat. His horn broke the waves while his fins carried them to shore—neither half could have done it alone.

The horse lowered its head; the fish gathered below. ‘I’m not made of halves,’ the creature said. ‘I’m the crossing.’ From then on, travellers sought him not despite his mixed nature, but because only he knew both currents.