The Mermaid's Song

I remember how it all started, rather vividly.  For the past six months, I’ve been inflicted with insomnia.  Sleep has been impossible, a teasing vixen, haunting my every hour.  Days had started to blend together, and nights were all the same.  I would spend hour after hour of staring at the unchanging ceiling, hour after hour of listening to my blood pound in my ears, and hour after hour, waiting for the morning to tell me it was time to leave my room.  Books were useless.  I couldn’t concentrate; it seemed like my mind was always working, twisting and whirring.  Sleeping pills worked the first two nights, and then I was wide awake again by the third.  Everything was surreal, and all I wanted was sleep, sweet, eluding sleep. 

                After six weeks of this, I started to take walks at night.  At about midnight, I would quietly let myself out of our small house and walk the streets until the sun rose.  One night I walked to the beach.  I picked a spot and sat down and stared out at the waves.  The endless crashing blended into the dark night’s silence, making it the most peaceful lullaby I had ever heard.  It was my own symphony, my own orchestra.  The waves crashing on the sand and the wind whistling over the beach was like Beethoven to me.  And it all seemed to blend seamlessly into the silence that offered the greatest sound of all.  And for the first time in over a month, I slept.  Right there on the sand, in my clothes, on the beach, listening to my symphony. 

                I woke up near dawn, to the peck of a curious seagull.  My first reaction was panic, but once I realized that I had slept, it was of complete happiness. After I had picked the sand out of my ears and out of my hair, I sat and watched the sunrise before getting up and walking back along the empty streets to my house.  This was the first day in a long time where I had felt it was good to be alive. I felt my blood pumping, pounding and thudding. And it was a relief! A sweet release from the waking dreams that had tormented me for so long. I was rested and alive, alive and thankful.  So the next night, I did the same thing.  I walked to the beach, an old afghan under my arm, and a spring in my step. My symphony played me a private concert every night, with encores and fermatas galore.  And every morning, I watched the sunrise and took the walk back to my house in peace, marveling at the silent town, comparing it to the bustling one it would become in an hour. 

                It was after this had been going on for a while that I heard the singing, and that tantalizing song.  I was sleeping a symphony induced lapse, when I awoke.  It was still dark, not even a tinge of sun on the horizon.  Unaware of why I was awake, I tried to focus back in on my symphony, when I noticed that another instrument had been added to my orchestra, a beautiful melody, and it was center stage.  It was a voice as wistful as the wind and as light as the sea spray.  I was paralyzed as I sat and listened to this voice, at first indiscernible, but then I started to make out the words of the song, as the tune wove itself perfectly into the crashing waves.

                “As the sunsets, and the stars rise,

                We come out and rub our eyes

                We sing our tunes and cast our nets

                We splash and play but ne’er forget

                That when the sun comes and the stars hide,

                We take our leave and down we dive.”

I was mystified.  Whoever this was, whoever was singing, had taken my symphony and introduced it to a new stage.  I looked around wildly for the person who was singing, and made out a shape sitting on the rocky outcrop that bordered the sea to my left.  I started to get up, but then a thought occurred to me.  What if she came here for the same reason I did, to be alone? I quelled my first instinct and sat still, letting the darkness shroud me.  My mind created a million more questions. What if she found out I was listening and didn’t sing anymore, what a tragedy that would be.  I listened as she sang about the shells and the stars and the sand, and I fell asleep to her voice in my ears, lingering in my thoughts, and weaving into my subconscious.   

                When I awoke at dawn, the singing was gone.  I walked over to the outcrop but there was no one there.  There was an old fish bone lying on the rock, and fish scales in a cobalt color.  I reached for some of the scales, and upon examining it, it suddenly appeared green.  And on closer inspection, it was purple.  They were roughly the size of a quarter and were slick to the touch, like a smooth river stone.  I pocketed it and looked around the rocky area for footsteps or any indication where my singer had come from. But there were none.  As dawn drew nearer, and the sky went from a dark bruise to a ripe peach, I knew it was time to go.  So, with my curiosity completely unsatisfied, I left. 

                As the nights went by I waited for the singer to appear. Sometimes she did, and sometimes I was disappointed. But when she did, oh, my happiness! On those nights I would fall asleep to the dulcet tones of the mysterious singer.  When she was present, I was too afraid to approach her, for fear she would cease to sing, and leave me forever without the melody to my symphony.  And in the mornings when I awoke, she would be gone, and there was no sign of her.  Frequently, I found the kaleidoscope scales and seashells on the girls perch.  Every day I went home disappointed, slowly trudging through the sand, back towards civilization, and back towards a mundane day devoid of music.