A Forgetful Selkie

One night at the Hotspot Inn, Plank the selkie had been looking for his coat he had left in his hotel room. The receptionist was kind enough to give him the key.

When he unlocked room one twenty-seven, he expected his coat to be on the chair next to the end table. The bed was still unmade. The air conditioner was on even though the weather’s temperature was not hot or cold. Instead, two twenty-dollar bills and a note with a signature sat in the coat’s place.

Dear Plank,

Meet me at the hotel called Don’t Come Here in Hyannis. I know you are a selkie.

See you in the morning,

The Man in Blue

No, the man couldn’t have known. Plank’s coat was supposed to keep him sane and to protect him from visual hallucinations. Without his coat, how could he go back home to the ocean? He could swim as a seal, not as a human. How did humans swim anyway?

How could he get to Hyannis? He could try walking or cycling, but he wasn’t that athletic. Plus, a mugger could ambush him in the middle of the night. He would need shelter in a vehicle for the night, so he could reach his destination and protect himself from nasty ambushers. A plane would simply be too expensive. The train didn’t operate at night. Perhaps a bus? What kind of bus operated in the middle of the night?

The phone rang. At the same time, some asshole tried to enter but got the wrong door. Somebody numbered the doors for a reason. Ignoring the knob rumbling, Plank answered the phone.

“This is the receptionist. Someone is waiting for you outside the hotel.”

Plank responded, “I’ll be there in a bit.”

Plank took the note and the money and left the hotel room.

As Plank walked to the front desk to return the key, he couldn’t recall how he lost his coat. His memory left a convenient, nut-sized gap in the brain. Maybe the Man in Blue would remind him. That was the reason to meet him in person.

Plank placed the key on the front desk and stared at the green Peter Pan bus sitting in the street. Why would a bus come to a run-down hotel in Newburyport? This was a setup. Some driver would ambush him and take him as far away from Hyannis as possible, and he wouldn’t get to his destination in time. He wouldn’t get his coat back.

The bus door slid open. The driver wore a green golf shirt and had a beard measuring a few inches. His shorts didn’t reach his knees and showed off the flab on his legs. How was this person going to help him?

The bus driver waved. “Are you Plank?”

“Who are you?”

“The Man in Blue sent me. Get on before I’m late.”

Plank entered the bus and walked up the stairs. “You haven’t answered my question.”

“Sit and we’ll chat.” The driver pointed toward the empty seats. When Plank sat near the front seats, the bus took off. Plank prepared to say something, but the driver remained silent. Plank looked out the window and opened it. The fresh air came into the bus.

Plank didn’t know how many human butts the seats held over time, but his butt was not comfortable. After all these years, humans should have invented plush bus seats, but no, they hadn’t. Where was the bus headed anyways? He didn’t have any map, so he stared out the window.

At first, the streetlights were a normal orange hue, but then they blurred with the darkness. Soon, the lights danced in his vision, and more colors besides orange and black entered the fray.

The hallucinations were back, and without his coat, he didn’t know what to do about them. The sages back in the ocean said if he remained a seal, he wouldn’t experience hallucinations, but he had to come to the surface for some reason that he forgot.

Why did he come to the surface? Maybe he had to meet someone. Maybe he searched for love from another. But he didn’t have enough clues. He could talk to the driver.

“I’m on the highway. We can talk now if you want.” The driver had a white halo on his head.

Plank didn’t know whether that halo was real or not. “Once again, who are you?”

“I’m related to the Man in Blue. I’m his brother. Your boyfriend has been looking for you.”

The Man in Blue was Plank’s boyfriend? Since when? He must have forgotten this critical relationship while he was on land. Or maybe they met on land and planned to head to sea together. How did this driver know this?

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” Plank said.

The driver chuckled. “You do now. A friendly word of advice: don’t piss him off. Otherwise, I’ll kick you in your balls.”

Plank didn’t respond.

How strong were the driver’s legs? Plank rubbed his crotch trying to defend himself from an incoming crotch shot, even though the driver was busy. He hated getting hit in the balls.

He needed more information from the driver. How strong were the driver’s crotch shots? No, that might stop the vehicle. How did he meet the Man in Blue? That was a better question. Where did his memory go? The driver couldn’t answer that one. What did the Man in Blue and the driver know that he didn’t?

Plank was ready to ask his questions, but the bus stopped. In came three beings with wings and halos. Plank couldn’t determine whether they were humans or angels, but the wings and halos were all white, yellow, and blue as opposed to orange and black. He wanted to reach out and to touch the halos, but that would have been awkward. Instead, the white, yellow, and blue lights produced more lights, which left Plank’s eyes spinning.

Not willing to ask questions in front of others, Plank kept silent. Instead, he tried to sleep, but the lights persisted. Raindrop-shaped, multi-colored lights disturbed his sleep, but when he had his eyes open, the same ones swirled all around him on the bus.

Staring up lessened the lights, so for the rest of the trip, he locked his eyes to the ceiling. Beside a stray ping of a phone, the other passengers remained silent for the remainder of the trip.

Then, the bus stopped, but the lights didn’t. Passengers thumped their way through the middle aisle. A snapping hand appeared in front of him.

A hand touched Plank’s shoulder. “Come on. I must give this bus to the next worker. I just got out of my shift. I’ll drive you in my car.”

Plank asked, “Are you driving me directly to the hotel?”

“Yes.” The driver’s eyes turned red.

Plank didn’t know whether that redness was real or not.

