I lie quietly floating in the water, the rhythmic motions of the waves rocking me back and forth were as soothing as the lullaby my mother used to sing to me. The dark expanse above me, bright with millions of shining little lights, my favorite moment is when one of these tiny lights suddenly shoots across this dark glowing space, mother says you can make a wish on these little bright lights. The father of the night, the big white circle that overshadows everything and gives light to the dark, smiles down on me.
I am waiting for a walker. Truth is I am fascinated by these creatures, mother says it’s a morbid curiosity, she tells me over and over again how these creatures would kill me if they found me. They are a dominating race, they have been here in this world ever since the first of us can remember, and all we have witnessed of their evolution is greed and destruction, it is their lack of imagination that keeps us safe in our world. Mother says they don’t believe in us, therefor, they cannot find us, for the only way to break the surface into our world, is to believe that it is there in the first place. So when they go searching for us, we are nowhere to be found. They simply go too deep, searching the deepest depths of the oceans. But what they don’t understand is that the oceans are part of their world, not our world. Our world lies in-between the two. Mother says it’s obvious! We are half human half fish, after all. Why wouldn’t our world be that space between air and water?
Mother says they are underdeveloped, they haven’t learnt to look past what is right in front of them. They have a bad habit of not understanding anything other than what they can see, touch, and hear. What I have come to realize about the walkers is that they use their mouths to communicate; this is very alien to me. It must take them so long to explain even the simplest of things to each other. We communicate telepathically. It is much more straightforward, and not open to misinterpretation. I believe that is why the walkers fight, they don’t understand each other, while we are connected by thoughts and feelings, walkers only have their own.
Walkers stand alone.
I can’t help but think what a lonely life that must be.
Out of boredom I dip my head in and out of our worlds, I submerge and feel the slight pressure of the surface into my world break, and almost instantly I can feel everyone, their lifelines connected to mine. I am careful to keep my thoughts about the walker’s world hidden in the deep recesses of my mind, so my mother can’t pick up on them. And then I give one thrash of my tail upwards and break the surface into the walkers world, greeted by the lights and their father, and then I’m alone, no longer can I feel them. It’s just me.
I wait for what seems like an eternity, hoping to just get a glimpse of him. This is the time of night that he is usually out on the water.
This all started because my mother brought back a walker. Many years ago, she used to visit the surface. Once while she was sleeping I accidentally saw some of her dreams. I saw the walker and a small boy, on a floating vessel. Over and over again my mother watched them, and the love that she felt for this man was overwhelming, it took the water out of my gills. At the very end I saw a violent storm, the sea so vicious taking them both down to its depths. The man held out the child to her, imploring her to save his son with his eyes. She did, but when she returned it was too late for the man, water had flooded his lungs, and his heart was barely beating. That’s when my mother made the decision, she showed him that he had to give up his human self and let the water in. The magic took over and when he opened his eyes again he was one of us.
After seeing that, I asked my mother if what I had seen was true. She replied, every picture. She showed me that no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t forget.
She took someone’s life, and she also took a man away from his family.
Her pain is always present.
