It’s strange that nobody tells you about dreams.

Everyone knows the good bits: the longing, the waiting, the fancies and the euphoria. I remember it well. Sometimes I look back on those days and wonder if the current has carried off the last of my treasures: the remaining bits and pieces of my carefully curated life. It’s hard to imagine the grotto now, knowing no one cares for it, and that I’ll never be able to return.

I longed for land and love. But nobody told me about the fish. They bolt at my approach, terrified by the sound of my legs. Did you know they eat them here? Hundreds of them: little lives served up on silver platters. I used to cry about it but now there’s only numbness. About everything. Senseless, everlasting numbness.

The few fish who trusted me have passed.

I wish fish lived longer lives.

I wish humans didn’t live so long.

Nobody told me fire hurts. Or that walking on sidewalks leaves blisters on your feet. Mine are covered in painful sores. Shoes are horrible things.

Eric doesn’t understand. I am a doll to him. I am the princess from the sea and nothing more. The diplomats from other countries look at me with sorrow, or pity, or shame.

Nobody believes it. Not a word. They think I’ve lost my wits. I am the insane princess from the unnamed realm that Eric married out of pity. I couldn’t see that at sixteen.

My father stopped visiting years ago. I suspect he’s gone and nobody bothered to tell me.

I don’t sing anymore.

But I’ve learned things. Pain has an end, and so does sorrow.

I know the difference between a dinglehopper and a knife.

And I know before the end of the night, my throat will be as red as my hair.

The cake is dripping with glossy ribbons of perfectly tempered chocolate. I take it from the counter and place it in front of her. She looks at me with despair and I know what she sees: the ironed apron tied around my waist, the sparkling floors, the children’s report cards gleaming with As on the spotless refrigerator door. I smile sweetly and say, “Not to worry, dear. It could be so much worse.” A look of angst overcomes her.

I know that look. Years ago she stood in a picket line holding a sign demanding the right to choose. A ballot. A box. A baby. Her eyes fell upon mine as I walked past poised and serene, a child dolefully in my arms and pity on my face. I shook my head slowly. She wore that same look of angst then. The seed of doubt was planted, and she would go on to hold the sign lower, question her own mind, and finally put it down.

Before that she longed for freedom, and I sat in the corner of the parlour, trussed up in ribbons and curls and giggling lightly at the idea that she could do anything more. Read. Write. Work. Publish. Nonsense. Best to be frivolous and protected. Best to be like me.

She thwarts me on occasion- oh yes, there is no doubt about that. But her successes are hard won and she still bears the scars. I render her roads rocky and to this day the seed of doubt is still there, making her agonize over whether the work and the choices and the freedom are worth it –to make her feel that she is somehow thwarting nature: an unnatural creature in a natural world.

I take a knife and cut a big slice of the cake.

“Here you are dear. No more man, you say? Then you’ve no need to worry about your waistline. Just enjoy.”

Because I do. I watch her cry and smile.

I wish my toes were red. Ruby red, like the ones I imagine in Marlene Dietrich films. Movies seem so long ago, Frida says I shouldn’t remember them, but I do. Little flicks of silver and white funneled into dreams on screen. I used to close my eyes at night, trying not to smell the rotting flesh and I would dream of film. Sahara desserts. Glamourous bars in tropical towns. Dance floors so shiny you could see your face reflected in them, and some handsome man, his hair slicked back, his feet barely touching the floor and whirling me in his arms round and round.

I would fall asleep dizzy, but I would sleep. I don’t think Frida has slept in years. She doesn’t look it.

I try not to think of my own looks. I haven’t been brave enough to step towards a mirror. I know my ribs are protruding and my breath has been foul for months. I’m quite sure two of my teeth are rotting, but at least they didn’t end up in buckets.

We heard stories. Awful stories, about buckets of teeth.

I hope they never make a film about that.

I don’t know why I picture film stars with red nails. It’s a bright red, not a harsh one. Not like blood. I thought about cutting the number off my arm, now that we are out, but I don’t think I could stand the sight of any more blood, at least not my own. Frida says that’s why they put the numbers on our arms in the first place: so if we try to cut them off, we take our own lives doing it and spare them all the trouble.

I worry about Frida.

But I worry more about where we’ll go. Nobody wants us. Strange, how so many wanted to save us, but nobody wants us. Not really. Everywhere we go, we’re turned back.

But as Frida says, it’s not so bad. We’ve seen worse. Friends turned to soot. Friends turned to soap. Oh yes. We both know there are much worse ways to be rejected.