Chapter 5
Caio
The humid night air hung heavy, thick with the scent of decaying vegetation. The moon, a hazy, almost full disc in the inky sky, cast long, distorted shadows across the polluted water.
We hadn’t caught a thing all night. My line hung slack, disappearing into the void below, the small bell at the tip silent and still. Beside me, my father, his face etched with lines of weariness, patiently reeled in his empty line, his movements slow and deliberate.
A fruitless fishing trip. It wasn’t the lack of fish that bothered me, though.
It was the gnawing ache in my chest, the persistent cough that rattled my lungs, the constant reminder of the asthma that had plagued me for as long as I could remember.
I tried to take a deep breath, but my lungs protested, constricting painfully.
I stifled the cough, not wanting to worry my father.
He glanced at me, his brow furrowed with concern. “Are you all right, Caio?” he asked, his voice rough with exhaustion.
“Just tired,” I lied, forcing a weak smile.
He nodded, his gaze returning to the river. “We’ll pack it in soon,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow will be better.”
Tomorrow. The word held little hope for me. Each day was a struggle, a constant battle against the breathlessness and tightness in my chest. The asthma had always been there, a shadow lurking in the background, threatening to steal my breath, my life.
Sometimes, in the quiet moments between coughs, I imagined a life free from its grasp.
A life where I could live without fear of collapsing, where I could explore the depths of the rainforest without the constant weight of my asthma holding me back.
A life where I could be normal. But those dreams always felt distant and unattainable, like the stars shimmering in the vast night sky.
I had to admit that even without a single catch, fishing with my father was one of the few things I still enjoyed other than studying to become a doctor.
The humid air, usually a comfort, now felt like a constricting blanket, smothering the fragile embers of hope within me that I could have a moment without relying on my inhalers.
Suddenly, a sharp snap echoed through the stillness. My father’s fishing rod bent double, the line taut and vibrating. “Got one!” His voice filled with a sudden surge of energy.
He struggled with the unseen creature, his muscles straining against the weight of it. The line whizzed through the water, the reel clicking furiously. Then, just as suddenly, the line went slack.
“Lost him,” my father muttered, a sigh escaping his lips. He began to reel in the slack line, his movements heavy with disappointment.
“Tomorrow will be better, Dad,” I said, the words catching in my throat as a coughing fit seized me. My chest tightened, each cough a painful squeeze. Damn my asthma. It always seemed to flare up when I was on a break as if I had been holding it together during the semester.
“We’ve stayed out too long,” he said, his voice laced with concern. “Your mother will have my hide.” He pulled in the anchor, the rusty chain rattling against the side of the boat.
“I like it out here,” I managed between coughs, my voice raspy. “Usually, I can breathe easier. Being on the lake helps to clear my mind.”
He gave me a small, sad smile. “Yes, well, it’s good to see your head out of the books for once.”
“But I have to study hard to be a doctor,” I insisted, my voice laced with familiar stubbornness.
“And you still need to rest,” he countered gently, starting the engine of the little boat that had been my companion on countless fishing trips since I was a boy. The familiar rumble vibrated through the hull, a comforting rhythm against the backdrop of the quiet river.
I leaned against the side of the boat, my gaze fixed on the dark water as Dad steered us back toward the shore. The crescent moon, a sliver of silver in the vast expanse of the night sky, cast an ethereal glow on the river’s surface. Then, I saw it.
A flash of pink beneath the surface. A pink river dolphin.
My breath caught in my throat. This was why I loved being out on the river—these rare glimpses of magic.
The dolphin surfaced, its sleek body arcing through the air, catching the moonlight before disappearing beneath the inky water once more. It looked like she was dancing, a graceful ballet beneath the stars. For a moment, captivated, I forgot the tightness in my chest, the weight of my illness.
The sudden jolt of the boat hitting the shallows tore me away from the dolphin’s dance and back to reality.
I helped Dad tie the small vessel to the rickety jetty, the wood worn smooth by years of river water and time.
Our small village, nestled along the riverbank, was miles away from the bustling lights of Manaus, the city that promised so much yet seemed so distant.
Something tugged at me, a strange feeling of unease. I turned back to the river, my gaze sweeping across the still water, now a perfect mirror reflecting the moon and stars.
That’s when I saw her.
A figure rose from the water downstream, not climbing out, but emerging with a fluid grace that defied the pull of the current and the slick mud of the bank.
At first, I thought it was a trick of the light, a figment of my oxygen-deprived imagination.
My first thought was hypothermia. The river was cool at night.
But as she moved into a clearer patch of moonlight, my medical training kicked in, a reflex trying to impose order on the impossible.
She was naked, but she wasn’t shivering, and no sign of the vasoconstriction that should have been mottling her skin.
Her skin wasn’t blue. Instead, it somehow glowed with a health that defied my training.
She stood on the riverbank, her movements poised and sure-footed, her breathing even, not the ragged gasps of someone who’d just surfaced after holding their breath. Every logical explanation my mind scrambled for fell apart.
A local swimmer? No one could move through that water with such poise or endure the cold with such ease. A hallucination? The lingering scent of the Victoria amazonica that drifted toward me on the breeze was too real, too vivid. She was unlike anyone I had ever seen before.
My clinical mind faltered, replaced by something more primal.
The breath I held wasn’t from a lack of oxygen, but from the sheer impossibility of her.
The air around her seemed to shimmer, and the feeling that stirred within me had nothing to do with my asthma.
It was a profound, unsettling confusion mixed with a flicker of something else, something I couldn’t quite name.
She didn’t speak or move. She simply stood there, her gaze holding mine as if searching for something deep within me.
The world around me faded—the sounds of the river, the rustling leaves, and the chirping insects all disappeared into the background.
It was as if we were the only two beings in existence, connected by an invisible thread of moonlight and a mystery that defied every textbook I had ever read.
Then, as quickly as she had appeared, she vanished, disappearing into the shadows along the riverbank as silently and effortlessly as a wisp of smoke.
I blinked, my heart pounding in my chest, the image of her burned into my mind.
Who was she? And what was she doing here? The doctor in me demanded data, proof, a rational explanation. But the man who had just seen her, the man standing on the jetty with his heart pounding in his chest, suspected that no such explanation existed.