An Autistic Mermaid Tail

Chapter One: Cassidy Lovetail

As long as I can remember, I always dreamed about the land. Unfortunately, Mother would always remind me that humans are barbaric. Wait... am I forgetting something? Ah, yes. I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Cassidy. I bet you are wondering a lot of things. I'm wondering a lot of things, too. I mean, do you have two legs? Can you read?

Poseidon's tail, where are my manners? I should not be asking such rude questions. Let me start from the beginning because you seem to be confused.

I was born near Hawaii, somewhere in the Pacific. I was a very happy merbaby, always swimming around and trying to beach myself. Mother always pulled me away. It was irritating because I was so curious. I had always figured that everyone on the planet had a tail. I was always the envy of many merfolk. They would always admire my tail and my emerald green eyes.

"Such a beautiful cobalt tail, and with matching hair!" Some of my mother's friends always complimented. "I wish my eyes were emerald green." Other merfolk would remark when they think I was not listening. I was perfectly content with swimming in circles and rubbing my tail gently.

When I was five, things changed. I was always rather shy, and some of the merchildren started making stinging remarks. I spent a lot of time crying.

"What's wrong, little Cassidy?" Mother always asked as she combed my cobalt hair with a spiky shell.

I didn't have the words to describe why I felt like this. I was sad and lonely all the time. I stayed away from other merchildren. Father would try to get me to swim with him. I'd come along, even though he worked with sea kelp. I had always hated that texture. It feels wrong, as in the texture feels wrong. I would shudder every time my tail brushed up against that gunk.

"You'll learn to love it," Father always told me. Ha, it would take an act of Poseidon in order for me to touch that again. So I stayed near things that I find to be texturally pleasant, such as dolphins and starfish. I was terrified of octopi because they were so quick and they always try to muck up my tail. I hate the feeling of ink on my tail.

Father was terrified of octopi, too, but that was because his brother once shoved a very angry octopus at him. After that, if you were at a mermaid party and you hear somebody scream as if they were attacked by a shark, that was my dad screaming at the sight of a tiny octopus. When that happens, merfolk nearby are always about ready to fight the danger until Mother tells them, "Rick is fine. He just saw an octopus."

Merfolk figured out that there was something peculiar about me when I was six. They muttered, "Hm... that Cassidy Lovetail is a little peculiar. She should see a specialist." I didn't really understand what they meant, since Mother was a specialist herself.

That evening, Mother took me to see Prof. Minka. I disliked him from the get go. He insisted on touching me, his too-large hands brushing against my tail. He shined a light in my eyes using an anglerfish. I squinted because it looked like the afternoon sun. Finally, he had me perform a series of games that confused me. One game was particularly unpleasant. He had me swim backwards for him, and then make faces at him.

At the end of it all, he told Mother, "Sorry, Ms. Lovetail, but your daughter has autism."

That was a bad day for Mother. She stared at me as if I did something bad. That night, I heard her arguing with Father. It sounded something like,

Mother: Rick, you can't continue working in the kelp!

Father: I'm providing you well, aren't I?

Mother: It's dangerous! Cassidy needs you!

Father: How is Cassidy involved!?

Mother: I fear that she will be bullied when she starts merschool, or worse, thinks that she can be with humans!

Father: Nonsense!

I didn't want to hear anymore. I swam up towards the surface to look at the land. I knew that it didn't look right for me to be up there, so I swam back down. Mother and Father were still arguing, which never happened before. I couldn't cry myself to sleep, because sleep seems impossible to come by. I wish I knew what had upset Mother.

I murmured to Henry, my pet dolphin, "Hopefully, I can make Mama and Papa happy." I buried my face into my anemoe pillow, hoping tomorrow is not so bad.

The next day, Mother sent me off to school on a manta ray. She told me, "Be good. Stay away from the land."

Everyone treats this land like it's bad. I don't really know why. My teacher told me a story, and it stuck with everyone. By everyone, I mean everyone but me.

Apparently, when the humans developed technologies, they started hunting us. Magic was about to go to the way of the dinosaurs, and we were defenseless. After that, one mermaid was crazy enough to head to the land and become a human herself. It worked, but under the sacrifice of being unable to breathe underwater. It's an ugly story involving a lot of pain and apparently a nasty choice between becoming bubbles or killing her love, but apparently, there is some person called "Disney" who decided to prettify the story and made it so that she got married.

So, yeah. Mermaids do not interact with humans because of the fact that they try to kill us. I secretly wish we could all get along, but no use crying over it. That day marked the first time I saw a human. I was performing water flips on my way home from school when I saw a shadow cast over me. I glanced up, and I saw a strange shape above me. It looked a bit like a turtle, but the flippers were weird, almost as if they were squashed. I gasped, and just when I was about to swim up towards it, something pulled me down.

"Oy!" I whispered. I glanced down to see my father pulling me by the tail. "What-!"

"Human," he whispered back. "Leave it alone. Merfolk cannot interact with them."

"But why?" I asked, tears threatening to spill.

"It's against mermaid law." He replied bluntly, again tugging me down.