The Pearl Ballerina

Once upon a time, in a far away kingdom under the sea, a girl was born. But she was no ordinary girl. It was a cloudy day and the fish had all gathered near the old coral cave where the giant oyster had laid silent for over a thousand years.

The legend said that on a cloudy day just like that one, a boat carrying a wedding party had sailed over the kingdom filling the sea with music. And when all the fish were dancing around the boat, a man fell in the water and, soon after, a woman dove in. The woman tried to grab the man, who couldn’t swim, but he was too heavy for her. While most of the fish and sea creatures had fled the place startled, the giant oyster felt sorry for the couple and, unable to help them in a different way, waited for them to fall on its mouth and sealed them together.

Now, for the first time in so long, a small shrimp passing by, noticed some small bubbles coming out of from the giant oyster and ran calling everyone.

“It’s opening. It’s opening.”

The fish gathered for two days, filling the cave with color. With each passing hour more bubbles would come out, until finally the oyster shell gave in letting out a gush of bubbles that blurred everyone’s vision.

The fish all gasped as they could finally see what was inside. In the place where everyone expected the two lovers to be, sitting down staring back at them with great blue eyes, was a girl, beautiful has a mermaid and colored like a pearl.

The girl stretched her arms and yawned and looked back at the fish again blinking.

The fish gasped and stood still.

The girl slowly moved upwards, swimming without barely a move. And, suddenly, she started to dance.

“A ballerina” the fish started to comment.

But the girl didn’t care. She just danced, moving her body like waves reaching the shore.

Soon it became normality. The fish went on with their lives and the girl went on with her dancing. But the dancing became different, slower, like the girl was just feeling the water flow. She was sad. She was alone. She could only dance, but there was no one like her to dance with.

One day, as the fish were working and the girl was dancing, she felt something brush her legs and swam to catch it. It was something like she had never seen before, two small white sheets, with red writing on them. Both had the same symbol in the corners, but in the center one had a big heart and the other one a big diamond.

As she was looking at the strange objects, a huge shadow covered her and she looked up to see a boat. A faint music could be heard. Suddenly, she saw the fish swimming up. They were dancing. Still surprised, she swam with them towards the boat, the music getting louder and louder. She swam as fast as she could, passing every fish in the way, until she reached the surface and jumped twirling into the air.

But has was twirling, something caught her eye. Inside the boat were creatures like her. Not just fish, like she was used to see, people, with feet and hands and necks. She heard them shout.

She fell into the water, still not knowing what to do and heard the muffled voices on the boat saying things she couldn’t understand and feet running from one side to the other.  Ropes started raining in the water, the fish started to flee. Finally a young man dove in the water and he turned from one side to the other like he was looking for something. Until finally he saw her.

She stood still as he swam towards her. Too confused to react. The man stopped in front of her, his short hair flowing with the water, strange fabrics covering his body. He stretched his hand towards her and smiled. She looked at his hand and back at him and finally took it. As soon as she did, he grabbed a rope and they were pulled.

The fish never saw the ballerina again. But to this day, there is no time when a boat passes by that the fish don’t gather underneath it to dance in honor of the pearl ballerina.