Hunting For Mermaids

“Where are you going?” asked she, the sea, as the little boat rocked on her waves.  The old man sat hunched, twisting a silver ring on his finger.  A flash of blue eyes under heavy lids glared at the empty horizon.  When he spoke his voice was hoarse from a lifetime of shouts and screams.

“Huntin’ mermaids,” he replied.  A marble blue wave rocked the grey boat and the sea gave a light, girlish laugh. 

“Mermaids?” she asked, “there were never any mermaids.”

The old man sat still, body more accustomed to the sea than land.  Bright pink streaks fractured the evening sky and stained the edges of clouds scarlet.  The sea, wearing rippling gold, was strewn with sequins and glitter.

As daylight faded and all was turned to black and white, the sea spoke once more.

“Aren’t you going home?”

“Where’s that?” he asked.

“You know, home: friends, family, dry land, green fields, open roads, street corners and brick walls,”

Brick walls?  I remember those, thought the man, afraid that speaking the words aloud would make the sea understand.

“I understand you,” she said arrogantly, “you are one tiny human and I am the sea.  Humans think their problems are so great, but they are just unimportant trivialities to me.”

The old man did not know whether to feel angry or relieved.  He pulled bony fingers through his beard, matted with fish blood, and stared at the mackerel scales glittering on his fingers and sleeves.

His life had been loud, painfully loud, before this monotony of lapping waves, mending nets and gutting fish.  As a young man, his head was filled with the sound of a screeching wife, crying babies and drunken fights.  It had been a relief to get away at first.  To be in a place where his life was printed out in neat, concise words.  All he had to do was follow orders, it was easy.  That was until the deafening sound of gunfire and explosions rung in his ears.  When life was so loud it was impossible to even think.  Every thought was wiped away by the noise so he could only stumble onwards. 

Back home again, his wife would never understand.  He fiddled again with the silver ring on his finger.  The thoughts that had been wiped from his head now rushed back, all at once, making him dizzy.  They filled the silence that he had never known before.  But his wife could never understand.  The only ones who knew were the ones who were there.  From his home, only one other survived.  His closest friend.

The old man pushed up his sleeves and could see the thick, white scars of both their lives together.  Memories etched into his skin like a map.  A long gash from where broken glass had sliced through skin after a night of smoky air and beer dulled their wits.  Shrapnel lodged amongst muscle and tendons.  A small, blue tattoo traced alongside the veins on his wrist. 

“You wish you had gone with him?” the sea spoke softly.

The old man nodded his head.

“It were the mermaids that got ‘im.”  He thought of their writhing, slippery tails.  Translucent skin blending into silver scales.  Tangled yellow hair and strangling fingers.  Above all, he could hear their song.  The song that had destroyed so many ships and driven men insane.  His friend was one in a long line throughout the ages.  In more romantic times, his final moments would have been captured in another song or poem to be told at firesides. 

“But they don’t exist,” said the sea, “there has only ever been me.”

As night turned slowly to a misty morning the grey light filtered across the metallic water and disguised the cliffs and rocks.  Beads of water tangled into his wispy grey beard, hair and eyebrows.  There was no difference between them now; he was wet and colourless and so was she. 

A song came into the old man’s head.  It was so faint at first that he thought it was only the church bells on land or seagulls a-waking.  But the song got louder until it was as loud as fish wives, as loud as bombs and as loud as life.  The notes were like the moon, pulling the tides of blood in his veins from the top of his head to the pit of his stomach. 

It was love.  Love and life and it radiated from the sea’s shimmering waves.  It was all in time now.  The waves rose and fell in the same rhythm as the music, the clouds that drifted across the sky matched the movement of the waves, and even the birds seemed to fly more erratically when the music became faster.  Everything was connected and he couldn’t tell whether it was the music affecting nature or nature affecting the music.

This was how it must have started with his old friend.  The song must have driven him mad.  Got in his head so he couldn’t think.  It was the thing that had pulled him from that rocky cliff top where only the pink thrift and young gulls dare to cling.  He was not in command of his legs, taking that final step.   

“Come and sit with me,” the sea soothed.  A gentle voice under the crash of notes and waves.

“I’m so lonely,” she wailed, “Come and sit with me for a while.”  And the old man knew.  Knew that a while would be an eternity and his story would not be one of romance, told alongside those of brave knights and ferocious dragons.  He would simply be remembered as the old man who had gone mad.  Who had disappeared in a leaky boat and was never seen again. 

“Come on, we are the same, you and I,” the sea spoke in a lilting voice, as though she were reciting the old man’s story.  Her soft tone promised a happy ending.

The old man wanted nothing more than to slide out of the boat and rest his head on her soft curves.  He wanted to stroke her misty hair and fall asleep with nothing but the moon to control his heartbeat.

“Do it,” she urged, “You know you can’t go back.”  And he knew he couldn’t.  With a final glance at the scars on his arms, the ring on his finger and the rocky outline of the cliffs, he slipped backwards into legend.

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Thanks for reading!  I hope you enjoyed it, I don't often write adult fiction so would be very grateful for any feedback at all (good or bad, I really don’t mind!).  I will definitely read/review some of your work in return.  Thanks!