The Child

A young and sickly prince stands by the side of an ocean shore. His young shoulders are born down with the responsibilities of his birth; his face is pale and his lips are thin and bloodless.

"What good is this ocean?" he cries and shakes a fist into the wind, "It brings me no pleasure, as nothing does these days!" A dolphin swims close to shore in the shallows, flaps his tail hard in water and drenches the prince with a shower of spray in an instant. "How dare you!" shouts the prince, wet and breathless, "I shall have you arrested, all of your kind!"

The dolphin splashes him again before the final words are spoken, and then again, and finally the prince, his finery completely soaked and dripping head to foot, has got to start to laugh - and he runs to the water, throws himself into the ocean and becomes a child again.