The Twisted Tales

The Little Mermaid

 The Little Mermaid

   In a not so faraway kingdom, a Mer-king sat on his elaborate throne inside his magnificent castle under the grey sea. This Mer-king had six beautiful Mer-daughters.

   One night, the Mer-princesses swam to the surface of the sea. All came except the youngest, for she was not old enough.

   "The land-dwellers are terrible creatures!" exclaimed her grandmother, "They pollute our home with so much rubbish! They have killed so many of us!"

   But she still wanted to go.

   For weeks, she pleaded with her father, the King, and finally, she was free to visit the surface.

   She swam with excitement, and after what felt like a lifetime, she reached her destination. Her eyes sparkled at the sight before her: the brown murky water sloshing against the barnacle covered rocks on the shore and the floating pieces of waste from the human town nearby.

   Her gills burned with every breath of polluted water she inhaled, and she was in awe.

  What innovative beings!

  How creative!

  She stayed on her spot for hours until the sun had left and the moon had risen; the stars were barely visible in the sky.

  The little mermaid saw ships sailing by; gargantuan metal contraptions making their way across the sea. On these ships, she saw the strange beings with two peculiar appendages instead of a tail. Her grandmother called them humans.

  "The humans are ugly and stupid," her grandmother had said weeks before. To her, however, the humans were beautiful. They were graceful and strong, and she believed them to be creators of innovation.

  How could grandmother speak ill about these wondrous creatures?

  It was growing very late and soon there was only one ship left. The ship was medium in size with rust lining its edges. Its name was barely visible, but it mattered not for she could not speak the language of humans.

  Suddenly, a storm blew up. Huge waves tossed the ship up and down, and then backwards and forwards.

  The great god of the sea must be angry!

  Eventually, the ship capsized, throwing all the people on board into the dirty, chaotic sea.

  "Humans cannot survive in the sea like us," her eldest sister had told her a long time ago.

  She could hear cries for help and the splashes of water from the desperate humans who were drowning. After a while, their cries stopped.

  She looked around and examined the sinking human belongings. As she turned to her right, the little mermaid saw a man splashing in the murky water. She swam and hurried to his rescue. Holding him tightly, she brought him to the trash-filled shore.

  The little mermaid stayed at the man's side until the storm had passed. The sun had begun to peak out of the horizon and she knew she couldn't stay any longer.

  As she was swimming away, a woman with short black hair and multiple earrings walked down the dirty beach and saw the man lying on the piles of rubbish.

  "It's Prince!" the woman exclaimed. "I thought he was fucking dead!"

  Just then, Prince opened his eyes and sat up. A few more people approached him. One was a buff but bald man with a dragon inked on his bare arm and a red-haired woman with a scar across face.

  Out at sea, the little mermaid knew that her blue-eyed Prince would never know that she had rescued him from the storm.

  She swam towards the castle as fast as she could, and when she arrived, she told her sisters about the storm and how she had saved Prince.

  "You saved a prince?" one of her sisters asked.

  "I suppose so," she said with a smug tone. Memories of the dark-haired, blue-eyed man she had saved the night before were running through her thoughts,

  From then on, the little mermaid would swim to the polluted surface of the sea to watch 'the prince' who frequented the nearby town.

  One day, while she was observing the land-dwellers, she had not noticed the man swimming behind her. She heard a gasp and she turned to find its source.

  What, or more accurately, who she saw made her heart beat faster. It was 'the prince'.

  "W-what the fuck are you?" asked Prince.

  "I'm Arielle, princess of the Merfolk," she replied, mistaking his what for a who.

  He swam forward and touched her beautiful tail, and she fell back.

  "It's rude to touch other people's tails, you know," she said. "Did not your mother teach you any values?"

  "I'm sorry," he said.

  And they became friends.

  Everyday from the fateful meeting, they would meet at the same spot and trade stories. He told her stories of skyscrapers, cellular phones, internet, computers, and wifi. And she was awestruck.

  One night, on one of their meetings, he suddenly said, "Would you like to live with me? I'd show you all of the stuff I told yah about."

  "But, but my family?" she asked.

  "Oh c'mon, just for a li'l while! Maybe a week or somethin'." he said, trying to persuade her.

  She thought of it for a while. Surely a week couldn't hurt?

  "Okay, I will come with you," the little mermaid said with a smile. She found herself in love with Prince, and she simply couldn't say no.

  - - - - - - - - - -

  The crack of a whip echoed throughout the brightly lit tent as the circus master yelled at another freak in another tank.

  "Sing, you bitch," he spat, "or this next one hits yah right in the fuckin' face!"

  And the gilled freak sang.

  The crowds cheered as they dropped coins and the occasional bill as the circus master passed around his hat for earnings.

  And the little mermaid continued to sing, because she didn't want Prince's whip to hit her face.