Short (and probably only) fiction I once wrote .....

If there is science fiction - why there can't be psychological fiction?

I for example understand majority of modern humans don't think like I'll try to show in text below - but we always can imagine something different?

Stage for this fiction set in some undefined future, I don't even know if such future will ever come, and I remember about 'dream carefully, sometimes your dreams will come true.."

Dolphins. Bigger whales. Smaller porpoises. Beings living in seas and oceans, mostly. Some legends says humans and cetaceans once accepted each other as sapient, someone, but without diving too much into depth of philosophy or something commonly known back then as 'science'. Humans lived their lives, generations follow generations without big visible changes in short periods of time. 'Live like before' worked well enough. Until at some region of Earth big and fundamental change happened - whole nations of humans discovered simple idea they can learn rules of the world, apply such rules in new ways for better (as they saw it) living, accumulate knowledge and build even bigger system of understanding on past discoveries and errors. Coupled with technological revolution, and specific overattachment to abstract 'financial' system a lot of changes were done in short period of time - relatively. But rate of changes accelerated. Humans literally bring power of the stars down to earth - coming very close to eliminating themselves due to 'left behind' selfunderstanding, forgotten in this fanatical run for bigger and bigger material (naive objectivism or materialism) richness. Amazing materials and amazing machines were born out of such epoch. Yet, negative side-effects of putting arbitrary human value , counted in money (disconnected from its sources, and from reality itself) above anything, including logic and ethics pushed Earth itself, humans and non-humans into very dangerous situation - while science of this era was eager to report new discoveries - it hardly turned their supposedly universal method (in fact there were many methods and rules of thinking, not THE method - but oversimplification...) at itself, at scientists, at their relations to society, at real rules behind society's behavior. So, in great irony while everybody was eagery waiting on scientists to discover 'dolphin language' - real scientific work passed by completely unnoticed! None noticed how science become very narrow circle of quite egocentered humans, not just ego-centered on themselves, but extremely centered on their _external_ visible attributes of science, loosing ability to actually reflect on all interconnections in fast-changing world with more and more powerful global civilization, running by 'leaders' whose priorities remained constant since ...well, thousands of years, it seems!

But lets leave scientists alone. they long-dead for now, jut like dolphins they tortured 'in the name of science'. Despite some half-hearted efforts to give cetaceans real, human-level status in the world where being non-humans usually meant horrible death, and utter disrespect even if camouflaged by tons o nice words - things mostly remained unchanged, goverments just 'manage' them like animals, and continue on their so well-done before path. Until they derailed themselves completely. Old world simply died. And this very fact heavily motivated remaining humans NOT to repeat same mistakes as their unfortunate 'parents', who left them on very 'used' and even partially blown up planet, without any hope to move anywhere (all fantasies about space colonization turned out to be just ...fantasies. Economics was against them even in best times - and even more during crisis times).

Some dolphins and other cetaceans survived, too. None know how much of their unique culture was lost - it all was embedded in their memory and their ways of life. With widespread killings, toxical dumps for decades, acoustic assaults - many cetaceans simply died, and more others simply give up on holding memory about past times - because present was very different ...

One can imagine humans simply ate all remaining dolphins or even bigger whales, returning to their barbaric past. Yes, sometimes this happened, but not everywhere. Some ideas from Golden Age before The Crash survived - and so dream about meaningful, sapient connection to someone who can think, talk, understand world - but not human nor by shape of the body, nor by depth of their minds.

A lot of ideas about 'connecting with dolphins' from late Pre-Crash epoch was loaded with sometimes open, sometimes hidden behind twisted language theme of exploitation. Dolphins were supposed to do fishing for humans, saving humans on command, even fight for humans! Such horrible fantasies! Reality turned out to be different. Most important gift from cetaceans turned out to be ..their exact existence!

let me explain. Humans always assumed they were most advanced animals on earth, so advanced no other being can even come close. Even discoveries about language use by non-human apes hardly shacked this 'useful' assumption - aes were pre-defined as sub-humans, models, early attempts at creating perfect Human - so, it was natural to find some sooo little of human-like advanced behavior and thinking in them! (in fact it was not small - it ruined whole assumption only humans can do specific kinds of thinking - yet whole discovery was downplayed...as always ...). Dolphins, poor tursiops mostly, suffered greatly from being both 'symbols' of freedom and real-world slaves for ..scientists, business, general public demanding their entertainment, therapy, 'happynes' from swimming with (or more accurately - on top :/) of them ... Behind all rhetorics of care there was simple exploitation, none was about to give them real freedom, and worse, anti-captivity folks on human side developed their own fantasy about 'wild dolphins' and, in 'best' human tradition, enforced their ideal on real dolphins/cetaceans, down to forcefully relocating them or simply killing in the name of 'animal welfare!'. But they all also gone with Old World ..what remained ...idea about cetaceans as somewhat different beings you can try to connect at much human-like level - with language and stuff. But on top of this ...it was realized our real care about someone can be measured and tested (in sense) exactly by now honestly we can treat free non-humans! Whole package of 'humanity' suddently got independent, outside of itself, benchmark!

