MERMAID (chapter 6.2)

by Kanga in my own little bubble

“You’re so beautiful,” I said softly. I couldn’t lie around her. It was impossible not be honest around Oceana.

The chimes jingled again, louder and filled with blissful amusement.

“I am not beautiful, my home is. New Atlantis is its name. More beautiful than the waters in the east, or the oceans in the west and the ice in the south put together.”

“It sounds like heaven,” I marvelled at the thought.

“Maybe you could come and see it? Even though humans are rarely allowed, I think my father will like you,” she held out a dainty hand, beckoning me to come.

At that moment I remember the tiny book and its big warnings.

“How do I know you are not going to drown me?” I asked, suddenly suspicious of this inhuman beauty.

She laughed again, except this time it sounded dark. Like the music you would hear in the sad scene of a movie.

“That is what your stories say. That we drown you humans, but it is not true,”

I exhaled noisily. I knew it. 

“We mermaids, as you call us, can only come up out of water when it rains or is going to rain. We sit on the rocks as they are easier to jump off if one of your kind comes close. The mirror tells us where the people are. All we have to do it think it. You kind think we are obsessed with our hair, except that is the furthest from the truth. We do no care for our appearances.”

It was hard for me to digest that. I would never look as pretty as her, even if I had every make up artist and fashion designer in the world working on me.

“Sometimes we forget to look at the mirror and men creep like shadows in the trees and they see us. It is their own fault that they jump into the waters when they cannot swim. Then a particularly large wave comes and they get killed on the rocks. Or they drown. It is against our laws to be in contact with a human, and if they are killed, that means they cannot go and spread to the world what they have seen. But then times changed. People learnt to float in water, to swim. They became sneakier and smarter, and they spotted us often. Stories spread far and wide and soon people were searching for us. Luckily we were smarter and were only seen a few times. But that was enough for them to draw us and create lies about who we are.”

Throughout her speech, I noticed her tale becoming still and her smile disappeared. It seemed as if the whole world became darker.

“If you can’t come in contact with humans, why do you talk to me?”

The clouds were disappearing and the sun was shining brightly. I was grateful because my soaking wet clothes were slowing becoming drier.

“Every few hundred years the son of the king gets to meet a suitable human to tell them about their world. It helps to keep informed. Unfortunately,” her face turned sour, “my father didn’t receive a son from the gods. All he got was a girl. Me. Well come on, I don’t want to dry out!”

And with a grin she jumped, almost flew into the water.