Greg has a mermaid
And she has no name
But she loves him
A mermaid
At least that’s what he calls her
Because of how he found her
On the beach, naked, sandy with
Blood matted in her sun-blonde hair
A woman of the sea washed up on his beach
Like the movie, except in that she was searching and awake, not unconscious
An Aubergine-smeared gash upon her forehead.
He’s picked her up and carried her
Prone
A frigid corpse with heartbeat
To his house
Greg found a mermaid
And he kept her
Like a pretty pebble washed up upon the beach.
Sunrise was his favourite time of day.
On his beach, the sun rose over the ocean and set behind his house. Dawn was the time when red and gold shot over a deep-blue sea to ivory sand, bathing his world (HIS world he thought with pride) with light.
At sunrise, not a cloud marred a sky unbleached by the sun’s full power and he could see the slow creep of the morning across the rocks to the mansion he’d built in the crook of the bay.
At sunrise, the night’s feverish activity had abated, leaving a calm the coming day had not yet destroyed.
As he’d taken his walk along the beach that morning, he’d noted the damage of the storm.
It had been particularly ferocious, as though the earth itself had risen up to rid its coastline of interlopers.
Sunrise was when Greg pointed out that man’s structure, his structures, were still intact. The earth had merely ravished itself.
Greg looked out from his balcony to the quiet beach and contemplated his morning walk.
Sunrise was past. Although the mild heat of noon approached, he shivered a little and pulled his satin robe closer.
Not quite summer. But soon.
He turned to peer into the curtained darkness of his room, where the woman lay sprawled, still naked as he’d found her, on his bed.
He’d bandaged the cut on her forehead as best he might and had washed her of muck and dirt and salt in a shallow bath.
She hadn’t woken and he was now concerned her injuries were more severe then he’d originally thought.
The thought of doctors flitted quickly through his brain.
He studied her again; blonde hair matted by the sea was smooth, long legs, rounded hips, a sleek back and above her nearly-flattened stomach, her breasts showed a brief glimpse of taut flesh. Her whole body, he realised, was one light shade of golden tan. No lines caused by shoes or straps or even clothes marred the even tone.
I want her, he thought with sudden desire.
I want her.
She’s perfect, she’s wild, she’s beautiful and she’s mine.
I found her. I want her. And she’s mine.
Doctors ran through his head, this time faster and more insistent.
Doctors
Questions
Who was she?
Where did she wash ashore from? Where were her papers? Her ID? Her passport?
Doctors.
Police.
A hospital somewhere in a detention centre.
“No doctors,” he said suddenly, out loud. Too loud.
“No doctors” he now whispered, “I found you”.
“I found you, and you’re mine”.
In his dream, he was swimming.
Not swimming.
Not, really.
Actually, he was floating. Meandering through clear water.
The water was warm, and he could breathe. Feel the water flow into this lungs and out again, leaving its precious cargo behind to let him live.
How is this possible? He thought, with a momentary surge of wonder.
And stopped.
Was he up or down? Which was which?
Where was the surface? The sand?
Why did he not drown in the oceans as other men did?
How to find his way to the beach?
An eddie. A current. The water moved around him as if propelled.
A fish. A fin.
Blue eyes.
Blonde hair, swaying like the ocean, wrapping him like the water.
It was her!
All around him.
Her!
He woke.
Woke to blue eyes staring at him and sat up, sharply, the memories of ocean and water receding into disturbed sheets.
His bed.
She was awake.
He looked again to see her staring.
Blue eyes.
Just like the dream.
Wary. Curious, he noted. But scared?
No.
He smiled.
She responded, but shyly, her eyes roaming across his face.
The sheets he’d placed over her the night before had dropped, but she showed no modesty.
Simply stared.
She’d finished her examination of him, it appeared, and her eyes began the same wild roam of the room, furnished in a way both expensive and Spartan.
Her eyes glazed over each detail, showing as much, if not more, interest in the telephone and lamp then the original artwork.
She finished at the full-length mirror, where she stared at herself staring. With him, light brown hair tousled and eyes slightly rimmed with sleep, sitting beside her.
He caught her eyes with his.
“I’m Greg”, he said to the mirror-woman, wishing to draw the attention back upon himself.
She smiled, then swung slowly back to him, no sign of comprehension reaching her eyes.
“Greg,” he said again, tapping his bare chest with the flat palm of one hand.
She smiled again, as though to say that was all she could achieve, then placed her palm where his had been, on his naked chest.
“Greg,” she said softly, and looked up disarmingly.
She felt around a bit to see, he thought, if she could be sure of what she beheld, then laughed and banged his chest with her hand.
“Man!” she pronounced happily.
And promptly kissed him.
Greg found a mermaid.
She has no name.
But she loves him.
Every evening. And at dawn, before she joins him on his morning walk, skipping along the beach she loves and clambering on the rocks before diving into the blue ocean.
He turns toward the house; he knows he will not see her again until evening when she re-appears.
Sandy, salty, alive with pleasure and hungry.
He cooks her fish and rice, which she devours like a child, with a child’s enthusiasm for the beach, the food and for him, in his bedroom overlooking his ocean.
Greg found a mermaid.
And he kept her.
Like a pretty pebble washed up upon the beach.
Greg has a mermaid.
Her name is Claire.
She told him so, after seeing someone with the name on TV.
Claire.
A sweet, gentle name.
Not aggressive or independent.
A Claire was like a little girl.
Sweet and innocent who did as she was instructed and smiled and kissed and hugged a lot.
He approved.
And told her so.
And she smiled and kissed him in that exuberant way of hers and ran toward the ocean.
Her language had improved a lot, he thought as he watched her tumble in the sand.
She’d barely spoken a word when he’d first scooped her off into his arms that day.
She now spoke more often but still infrequently.
Small sentences.
Ideas
He taught her
Like
Yes
I love you
I’m hungry
I’m to the beach
Ideas
He didn’t teach her
Like
No
Don’t want to
Don’t like you
Want to be alone
And at those times, he sometimes thought that maybe he did not really know her at all.
Maybe, he thought, there’s a part of her that I don’t own. Like the water she came from.
The tide, the fickle natures of its moods, the uncertainty in its unknown depths.
Everything I desire in a woman, he thought as he watched her dance across the dunes.
But still just a woman.
“The problems kind of started slowly,” he said to Matthew one day as they sat with a beer overlooking the lifeless beach.
“She was so agreeable at first. Now, it’s like she’s not happy with anything I do.”
“I just don’t know what she wants.”
And Matthew said nothing to his friend, although he should have. Because he knew he didn’t want to hear what he had to say.
Greg found a mermaid
And she loves him
But is confused why he hates to see her learn
Can’t understand his anger when she has her own opinion
Wonders why things were better before she learned to speak them at all.
And is beginning to feel the pull of the sea.
Greg found a mermaid.
And he loved her.
In his way.
And he can’t understand why he failed to keep her
Why she left one day to go back to the storm and the sea
Why he goes to bed alone when he wasn’t ready for her to leave.
And will never understand why she wouldn’t stay.
It was as though, he thought, mystified.
Standing on his beach where he will always be, alone.
It was as though she never belonged to me at all.