I recently saw a mock documentary on Mermaids aired on the Discovery Channel. It was extremely well done and in fact, had me a total believer until I saw the disclaimer at the very end claiming the show to be fictional theory. But it left me with some questions. Do mermaids really exist? And what if they do, do we really want to know about them? Should we know about them? What would be the rammifications of discovering their existence?
Well my muse just couldn't let it go until I wrote a very, very short fictional story of my own. So here it is. I hope you like it.
Lily walked along the beach, visually searching the scores of dead marine animals that lined the shore. So, so many this time, she thought. The Navy obviously had not stopped their sonar testing despite the fact that it always produced a veritable massacre. Her beach had always been so beautiful before, but lately it had begun to resemble a slaughter house. She remembered how many times she had walked along this beach and watched the dolphins in the distance as they jumped high out of the sea and then dove back under again. Sometimes the waves would bring one a bit closer in, where it would rise straight up on its fin, dancing on the water and chuckling its high pitched dolphin laugh as it gazed upon the humans sunning themselves on the sand. But there was no dolphin laughter today. Today, there were only swollen, odiferous bodies with slick sides that shone as the sun reflected off of them. Lily started to count, but gave up when she had gotten to twenty. Most were small pilot whales, but she did see a shark or two and a dolphin. She hoped it was not one that she knew.
As she scrambled down the rocks intending to head toward the shore, something caught her immediate attention. There was some sort of creature lying partially up against a large boulder. It was long and slender, shaped almost like a snake, with blue grey skin and appeared to have slammed into the protruding stones very hard. Lily approached cautiously. This creature did not look like any fish she had ever seen, but she felt compelled to get closer, to know more. Slowly, she made her way over to the creature. Although it was facing away from her, she could tell that its back appeared to be moving up and down ever so slightly, almost like it was breathing. But fish did not breathe. What was this thing?
Paying attention to only what was in front of her, she accidentally stepped on a shell which crunched loudly under her foot. For a moment, the creature seemed to stop breathing. Lily stood motionless, afraid to move. Slowly, the creature turned until its body was facing her. She could not believe what she was seeing. Its head was smooth with a face that had enormous round, pale blue eyes. It did not appear to have a nose, at least not a nose as we know it. There was a slight bump where the nose would have been, with two very small holes that could be nostrils. It did not have ears, instead having what appeared to be gills on either side of its head. Its mouth was large with full lips that were parted, exposing long pointy teeth. It had two arms with large hands and fingers that were webbed. A raised ridge ran all the way down its back, from the top of its head down to the beginning of its tail fin. Overall, it appeared to be almost six feet long. The thing appeared to be gasping for air. Lily’s eyes grew wide as she realized what it was. This could not be happening. She had heard of these beings, but never really believed they actually existed.
The creature weakly reached out in her direction as if it was asking for mercy. It whimpered forlornly and wore a facial expression that was full of fear but also great sadness. It was then that Lily noticed the dark blue liquid that was pooling on the sand, a puddle that was growing rapidly. The creature was hurt badly. Lily felt sorry for it and desperately wanted to help but did not know how. Maybe she could try to get it back into the sea. There, maybe it could find more like itself that could help it. But no, it was too late. With a pain filled, high pitched scream, the fish like animal’s head fell back onto the rock. The breathing stopped. It was out of its misery. Lily walked over to the dead creature. She should shove the body back into the ocean, she thought. She did not want the Navy or anyone else to desecrate the remains of such a fabulous thing, dissecting and testing and tearing it apart. It belonged in the sea and back to the sea was where it was going. She started to grab its arm when she heard a soft almost inaudible mewing sound. Lily cautiously turned the creature over, then cried out in amazement. For there was a tiny being, a carbon copy of the other only much, much smaller who had obviously been hidden by its parent. It writhed back and forth, flopping its tiny tail in the moist sand that abutted the rocks.
Lily did not know what to do. She could not leave the little one here or it would either die or be found and suffer a fate she could only imagine. She did not want to put it in the ocean for she feared the sonar had scattered any of its kind that may have been near enough to rescue it. But she couldn’t keep it either and even if she did, she had no idea how to prevent it from starving to death. As she pondered her dilemma, she began to hear the sounds of men shouting in the distance. Peering over the rocks, she could see people in uniforms exiting military trucks. They headed towards the dead whales carrying equipment for testing and who knows what else. She had to get the poor little creature out of here or it would eventually be discovered. Once found, the Navy would surely confiscate it, or even worse, someone with bad intentions could take it and exploit it or even kill it outright. Ever since the documentary that claimed to prove the existence of these beings had aired earlier in the year, people had flocked to the oceans, in hunt of the so called mermaids. Many others had dismissed the alleged proof as being a hoax because no real evidence had ever surfaced, until now. If this mermaid child was discovered, the species would be doomed. They would be hunted into extinction. Those that survived would be captured and put on display or sent to a research facility to be poked, prodded, tortured and experimented on. Instantly, Lily made a decision. A little further down the beach was a cave that according to legend, had been used by pirates to hide out thus eluding the authorities. In the cave was an underground lake, fed by the sea. It was there that she would go. Once there, she could place the tiny mermaid in the lake and maybe catch some fish for it to eat. But no time to figure out a plan at the moment, the people were even now making their way towards the rocks. She had to hurry!
As the shouts got closer, Lilly hastily dragged the parent’s body back into the water. It took a few tries, but finally she was able to push it out past the waves where she hoped the sea would eventually give it the watery burial that it deserved. Then she returned to the rocks and scooped up the baby. It would only take a few minutes to get to the cave’s entrance. Little did she know that what she was about to do was history in the making. Two species that had never previously met, had made first contact. But the impact of the momentous occasion never even crossed Lily’s mind. Walking swiftly to the cave entrance, she assessed the being she held in her arms. It was kind of cute in a strange sort of way, she thought and smiled as realization flooded her mind. This innocent was simply a child needing a mommy, and that mommy was her. Entering the cave, she bent her head and whispered to her new charge. “Don’t cry little one. It’s going to be alright. I’ve got this.”
THE BEGINNING :)