As with most any woman, I doubt I was the one she would have chosen to be reeled in by. She did not see me from across some crowded room and feel a magnetic pull, or get struck by a lightning bolt. Rather we were thrown together by happy accident, or maybe not so much an accident. Let me explain.

You see, I caught her.

In all the wide world, and in all of the deep oceans upon it, she and I were brought together by destiny; she happening upon an irresistible morsel during her northward migration, I with pole in hand upon a secluded, vacation shoreline.

I pulled her from the water with a mere 40lb. test, proving that we were meant to be, as she was easily heavy enough to break the line’s tenuous hold if so inclined. I carried her onto the beach, lying her gently down in the white sand where I brushed the dark hair away from her wild, frightened eyes whilst simultaneously removing the hook with the tenderest of fingers, not wanting to scar the sensuous beauty of her lips.

She resigned herself then, giving in to my manliness, giving herself over as I whispered sweet nothings and stroked her with gentle fingers while she gasped, her lungs straining at the unfamiliar air. I rolled her onto her side, allowing the seawater an escape. Her body spasmed as the dark water lurched from her lungs, staining the sand. With her eyes away my fingers felt for and found the knife in my belt. I raised it above her, pummeling the shafted end fatally into the back of her head, but the first blow did not take, and a merciful second was unfortunately required.

Her body stiff and still I picked carried her through the deep sand to the station on the pier where I could test her weight, and get a souvenir photo. Surely she was some kind of island record. And beside the station was a taxidermist, where the sexier half of her would be forever shellacked to a wood plaque for hanging above the mantle at home.

Oh, Pooky-Bear was not going to be happy with this trophy.

At the beach again

My second home

The sun is rising gently

Yet something feels close

I don’t know what it is

So I look towards the sea

And see something magical

It seems like it’d be

A goddess, or a sign

Like a star that's fallen

So, I walk over to it

It lays there sullen

It opens its mouth

The most beautiful song

The siren calls me over

My conscience tells me to run

I get closer to it

Half fish, half man

Teeth as long and sharp

As razors, and

Its nails are like rusty ones

Bloody from its prey

It issues me over

I walk its way

It tells me to come closer

It has something to say

I’m inches from its face

And it starts to play

A song out of nothing

It grabs my neck

I grab its wrist

Im trying to check

Am i gonna make it

I get dragged into the sea

The sunrise and bubbles

Are the last things I see

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A townsgirl was stepping lightly along the shoreline, through an outcropping of trees.

The stand was imposing with new and mature evergreen and deciduous varieties waving within a fine mixed of sand and soil. She appreciated the wildlife that hummed steadily above and below. Yes indeed she marveled at the poetic life... Caterpillars crawled, butterflies and moths took flight, in fleeting haikus... Leaves floated across like Tanka impressing thoughts upon Life's canvas... unidentified micro-writes whittled limbs and roots, and decompressing nonviscera. Elaborate vines of budding thoughts essayed for the canopy of tree tops... lyrics sung with and without rhyme.

She heard birds, but she sensed something else, too. A calling... was it a whispering through the trees? All the branches seemed to beckon so welcomingly: Come here, rest a meter, lean with me.... The wind was playing some kind of mental tricks. She would have swore the surround sound spoke with mostly one voice. And that it was directed at the listener. At her, to be specific. She peered around each trunk. She tried to speak to it, but confusion settled in with the obscurity of long and dark meandering shadows and the real obstacle of underbrush. The path itself took pity on her, and ended, as she followed to the edge of the water. The wind picked up. The sound was lost to the incoming tide.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

She turned around and saw the distant woods, after walking awhile. Suddenly she heard it again, unmistakably, but now coming from one direction.... Behind a towering ridge of rock. Curious, as ever, she made the precarious climb and peered over the top.

There, at the bottom of the other side was a person playing an instrument of many voices with just one underlying haunting tone... In its own distinctive way, potent and beautiful... echoing passed the rock, in a deceptive swirl of sound. Her breath caught when she saw the person adjusting his fish tail scales and put the instrument down... Arrested eyes now fully locked.

"Hello"

"Hello."

"I heard you playing all the way through the forest... I thought the trees were singing in chorus..."

"Haha. ... disappointed?"

"No. Not at all... I had the feeling it was something more... orchestrated. Mm... what is that?" He hesitated, and she pointed to the instrument of many buttons, eyelets, buds and mikes.

"A recorder."

"Oh."

...it didn't look like the flutes used to practice on in grade school. It seemed somehow vintage and simultaneously newly minted. She gave ample wait time, while he adjusted his tail.