The driver took Plank by his arm, and they walked to the car. The sunrise was a blur of colors, and while doctors advised not to stare at the sun, Plank couldn’t help but stare into the bright lights. By the time they reached the car, Plank craved darkness, but the visual hallucinations persisted.

At the car, the driver guided Plank into the passenger side seat and then walked away. Plank stared out the window and clouds formed. Outside rumbled. Plank darted out of the car.

The driver turned around. “What are you doing?”

Plank tackled the driver. A booming sound rang. Smoke hissed at the spot where the driver stood.

“You saved me from a lightning bolt.”

Then, the driver left for a pee break while Plank returned to the car. Why couldn’t the driver pee on the road or something? Plank had to get to the hotel as quickly as possible. Whatever this driver did took too much time, but Plank couldn’t leave the car to search. He could lose track of his surroundings too easily.

Without a pee break, Plank sat in the car and waited.

After forever, the driver came back with toilet paper stuck to his shoe. When he sat in the driver’s seat, he spotted his mistake and threw the toilet paper out the door.

A red halo surrounded the driver’s head. “It’s just us. Time to leave Boston.”

The traffic caused the car to stop and go, but once they reached the highway, the ride was smooth sailing.

Wondering about how he would sleep, Plank became comfortable. After a long rest with rainbow dots in his vision, he found himself at the right hotel.

Plank checked his possessions. He was down a twenty-dollar bill. No clue how he’d lost that twenty. He still had his note with the Man in Blue’s signature and a twenty-dollar bill.

Dotted rainbows fluttered in his vision. Plank stepped outside the car.

The outside looked like a three-story apartment with white siding, but a little hanging wooden sign in the shape of an X had the name of the hotel by the door’s side. He walked up the stairs and went inside.

The brown walls looked like they needed repainting. The sofa cushion had a spring poking out of it. The floor creaked every time he stepped. At least, the darkness didn’t produce that many hallucinations for some reason. The receptionist was on her phone and ignored the fact that someone entered the hotel.

“Hello?” Plank waved at the receptionist.

She kept looking at her phone.

“I need assistance.”

Her eyes were glued to the phone. Maybe her earbuds were the problem.

Plank slipped the note in front of the phone’s screen.

Eyes glued to the phone, she said, “I’ll call him.”

A half hour later, she hadn’t called. Instead, she played music from her phone, and the rainbow lights came back to Plank’s vision. After an hour, enough was enough.

Plank slammed his fists on the counter, but she didn’t respond. Then, he pounded on the counter constantly. The vibrations made her look up.

She said, “What?”

“Give me the Man in Blue,” he said.

“What was that?”

He pulled an earbud out her ear. “Stop listening to your phone and pay attention!”

She made the call on the landline. A few minutes later, the same driver with a changed blue golf shirt came down the stairs. While the receptionist returned to her phone, the man escorted Plank to the hotel room.

The bed didn’t matter; neither did the light coming from the window. Nobody had cleaned here for months. The handle for the minifridge was covered in who knew what. Dust covered the end tables. The bathroom reeked like the ocean and dead fish, but Plank wasn’t going into the bathroom. Two coats, one brown and one black, sat on a chair, but which belonged to which?

Plank asked, “Are you the Man in Blue?”

“Call me Alman,” he said. “I couldn’t let the note fall in the wrong hands, so I used a pretend name. You’ve forgotten a lot. Want a drink?”

The driver was the Man in Blue? How could Alman hide such an important detail from Plank? What else was Alman hiding? Plank wanted all the details that he lost.

“I’m not sure if alcohol is going to solve everything. Why are there two coats?”

“I’m a selkie, too. We had a one-night stand, but then I told you that I wanted you for longer. You said yes.”

Even though he lacked memory, he had a hunch that he didn’t say yes. What did Alman want from Plank, and why?

Plank asked, “What do you know that I don’t?”

“A lot. We met in Boston Commons holding our coats. We took a trip to Hyannis and fell in love with each other. You saved my life, twice.”

“Talk about that.”

“We were supposed to go back to the ocean where we would mate for life, but then a lightning bolt hit you on the head. I cursed the gods. Nature gave you memory loss and impaired vision, so I guided you to Newburyport.”

“I can see, but I see extra that shouldn’t be there.”

“Why don’t you put on your coat? Maybe that will help.” Alman handed the black coat to Plank.

Plank put the coat on and transformed into a seal. The random lights in his vision disappeared. They kissed. He barked and took off the coat, which turned him into a human again. Pulling out a bottle of whiskey from the fridge, Alman smiled.

Alman asked, “Don’t you want to know what whiskey tastes like?”

During their drinking, Alman caught Plank up with everything that they did. In a couple of hours, they shared and downed the whole bottle. They groaned and reclined on the bed together. They waited for the sun to go down to escape into the ocean. At midnight, they made their move. With coats in their hands, they returned the key card.

On the beach, they wore their coats and entered the water, and Plank vowed never to return to human civilization again.

Reggie Kwok dreams of dragons in his sleep when he is not summoning their powers for writing. He holds a B.A. in English and a master’s in education. He currently lives in Massachusetts, USA. His Twitter is @KwokReggie. His Bluesky is @reggiekwok.bsky.social. He had short stories published at Samjoko Magazine, Underland Arcana, Scrawl Place, Androids and Dragons, Inner Worlds and one forthcoming at Zooscape.

Copyright © 2024 by Reggie Kwok

Published by Orion's Beau