On the passenger’s side of your car, I found a hatchet's blade wedged into the floor — sharp parts up.

Who could've swung that under the chassis, you asked.

It was hot to me that you knew to call it a chassis. I would have found a workaround for it: floor of the car, perhaps.

It looks kind of like a dorsal fin, I said.

Like a shark?

Yeah, or even like a dolphin.

Let's just get out of here, you said.

I agreE EE E EEEE EEEEE, I said in my best dolphin impression.

It's my dolphin, I clarified. You still didn't laugh.

I wondered if you had said the agreE EE E EEEE EEEEE if I would have laughed. I thought about all the ways it could have happened:

If you'd sounded like a dolphin and not a human man, I think yes — yes I would have laughed.

If you'd sounded like an adult male with something to prove — and a million dollar smile that ensured you’d never have to — doing an impression of a dolphin in an attempt to make me laugh, I would have done my best fake laugh to show how capable I am of validating you.

And if your agreE EE E EEEE EEEEE sounded like what you'd do if you were alone, a confirmation that we exist within the same plane of comfort, then I suppose I wouldn't laugh, no, but I'd feel very tenderly toward you. I might even feel at home.

As we rounded the exit of the parking lot, the hatchet’s handle screamed against the crags in the road. SCRRRRRRRRRRR you said, eyes wide on the road ahead. Nothing about it sounded like the scrape of a heavy handle licking tar, but I mustered up a giggle that fueled us for miles.