The Merm

2,382 words

...So I'm writing this hoping someone will read this to give my family some consolation and idea as to my whereabouts.  Though I'm sure by the time anyone gets this, I'll be long gone.  I'm writing this with my last moments on the earth.  I can't force away the descriptive side of my writing, so I might as well try to make this as good a read as possible.  Behind the back of this sheet is the address of my parents.  They'll know what I'm writing to be true, at least to me.  I went on vacation with a buddy and his family to the beach.  I liked to spend some of the time alone, and while I was at the beach one night, the night after the storm, I saw my destiny...

I was sitting on the wooden reclining beach chair listening to the sea make love to the shore.  The constant ebb and flow of the water caressing the silver sand moved in such intoxicating rhythm that it made me struggle to stay awake.  The powerful illumination of the city behind me wasn't even enough to drown the stars, who hung proud and shone defiantly in the sky above me.  Off to the west I could see the crimson moon sink slowly and dreamily into the dark mist that hung lightly just above the water.

I took in the sensory stimulation alone as the rest of the beach was barren of human life.  The smell of the sea charmed my nostrils while I lazily slunk down into the chair while painting pictures in the sand with my toes.  The light breeze on the warm humid air was cool enough to bring chill bumps to my skin.  What a beautiful summer night on that Alabama beach it was. 

I sleepily lay with my one beer in hand wondering those essential questions of life and love that all do when they quietly and contently imbibe the blood of barley in moments of lonely contemplation.  I had always had a lot to reflect on; mine had been a busy life. 

At some point I had rolled over and flattened the chair I was sitting on and fell asleep.  Maybe it was the tranquility of the lonesome moment that forced it on me, but I began to dream as I crossed over from the realm of the waking.  Consciousness failed me and I fell asleep.

My dream, though serene, set about quickly to deliver me a setting that perfectly matched the world I left behind.  It was the same world, wrought of the same impulses that sent me off to sleep, though my mind's eyes were staring at the water when I saw it.

The breaking waves seemed to part and between the black crests of the waves I saw a shape.  It was so dark even in dream, as it was in reality, that I had to strain my "eyes" to discern what it was I was gazing upon.  Moreover, I could see such detail at so great a distance it was disconcerting.  Even in the dark, I could see colors changing in the pitch black sea before me.  The amorphous blob in the water was dancing fluidly with the waves, though moving as if directed by a motive.  It didn't float as the jellyfish do, this was different.  This shape moved and changed colors like breaking waves glinting shattered glass reflections of the lights about me.  It went from a subdued emerald of Irish grass to the black of a moonless cloudy night in the time it takes to blink an eye.  From there the hue shifted to shades of sandy blonde and silver like the sand beneath me. 

"Hair!  That must be what it is!"  I croaked as the idea forced its way into my dream.  Yet this idea must have come from the gathering shape, because hair does not change colors in revolving patterns.  Yet it was of no consequence, for as soon as that strange idea crept into my mental facility, the shape was gone, and the lucid dream faded from my memory. 

I stirred in my sleep and awoke an indeterminate amount of time later, still in the dark.  Wanting to continue the moment and further appreciate my last night with the shore, I lined my gums with tobacco and delighted my blood with the wakening powers of nicotine.  After sucking the succoring pleasures of the drug, I nestled back into my cozy spot and let sleep overcome me again.  It was with another alarming amount of immediateness that I dreamt again, still seeing my actual surroundings.  Having just enough awareness in my dream state to think in a cognizant fashion, I figured I'd look for the shape again.  After a brief eternity, something other than the shape caught my eye. 

It was a figure; a form of the most blessed and cursed of species on the Earth, of which we are all members.  I asked myself how anyone could be so far out to sea without bobbing with the waves until I realized the figure was walking eerily over the tide with airy strides as a dolphin skips upright over the top of the water.  Yet it was a woman?  Realizing I must be dreaming (as my imagination and all childish hopes for the existence of fantastic things had been crushed by the brutal realities of life) I went along with it, observing as the figure came toward me. 

Since I had so bravely dismissed Her as a dream, the preternatural aspects of Her arrival ceased to make me fret, and I coolly watched Her as She hit a depth in the water where She walked on the sand.  As She hit the sandy bottom, I saw that She was topless, and her glimmering hair covered up her breasts.  At this point it became obvious I was dreaming, or so I thought, because I just don't have the luck for bare-bosomed women to come walking out of the water to come find me!  Once I was finally able to wrest my eyes from trying to steal a forbidden glance, I looked over her figure and to no real surprise (I was dreaming after all) I was again confirmed in my belief that I was asleep, because She wore below Her locks no ordinary waist; She was as fish below Her navel, not as woman!    Though really, in terms of sea life, Her tail was more akin to a whale's as the tail fins were parallel to Her shoulders like a breaching whale's tail, not like a sharks which is perpendicular.  It was shimmery in hues of silver, green, blue, and scaly.  Though the scales weren't as reptilian as those of fish, they were much more appealing to the human eye, and even though I couldn't have classified Her, She captivated my heart and my mammalian primal instincts as no other could.

I wondered why I should dream of a MerMaid, and at that thought She grabbed at Her thighs and pulled away Her scaly lower half, which then waved like soft, sea-colored linen in the wind.  Now I was REALLY confused.  She cast it into the breeze and let the fluidly moving air blow it into the sea as She spoke to the water, "Take it, Father."

