Seasick

Danny never knew his father. Even though his mother always told Danny he had died a shipman on HMS Barham that was sunk by Germans during the war, Danny couldn't understand the tears that his mother shed after him mentioning the father. In Danny's eyes, he died a hero, a warrior, fighting for the country's security and prosperity, fighting for Danny and his mummy.

He used to imagine how the wreckage was covered with reef colonies and sea squirts, and other ocean stuff he would remember from the book about underwater life his mother had read him when she was not drunk. However, when she was drunk, on various occasions, she would tell Danny (only if he asked) that his father was a chef, or a janitor, or a salesman. Although Danny believed he could be anything, the story about the shipwreck has attracted him the most – it was something terrible yet appealing to dream about his Daddy's body floating around the oceans, visiting India, Americas, even the borders of Japan. He always fantasized about how his Daddy would have developed gills and swim with different fish, speak with dolphins and ride enormous rays, size of an adult male. However, Mummy and the doctors would not appreciate him telling this.

Danny had his first therapy when he was seven, men wearing white cloaks would put him in a tiny white room, attaching white wires with white cups made of elastic material which would be sucked to the rear of his head. Then, they would ask Danny to answer the questions humbly, so that they could check his condition. It was unavoidable, as Danny later discovered, despite telling the truth or a lie, to be electrocuted every time he would speak. The pain was not strong, however, enough to make Danny uncomfortable, as if you were holding your hand on the switched metal lamp for too long – at first it tickles, but after some time you get burned.

Then there were silence therapies where he would feel guilty of speaking about his "hallucinations", as white-cloaked men would say. His mother was also present during these therapies in order to, as Danny once overheard the doctor saying, "control his behavior with a refusal to communicate". Even though the doctors would advise his mother to extend the therapy beyond the clinic's chambers, she would slip a word or two about the "nonsense" Danny was saying and how she "regretted he must suffer this way." It was always a wonder to Danny, even nowadays, what she meant by "suffering" since he was assured by the doctors that every child had to undergo such treatment at their early age. Yes, it did hurt a little, but nothing more than he could not get used to. He knew she loved him, with all her heart, even though her heart sometimes darkened. 

There was one image, or "hallucination", that Danny would not dare to tell even his mother. In fact, he kept this to himself solely. It began to appear when Danny had discovered that hair does not grow exclusively on the uncovered parts of his body.

Danny saw her as an embodiment of everything kind known to him. Her hair was bright-rufous, almost crimson when he turned the light off. The first time he met her, she was smiling at him with her pale-white and perfectly shaped face. The sea in her iris was fixed on him, in some places shifting to the grey stratus – his two favorite colors. Her pointy nose protruded from the face, so sharp, she said, she could cut the ships in two pieces. The white teeth were like a guiding lantern in the deepest sea, full of bright light. The gills on her thin neck were close shut since she could breathe with her lungs on the surface. Two velvet sunray venuses were glued to her little breasts and an enormous tail with each scale reflecting Danny's awing face.

She was a mermaid. It was almost a coincidence that she would visit Danny nearly after each time he came back to the clinic. They talked for hours about her sea life, the sunken ships, the bottomless oceans and various creatures roaming within. One time she even mentioned his Daddy who was still well off with clownfish and blue tangs. Eventually, Danny would seek refuge in a company of the mermaid every time his brain was fuzzy, and his muscles ached after the treatments, gradually shutting away from the doctors and his mother.