Fins and Flippers

Fins and Flippers - Chapter Two

My mouth hung open and a brief choking sound spluttered its way out. Usually people would have given me strange glances but for once they didn’t since they were doing exactly the same thing. The whole village stared, flabbergasted, at the merman washed up on the beach. There was no doubting what he was. I struggled for words, unable to think of what to say and do, until someone mouthed my thoughts for me.

Through the whispering crowd a voice struck out into the bitter early morning air and the whole crowd parted like a seam on some stitching to let the owner of voice through. To my complete and utter surprise I saw myself staring at old mad man Oran, something of a village weirdo in the area. Everyone crosses the street to avoid him and he’s even more hated than me. Sometimes it’s slightly comforting to see him suffer, to remind myself that life could be worse. Of course he doesn’t whine to anyone like I do. I think everyone’s too tired of listening and has just left him be.

Ignoring my many thoughts about the creepy old man, I turn to face him. Apparently he was a failed heart surgeon and then turned into the prophecy before retirement, netting him quite a lot of money. Apparently he had quite a knack for it. Unfortunately he went on our love scale to one to zero when the surgeon who had killed three patients all in one day by surgery failures turned into a mad old psycho reciting goodness knows what into the sky, gabbling on.

“Let him speak, I say. Let him speak.”

To my bewilderment, everyone hushed and turned to see the now flushing face of the merman gazing up at the crowds of people swarming all around him. There was a silence which could probably engulf an age as the whole village leaned in, craning their necks and squinting through their eyes just so they could see his face. I noticed, as I joined the crowds staring at him, that his left eye was a deep blue like the depths of the ocean while the right was a frothy green, just like the colour of his tail. The tail which just about as many people seemed to be staring at. Eventually, taking in the silence, the merman opened his mouth and manage to choke out a word.

“Hi.”

Suddenly the crowd went into a hubbub of voices, from the hushed whispers of before to full blown screeching at the top of their lungs.

“He said something.”

“What did it say?”

“Was that hi, surely not?”

“That’s probably monster speak for I’ll eat you all.”

“It can speak?”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Call the police!”

“Someone get help, and quick.”

“What is it?”

“Is he human?”

“Hi.”

The whole crowd suddenly craned their heads around to see who had just spoken, me included. But suddenly I saw that they were all looking at me and I felt my mouth wide open, the word just having slipped out. The looks everyone was giving me were a mixture of horror, surprise, disgust and general bewilderment. Of course I just shrugged them off with evils to whoever was looking at me, which happened to be the whole village, and turned back to the merman, or merboy, or merteen or whatever.

“Well, hi,” I said again, the boy’s face one of puzzlement.

“Hi,” he murmured and then wriggled slightly in the net causing the whole crowd to jump back a step. Everyone apart from me, that is. Once again I found myself staring at him, open mouthed and unsure of what to say exactly. Then I shut my mouth as quickly as it opened, I wasn’t just about to gawp. It wasn’t like I’d never seen a mermaid before. Well technically he was a merman and he was the only other member of my species I had ever set my sights on, but I still kept my jaw clamped shut until I realised everyone was waiting for me to speak. Even then, although I complied with their obvious wishes, my evils still stayed zapping anyone in the crowd who stared at me too much.