She turned back toward me and came in my direction.  Though dark, I saw She had snow white skin, like the fresh undisturbed peaks of any high mountain range.  She was so beautiful, it made my soul hurt, like my eyes weren't bold, courageous, or spirited enough to look upon Her.  Light seemingly poured out of Her, radiating like visible heat to warm whatever was around Her.  She stood just some feet from me, now in the form of a fully nude woman.  All of her hair still shifted their luminous iridescence as She wore a daunting look on her ageless face, walking toward me.  She looked the most peculiar age, as though She were a late teen, though with the penetrating aura of greatness that would make Kings and Emperors bow to very dirt itself.  The wisdom of Her eyes would suggest she had been the oldest living Being on earth, or at least the majesty in Her footsteps would make you think that.  She had a small yet proportional nose and piercing seductive eyes that bore the same color changing effects of Her hair.  These features of hers hung over a pursed lips that were as the reddest rose you would never pick from the ground for its beauty, and full as an overstuffed pillow.  Her hair continued to act as the reflecting waves and her all natural body moved as elegantly through air as it had through water.  Her proportionately large breasts heaved as She breathed and She leaned over me while I silently watched.

She ran her fingers lightly down my side as I pretended to stir in my sleep to see if she would react.  She bore Her gaze down hard on me with the deepest eyes I’d ever seen.  Still they changed their colors and seemed to slightly illuminate and reflect the scene around  me.  She raised an eyebrow as if to tell me something and then…


I came to.  I woke up startled as if she had been really touching me and I was more than subtly alarmed when in waking up I could feel the presence of another with me.  I turned over and She was there!  Exactly as She had been in the dream, She was looming over me!  Really, I almost pissed myself with the realization that some of those things that people always try to tell you don’t exist actually might.  “What else then, might exist?”  flashed through my head more like a fleeting feeling than a thought through my head as I fell out of my chair and crashed onto the ground.  The sand was surprisingly warm and soft as I sank slightly into it before trying to initiate oral contact with the “fish woman.”

“Uh…” was all I got out before She pressed Her fingers to my lips.  At that moment, I was entranced by Her beauty as I hadn’t been ensnared by anything before.  She began to speak in Her sing-songy voice as She put forth a cryptic and chilling phrase. 

“Don’t speak.  Yes, I am of the Ancient race of Virgins of Lord Neptune, or Poseidon, or Njord, however you may know Him.”

---“Uh”…

“My name is Reon Alaina Ruina, and now that I have found you, I won’t lose you.”

---“Uh”…

She pressed her cool lips to my own and grabbed my hands, pressing them to her breast as she pulled away her ever-changing hair. Anatomy and biology briefly flickered in my head at first contact; as her skin was cool as she came down on top of me, I wondered if she were a mammal. Then as her mouth was joined with mine a flurry of emotion came upon me and my brain wracked itself with questions of morality. Were the legends true? Would she drag me to my death? As my body reacted to the sensually pleasing ways in which she manifested her passion with her tongue, the question of biology made me wonder if she possessed the biological qualities that I had come to know of human women. Yet as her body moved as fluidly as the ocean while she was pressed upon me, these fleeting thoughts didn't stand a chance. She pulled away my bathing suit with a ferocity only known by a woman's first love. I was stricken so with passion that fear melted away as she put herself atop me, where I noticed that she was very warm within, and of the wettest flesh that I would ever know. In some time there on the beach she had her fill a few times over, until I was without the ability to move again. She looked at me while I tried not to fall asleep, but my physical and emotional exhaustion were weighing heavily against me in favor of drifting away to a slumber. 

At that moment, there was a stir as some college-age people rustled behind me toward the hotel.  With that She turned and hurriedly yet gracefully caught from the wind Her light wrapping skirt of scales and melted away into the water. 

I write this in these moments that followed Her disappearance into the sea.  I know that I’m a little bit of a writer, for the very fact that very little holds a place of so much passion in my heart as writing, and I suppose that this is my opus. Not because it is so great or profound, but because it burns so fervently in my heart.  I can never write anything of memory that will ever be so clear as what I write now, and it is with great hope that the final memory of me from those that read this will be of at the very least, a slightly talented young author.  I suppose I can put more of my heart into this than the normal write, because this is what feels right.  Did I already get seduced by the whims of the Merm?  Is it that I have succumbed to Her will as a seductress?  Really, I just don’t care.  You may criticize me for what I am about to undertake, but just know that so few have ever had this chance. Aye, to you of the mundane regular life, its is naught but jealousy that you should feel in these moments… 

…It is night again.  I could feel her watching me all day as I lingered by the beach.  If I could have gotten her to come out early in the sunlight I would have.  It’s funny; I’m terrified and intrigued at the same time.  I’m scared of drowning, as I have been since my older brother used to hold my head under the water when we would swim.  But just for this chance, I would brave any fear or turmoil to know her at least once more, though I think the finality of this parting with the land will be at least as long as an eternity.  It is for the bed of Davy Jones that I head, but at least I am aware.  Anyway, I can feel her coming again.  I blew eighty bucks on this bottle of Port that you’re finding this note in, at least it was good stuff right?  I think the rush is setting in now; my hair is standing on end. 

The moon is up and full again, I’ve never seen it stay so full for so long as it has.  The cool breeze off the sea is even stronger tonight.  I see flickers of the Gods’ chariots off in the distance.  If you do happen to find my body, if you can arrange it, would you please send it out to sea to be burned?  I guess I’m just being silly now. Thank you for everything.  If you can get word out to my friends, let them know I love them all, even the exes. 

I wince now, as I can feel a heat in my soul I’ve never felt before.  I hear Her song in my ear now, and the sea has begun to churn.  She’s coming.  I guess this is the point of no return.  I have no regrets and no inhibitions, as I’ve felt them all melt away from my heart.  I guess all those burdens of life are now lifted.  I hope you can read all this.  I have more appreciation for this moment than any I’ve lived before.  Thank you all for everything again.  I can see Her!  With this cork, I seal my Fate, and my last words to you.  Much love.

                                                                                              ~~That last truly blessed man on earth.