"It's special. It has ancestral history. My own... Invention. It reaches quite far..."

"Recorder," she mused attentively, "Does it... work both ways?"

"Yes. Yes, it does," he said ...pressing Play

04.05.2023

Water, wind, and sea challenge @adiii_starry

For Rathsha.

The deep dark allure of her nearly translucent skin.

For Rathsha.

The shape of her mouth, splayed wide and long.

For Rathsha.

Her name.

Her name a cast of the 'rah' of the waves,

the 'th' as they peeled back

and the 'sha' as the wind whistled through the coming sea,

tempted to sweep her away again.

Her eyes would open,

deep coins of gold.

Gleaming, brightly staring in bated curiosity.

I thought, she was beautiful and I reached a hand out to the curious

yet monstrous thing beneath me.

She almost bit me.

RAH!

The waves grew angry, the clouds rumbled an echo of agreeance.

I was not permitted to touch the beautiful,

yet deep sea fish that beckoned me forth.

Her hands were webbed,

a long lantern hung over her face, bioluminescent I'm sure.

SHA!

The wind screamed, calling for her to go back.

It was whipping up a strong brew,

dark gray moody clouds spinning up as the waves peeled back.

SHA!

They screamed again, whistling louder in my ears till I glanced up from her,

seeing the wave peel up from the ocean floor, ready to slap me down for touching it's beloved deep sea dweller.

I could see her forming a word on her lips.

A language I didn't know and then a rush of black before I was smashing up against the seaside shack behind me.

Rocks, branches, trees and limbs of things I could not see were colliding against my body.

Cold.

Then hot searing pain ran through me.

I was sure I would die.

I could see the opening maw of her finally, the weight depressing as she scooped me up and a twinkle of white above as I sank into the further depths.

Breathe!

My lungs ached for breath, but her embrace was beautiful and warm.

She hugged me, sinking down till the pressure was too great and choked the very last air from my already breathless lungs.

I must have reached up, my hand longing for reprieve, for air.

And then she was pressing her sealed lips to mine, something forcing into my lungs.

When I opened my eyes again, I was at the bottom.

Gleaming yellow all around me.

Gleaming lanterns.

I could see the gleam in her eye.

She wanted me.

I smiled back at her.

A tawny gleam of color in my own dark eyes before the dark overtook me.

I was hers.

And she was mine.

Sweet.

Dear.

Rathsha.

We were walking by the seaside when it happened. The old lady emerged from the sea, seaweed curling round her torso like a tunic. She groaned, and when she opened her mouth, shells of red and blue came tumbling like flowers onto the sand. I grabbed Jenny’s hand and we darted backwards.

“Don’t be afraid,” the mermaid laughed throatily and fell onto her chest. Shells continued to spill from her mouth, bathing the beach in a colourful mosaic. Then behind her came two women, one haggard, one younger. Both were wrapped in leaves and spotted in algae. They lay beside the mermaid, wordless, their chests pressed into the sand, and opened their mouths to sing out the song of the sea. Saltwater trickled down the beach. Little fish writhed in the water, squirming to be free of the women’s mouths, then squirming for air and shivering to a still. A graveyard of fish bodies. Shining in the sun.

“Let’s go.” Jenny crushed my hand in her grip.

I turned to her. “Don’t you want to see what this is about?”

She hauled me up the beach, not looking at me. She was very strong, my girlfriend.

“We could sell the shells on ebay,” I said, “we could make this a tourist attraction.”

Jenny scoffed. She vaulted a fence and offered me her hand.

“At least let me take a picture, Jenny. Imagine how viral it would be.”

“You disturb me, Carl.”

Before I took her hand and left the beach behind, I turned back one more time. There were a whole assembly of them now, bodies stumbling from the waves and collapsing in the sand, glowing in the early morning sun. No one else would visit this beach for some time. It was our private spot. Nobody would see what had taken place, and no one would believe me.

“We can’t forget this, ok? You see those people too?”

Jenny stared at me, and held out her other hand. “Come on, Carl.”

“You can see them as well?”

Jenny stuck her hands through the gaps in the fence, grabbed my waist and started to haul me over.

It wasn’t that I didn’t mind leaving. “If we’re leaving, at least tell me you’ll remember what we saw. We shouldn’t tell anyone else, though, Jenny. Oh, your dad would flip out!” I toppled over the fence and landed in the grass.

“There’s a reason this beach is our private place,” Jenny said, her face tilted away from me. “I’ll make sure they’re not here next time.”