Faeries, Mermaids, and Arguments: A Short Story Collection

The Ocean's Song

Sand fills my sandals as I stroll along the beach. I slip them off and walk next to the ocean barefoot. The water is beautiful this time of year, but it is also the most dangerous now. There are many currents and undertows here, and this is when they're strongest. Staring off into the ocean, I begin to hear music drifting from the water towards me. It's faint and strange- not like any music I've ever heard, but still enthralling and haunting. The music sounds like waves crashing on the shore and seagulls squawking and all the other sounds of the ocean and yet it isn't. There are words in a language I don't recognize, but I still understand the yearning it conveys. Yearning for the ocean, for peace, yearning that catches your attention, dragging you in, and makes you feel the same. It calls me to swim, to find the source, to join the ocean as one.

In a daze, I start to walk to the water. I know what I'm doing but I can't stop. It's as if someone else has taken the controls and I'm just here as a passenger. The music pulls me further and further and soon I'm standing knee deep in the ocean. It wants me to go further but I fight it. I'm a very weak swimmer and wouldn't make it very far. The music pulls harder and it becomes a tug of war of our wills. The music is stronger and triumphs over me quickly. It pulls me further into the water until I can no longer reach the bottom. I start to swim against my will, but I can't resist the call of the ocean's song. It pulls me further, and further, until my limbs begin to tire and it allows me to turn back. I swim back to shore, my muscles struggling to work.

I arrive home, still damp after my walk. After drying off, I start doing some research about local myths. Maybe it was just a hallucination, or perhaps others have experienced this. Hours of research later, there's little by way of tales. Apparently, a while ago, there was a series of disappearances. The person who disappeared was reported to have spent a lot of time at the ocean before disappearing and they claimed to have heard a song coming from the ocean. Some said that it was faeries kidnapping them; some thought that it was mermaids, some guessed that it was sirens, but the sailors who knew the ocean and its ways well said it was the ocean itself, claiming its victims and taking them. The disappearances seem to have mostly been forgotten, save the sailors who know the truth about them. I can hear the ocean's song again, its pull weakened by my distance.

The next morning, I hear the ocean's song the moment I open my eyes. Its pull is more intense than it was last night. I put on my wetsuit in a haze, not fully aware of what I'm doing, but unable to stop. It brings me to the ocean, the song growing louder with every step. My control lessens the closer I get to the ocean and the song's power over me becomes more intense. It pulls me into the water, and I make it further than I did yesterday but before I grow too tired to go on, the ocean releases me temporarily.

The ocean's song draws me back again that afternoon, after I have rested and regained some strength and energy. I manage to make it a bit further than I did before but pushing through the waves is a constant struggle and I am a weak swimmer. Even if there were less waves, my swimming would hold me back. The ocean releases me and I go home until the next day.

The pattern continues. The ocean's song calls me twice a day and releases me twice a day. Each time it calls me, I manage to make it a bit further than the previous time. Soon, my swimming greatly improves, and I can even make it to the first buoy.

It's a month after the first time I heard the ocean's song and the first time it pulled me in. It hasn't relented since. Something feels different about its call today. There's a sense of certainty and finality in its notes and I can almost understand the words. It feels like if I just could get a bit closer, if it got a bit clearer, I'd be able to make out the words and understand their meaning. It pulls me but I go willingly and eagerly this time. It's almost as if after all this time I've spent in the ocean, it's become my friend, my refuge, my safe place. I want it to call me, and I dread it releasing me.

Once I get to the ocean, it looks inviting, despite being stormy gray with dark clouds smothering the sky. I wade right in and the one other person there looks at me like I'm crazy. I'm completely sane. They're the ones who are crazy for not understanding the pull I'm experiencing, this irresistible calling. I get further in and start swimming. I swim further than I have before, past the first buoy, past all the buoys, even past all the fishing boats, the sky and ocean growing restless. I'm swimming along peacefully, when I feel my body begin to be pulled further away from shore at a speed I couldn't achieve on my own, and I'm pulled beneath the water. I try to swim up but a current that's too strong grabs me.

It pulls me deeper and deeper, until I can feel my feet touch the ocean floor. I shouldn't be able to touch the ocean floor. Panic starts to overwhelm me but when I try to take a deep breath, water fills my lungs. A horrible realization dawns on me. There's no oxygen down here and I can't breath. The current holds me here and I can barely move. I'm starting to drown! I'm going to drown. This can't be happening. I can't be drowning. This is impossible! I try to convince myself that it's just a bad dream, I'll wake up soon and everything will be fine. But I don't wake up! Why aren't I walking up? It's all real. Right as I'm running out of oxygen, a woman appears in front of me. In all ways, she embodies and resembles the ocean. Her hair looks like waves, colour and texture. Her eyes are the ocean on a stormy day and her skin is the ocean on a sunny day, calm and peaceful. No one could look at her and truthfully say that she isn't the ocean. "Don't worry, my love," she says. "You'll join me soon and everything will be okay."

A wave of peace washes over me and my mind calms. She's right. Soon, I'll be one with the ocean and everything will be okay. This is what is meant to happen. This is why I've been called everyday. This is what the sense of certainty and finality was for. Suddenly, I can understand the lyrics of the ocean's song. It's about a woman being torn from her lover, then hearing her mother call to her, and missing them every moment they spend apart. But they know if they were reunited, one of them will die, and they're okay with that, for a few moments' peace. The small rational part of my brain says that doesn't quite seem right but the rest of my brain says that it's so right, it could never be wrong in any way, that I'm the woman and the ocean is my lover. But soon, I fully join the ocean at peace and my brain no longer says anything.