So, most important part of tis new kind of connection was not some sort of (spiritual) energy-sucking, nor demand for material goods - but whole quality of connection, recognizing when you are welcomed, when you are not, helping others (cetaceans) first, but not against their will.equality become real demand - if one about to ask dolphins to try and help their children - one is expected to help dolphin's own childrens in some hard-to-live-without-help situation. If you ask dolphin or whale (or whole tribe of them) to help you with catching fish - you assumed to help them for free , too. Leaving a lot of fish for ones who can't (unlike humans!) eat anything else become norm among humans who accepted cetaceans as their close kin. Because technology and false ease of transportation and manufacturing all those plastic and electronic component were all gone, mostly - humans mostly reverted to their own, nearly forgotten, social creativity. In local languages, developed gradually between humans and their dolphin/cetacean friends (sorry, it sounds too lightweight - but I can't come up with better term!) you barely were able to find fine marks of high-end technology from the past - no nice sonograms , no high-end math behind sounds - and surely somewhat limited frequency and speed of talk - but because demand this time was about real-world, not laboratory communication - it worked out itself and even slowly improved / evolved over time. In fact old meta-ideas about uncovering Reality itself were still alive, just none in their healthy mind was about to repeat same mistakes about castrating themselves from emotional , empathic part of intelligence. If current technology or level of thinking was not enough to solve problem - someone just picked this problem up, and worked on it, slowly, sometimes for whole life, even for few generations (not necessary by direct biological parenting lines - but more along continued lines of desire to solve it, ethically). Some humans still looked at apparently lost-forever stars (or more accurately - space first). It was not uncommon to see rocket-powered planers, they were slow but building them still required fine understanding of many principles. Same for various boats, semi-submarines, and other not-quite-natural ways of moving. So, humans as civilization not exactly lost everything - just become much more cautious about using their power ( and not like they had a lot of 'free' power left ...). Swiiming with dolphins was not world-sized crazy of essentially captive human apes - but everyday life for those who lived along the shores. Traveling along the paths developed by non-humans become norma, while not trivial practice. Not all dolphins liked humans, and there was a lot of both positive and negative (relatively) episodes - just like in previous, human-only world. What one was supposed to say about sapient Orca, eating your none-the-less sapient dolphin freind? Well, none had complete answer - sometimes it was possible to ask orcas to eat some-thing else (like fishes), sometimes they refused to even listen, ruled by their own understanding of what is right. Few humans followed those beings, but connections between few humans and mammal-eaing orcas was not completely unknown. Most preferred simpler (ethically) dolphins and whales - tursiops, steno, spinners, common dolphins ...sometimes various dolphins acted as translators across species barrier, sometimes they just lived it like before - with somewhat rough for humans interactions. But it was their life - it was discussed, some changed themselves, some even more moved away from 'human influense'.

There was no taboos of 'feeding' cetaceans, or 'touching' them - yet doing so in disrespectful, controlling, uncaring manner was seriously prohibited. It was nice to be touched by your loved dolphin friend or whole his/her pod, even - in warm waters - but humans still lived in more cold climate zones (sometimes out of simple will to repeat/replay great heroic times of the past) - so sometimes meeting of two beings was quite shortened by human's unability to stay long in cold waters (sure, to some degree technology was able to help here - but without technological supercivilization to back you up - every kind of non-trivial material was expensive, in true terms of energy, time and material you must spend on making it). Most important thing was not even some pre-defined human goal, but whole sense of living together, caring about each other (or even asymmetrical - humans were about to do more, due to all this extermination done by humans in the past!), about other's feelings, about improving ones sensitivity and far-vision (not as physical vision, but as sort of social predictions). Improving understaning of dolphin's (and slowly, due to their living place - much far into ocean - about bigger and stranger whales) health was important - none rushed to capture them like in this old ear when 'care' was abused by very invasive and in fact uncaring method developed by dolphin captors to keep their slaves alive - new cetacean medicine was all about helping wihout causing pain, be it physical OR mental. Dolphins in their panic state, not unlike humans, were able to behave in quite unreasoned manner, not even talk to ones who tried to rescue them - yet it was considered part of life, to be overcomed by thinking and understanding.

While many dolphins were not very into human's dominant models of 'family' (with mother and father) - common caring about young non-humans was possible and welcomed. Not necessary it stared right after birth (most dolphins preferred to do their own duty without humans here, modulo some special cases...it turned out you can play dolphin mother even without being fully dolphin!) - but for more older dolphins playing and living around humans was fact of life. Sometimes those dolphins traveled a lot, and by listening to their news humans also remain in touch with both remote humans, and this fluid dolphinality. Sadly, from time to time humans killed each other, still. Catastrophe not made us cruelity-free angels. But killing dolphins/cetaceans once again become serious crime, just as murder of human.

new world was not Utopia in classical style - you probably will be negatively surprized by relatively shallow content of most talks between species. But it was like this forever - only few humans, and may be relatively higher percent of non-humans (who had no world-sucking million-member, backed by external energies like burning oil or even nuclear reactions back-up - so they were forced to be more creative, more thinking on their own) liked to dive into unknown depths, move into hard directions, be it in diving or thinking. But humans at least give to dolphins and cetaceans way to store their stories and thinking - sometimes as recorded sounds, sometimes as some written notes (to be read by human - but by this time benefits of actually accepting cetaceans become reality, not just theory. so, who will deny dolphins from reading their own thinking aloud?! such disrespect was very bordering with crime ..at least among those, who accepted cetaceans ...remember, this is not utopia, just future/possible time when _some_ humans discovered there is absolute no need to run around like grand assholes, dominating left and right - just being part of dolphin family more than fill your life - if you live it fully and honestly!)

Appendix 1: curious fotos from the past (rel. to times of story!)
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https://www.imgbin.net/z/GwxcFnnWPN.jpeg

It all was written around 20 dec 2014. Surrounding URLs with img tag shows error in preview :/