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The Mermaid Behind the Glass
Sometimes things need to be seen to be believed.
The mermaid watches me with sorrowful eyes.
I put my fingertips to the glass of her prison, but the small distance feels great enough to encompass entire lifetimes.
This is the third time I’ve seen her. She’s the latest novelty of a traveling freak show, but I have no eyes for the other oddities. No, I’ve eyes only for her — this ocean queen who’d been stolen away from her underwater kingdom.
“What kind of life have you lived?” I murmur even though she cannot hear me. To her, I’m just as mysterious as I find her in all her mad beauty. Her long blonde hair whirls around her in tendrils of gold. Her blue eyes are like jewels plucked from a bed of sapphires.
I imagine myself a little in love with her.
If my father were here, he would call me a fool.
“You have no time for such nonsense,” he would spit at me. “Do you want to be love-struck, or do you want to be a success?”
It’s already been three months since his funeral, but I still recall his snide swagger of conversation. My father talked, and you listened. There was no compromise.
At least staring at the captive mermaid is an escape. I wonder what it would be like…
