For hundreds of years, thousands perhaps, you humans have imagined us, mythologized us, and, worse, breathed life into us with your silly songs, sea chanties, and scrimshaw paintings. Hair that is tangle free, even in the water, eyes the color of stolen emeralds, songs that make you go mad, smashing perfectly good boats into the rocky coast. Not to disappoint, but none of these stories tell the truth. No. We are real, but not like that.
To start, if you saw us, you would not readily forsake your womenfolk, insuring your timely death; rather you would hunt us, spearing us on your harpoons, wondering: how can I make sure that no more exist?
Like guppies, or betta fish, we all look the same with our shape. One is not better than the other. No need for corsets as our waists already bend and flow like the seagrass that lives down below. Our bodies, if you could remember the differences, are somewhat translucent, illuminating our heartbeat, when water pools around our gills. Our faces are more human, but there is something different, more complex. Pointy teeth in the back, ready for grinding bones and sinewy muscle. Our eyes are of the blackest black, which makes us look afraid. We aren’t.
The absence of sound is how we speak. We can read each other’s thoughts, so there’s no need for foolish words or phrases anymore. If our sister has an idea, then it becomes another sister’s idea, and another’s, until we all, in unison, are sharing the same idea. Sometimes it becomes crowded with so many mind thoughts, but we don’t fight with one another because eventually all of our ideas snap into cohesion.
So, as you recheck your timepiece, questioning our origin, remember: once we were just like your womenfolk. Some of us were beautiful; just as many were not. What we shared with human girls, from what our collective memory lets us remember (otherwise, the missing of our past would surely account for tears, and we don’t cry), is that we all made the same choice. Had we made different choices, were less curious, then perhaps we would still be there with you.
Since we don’t sing songs for you, or speak tongues you can hear, we have another way of communicating with human folk. Late at night, when the moon dips behind the clouds, if we see a woman, youngish of course, then we descend upon the boat. Making sure no one else is there, we form a circle in the water and rub our fins together. The sweetest music it makes!
In some part of the ocean, our tails play a tune, so sweet that the auburn-haired girl of twenty and four leans over the boat. Her eyes shine with wonder, tears wetting her eyelashes as she tries to find the source of that sound. You imagine we smell of fish and a salty brew, but together, we create a scent similar to what you have named lavender. She goes wild for our scent. When her fingers skim across the water’s surface, she feels something is wrong and pulls her hand back with fright. But it’s too late; we are stronger than she is. Now she belongs to us. She tries to fight, but we overwhelm, we bite. Still, she claws at us, scratches one of our eyes. All that’s lying behind are the pearl buttons ripped from her filmy gown. We don’t need them; they aren’t even real!
Stabbing her fingers at us, to break free, weakens her body further. One of us bites her wrist so she will stop moving. We all take a lick of her blood. We’re not hungry for humans, but it connects us somehow further. Still, everything slows down, and yet she does not die. Her lungs explode, because what good are they down here, and her legs fuse together into scales and slippery flesh. Eyes blacken too, back teeth grow pointy. Somewhere in the lizard part of her brain, she starts to scream. It hurts our shell-shaped ears, but we all had a first scream and know that soon she will understand. She must.
We descend lower and lower until we brush the ocean floor with our fins, kicking up steam from the vents. Through the seaweed tendrils and the steam emerges our QUEEN. She looks nothing like us, and yet we have draped her with all of the very best pearls. Her appearance includes a loosened black mouth, but she shares our same pointy back teeth. The deepest yellow eyes stare through the mist. Through the steam, her words find us and demand, “What have you brought me then?” She notices the new one, with her auburn-colored hair, and says, “It will take years until she’s seasoned and ready to eat.”
Our QUEEN, whose body puddles around and leaves an oil slick trail, asks who will volunteer for this year’s feast. We tuck our tails behind us; it’s a sign of respect. Except one. There’s always one whose glimmer of humanity remembers and says the word no. “I want that one,” says our QUEEN. We circle the chosen one before she swims away, subduing her arms, holding a clamshell against her mouth. We hear and taste her scream. A knife, made from shark teeth, chops through her fin, sawing through each layer, rendering her dumb. Our tongues flick with the anticipation of one drop of her blood. Our QUEEN, our QUEEN, tilts our chins and pours a drop down our throats. We burn with her, suffused with her energy, knowing both the beginning and the end.
After our QUEEN has feasted, she says, “Someday it will be your turn too.”
As the moon hides behind the clouds and mist, watch your daughters. Watch your wives. Or watch the ones you hope to someday love. Every corner of the ocean we stalk, with our need for just one more. And then another.
Noelle Shoemate has taken writing classes at NYU, Gotham, Catapult, and the New School. She holds a master’s degree in clinical counseling and has worked as a psychotherapist with an emphasis on treating both women and girls. Her therapeutic background informs her writing, which focuses on issues of sexuality, relationships, and trauma. She enjoys cooking, yoga, and hiking.
