ORIGINS: One of the words was PULSIEREN (to pulsate). If we take out the first E and put it somewhere else, we get the words PULE (crying plaintively) and SIREN. But we went with mourning mermaids.
The sea is gone. It dried up. The only thing that’s left is its voice, trapped inside spiral shells. I tried to go after the sea, I tried to follow the trail the sea left behind, but I couldn’t make myself fit inside one of those spiral shells. I felt hollow, like I had never felt before. I could find no comfort in the air, I needed to be embraced. That’s when I found a jellyfish stranded on the sand, just like me. I burrowed into that jellyfish, needing comfort that came from the heart. I thought that if I felt water around me one more time everything would be all right. But I still feel hollow. And I have no tears left to cry.
They lied to me. They told me that I would find seahorses. A companion. Someone just like me. I built our whole friendship inside my head. A castle on the horizon. And I filled it with my hopes, with my dreams. With all the things that now I have to mourn. Because this thing is not what I expected. I expected two halves. Someone as conflicted as I am. There is no horizon in this seahorse. There are no opposing pulls. There is no horse. There is no fish. How could this thing ever be a companion to a mermaid like me? How? When I know how to cry, and I am sure that this seahorse wouldn’t even recognize the rain for what it really is?
I always knew that one of my halves would die first, but I never expected that it would be the maid. I thought that the fish would be the first to go. That the fish would be the first to fall prey to disillusion. When it realized that the sea, that that thing that the fish believed to be endless and full of new wonders behind every corner, was really a small, small place. Just more of the same, behind every horizon. I thought that the maid would hold on to her dream. Of one day walking on land. I really thought that she would only fall prey to a monster that she saw with her own two eyes. But she gave up. She left me alone, with this fish, and no more dreams in sight.
If tears were fish, I would be the first to weave a fishing net. I would deplete the sea, until there were no fish, until there was no grief left for the future. I’m not blind. I know what I am, I know what I’ve done. The grief I have caused. I would let myself be washed ashore. Even though I know that apologizing doesn’t mend anything. I would at least make sure that no more tears found their way back to you.
I covered my eyes with my hands. I needed darkness to mourn you, so that nothing else would be reflected in my tears. I didn’t know that it would hurt so much. I had never dived to the bottom of the ocean before. I didn’t know that the fish that grow up surrounded by darkness have such sharp teeth. I cried. And one by one the tears I shed for you ate through my hands. Letting the light back in. Urging me to forget you, to let go of you. But don’t worry, my love. I have learned my lesson. I will wear a veil from now on.
We shared a dream once. And I don’t want to see anything else now. Only this memory reflected in my tears. We didn’t know how to swim, we barely knew how to dream, but it didn’t matter. We found a fish. And we rode it into the horizon. Selflessly, you said that you would be the sky. You let me be the sea. And you spurred that fish. You wanted us to touch the horizon. The place where you and I met, where you and I bonded, and for the briefest moment everything made sense. You wanted us to breathe each other in. Like only mermaids know how to do. You wanted to leave something in me, you wanted to keep something of mine. So, that is what we did. And now that you are gone, breathing doesn’t feel right anymore.
I wanted to do something nice for the world. I vowed to eradicate grief. I set sail, with mermaids in my sight. But the first mermaid I encountered told me that it wasn’t her fault, that it was a misunderstanding. She swore that she didn’t know how to sing. That those cruel songs that took sons from their mothers were someone else’s doing. Helpfully, that maligned mermaid pointed me in the right direction. Towards the whales. And I promised her that soon there would be no more heartless monsters in the sea.
I meant to talk sense into the queen, but my audience was denied. I had planned to tell her that mermaids shouldn’t be forced into mourning. That the sea’s water couldn’t be replenished by forcing someone to feel something that didn’t come naturally to them. But I don’t really need to see the queen to know what her response would be. She would tell me that it can be done with happiness, that people have been faking smiles for centuries, and there is no reason why mermaids can’t do the same with grief, if that is what their society needs of them.