Last summer, I challenged some of my students to help me with some columns over the summer. They gave me the first and last lines of a potential fictional short story. My task was to take those lines and write the middle. It was a lot of fun, so I’ve asked my students to help me again. This week’s inspiration was provided by Jordan Horejsi.
One day I was swimming along, doing my daily laps in our local pool, when we were told we had to leave the swimming area immediately. Because of an emergency clog in the chlorination system, the staff had to elutriate everything through a special strainer before we could return to the water.
Since I had nearly reached my goal for that day, I decided just to head to the locker room, shower, dress, and head home. I figured I could add the last couple laps to my routine tomorrow if I had time.
However, when I got back to the pool the next day, signs were posted that major repairs were needed, and the facility would be closed for the foreseeable future. What would I do? I felt so good about myself when I was in the water; I had started this routine as a way not only to get in better shape but also to work through the pain of losing my mother the year before. The repetitious nature of swimming helped me relax and deal with my feelings.
Life had been rough prior to my mother passing. I had just changed jobs, forced out of my job at the newspaper due to the shrinking culture of print news. No sooner had I begun my new job at a local grocery store when my mother found out she had stage four cancer. My boss at the store was really understanding and flexible with my need to help my mother and then handle everything with the funeral. I’m an only child, so it was just me and my husband to do most of the work. My dad was really struggling with all of it and still is.
I felt a bit of anxiety when I thought about taking more than a day off from my swimming routine. Someone else had come to the front door and read the sign. “Shoot,” he said before glancing up at the brilliant sun in the sky. “I guess I’ll head to the beach today instead.”
That thought had briefly passed through my mind too. But for all the benefits of living in North Carolina, the proximity of the beach was not one that I took advantage of too often. You would think when you live in a town named Sunset Beach, you’d be there all the time, but I hated the touristy aspect of that part of town. Still, if I wanted to do some swimming, it looked like I had little choice.
As I drove out to the sandy beach, I tried to determine how long I’d be there. After all, I couldn’t count laps in the Atlantic Ocean. Instead, once I got there and took in the lay of the land, I noticed some buoys out a ways. I did some mental calculations and estimated how many times out and back would equal what I normally swam. The ocean looked relatively calm, so I dove right in and started.
By my second trip out to the buoy I had set as a target, I realized how much more exhausting swimming in the ocean is compared to the pool. I decided to pull up and hang on to the buoy to catch my breath before heading back to the beach. As I shook the water out of my hair and wiped down my face, I thought I caught a glimmer of a head rising out of the sea a little farther away. It quickly disappeared, though, so I played it off to a figment of my imagination.
Just as I was ready to head back to shore, I glanced out where I had seen that mirage… and there it was again! Only this time, I could recognize the face – it looked like my mother! As my eyes widened, she ducked back under and was soon by my side. I was flabbergasted. “You… it can’t be… Mom?” I stammered.
She smiled at me. I knew I must be dreaming. Maybe I had hit my head on the buoy and was sinking to the bottom. That must be it; this was death. But then she spoke. “My darling,” she said with a glowing smile that I remembered from my youth. “Yes, it is really me,” she continued while I hung there, slack jawed.
I gathered my wits. “But that’s not possible. You’re dead!”
“Yes, I was,” she replied. Then I saw something behind her. It was a tail sliding in and out of the water. Wait, my mother was a mermaid? Now I knew I must have really hit my head hard. She looked behind her, following my gaze, then turned back with that same smile on her face. “I know what you must be thinking,” she said. “But mermaids are real, and I am one. And you can become one too!”
She paused, letting me take it all in before continuing. “If you remember, your grandmother died of cancer, same as me.” I could recall those days when I was ten; my mother would be gone a lot, helping my grandma through her final days. “Cancer is a horrible thing,” she said. “But release from that can lead to something marvelous, a life as a mermaid under the ocean. Those who showed selflessness during life are repaid with a new life in a fantastic setting.”
She stopped for a bit, trying to let me connect the dots. When she saw the recognition in my eyes, she got a twinkle in her own. “Wait, so I’m dead?” I asked.
“Yes, I’m afraid your first instincts were correct,” she responded. “You did hit your head. But because of your great sacrifices in caring for me at the end, you shall receive the same reward I did.” She swam around me three times, and suddenly I found I could swim with ease, flapping my own tail behind me. It was glorious!
And that’s how I discovered the truth about mermaids and how I became one.
Word of the Week: This week’s word is elutriate, which means to purify or separate, often by washing or straining, as in, “The mother constantly was trying to elutriate her child’s clothes from the mud they always seemed to find.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!