The Quiet Strangers

The Mer-woman's Tale

Chained to an anchor beneath a dark sea,

Lay the mer-woman: shackled and unfree,

Pulled by the tide she could not hide,

For a much battered thing was she.

That thing that held her would not yeild,

Her fate, her life, that weight had sealed.

Desiring what she could not be,

Her hope, those chains, had all but killed.

No time could tell how long she lay,

Despairing in murk, the sport of dismay,

Then when quaking in mud she heaved and she reeled-

That ghoul of the soul came with words to say.

"My daughter," it purred as it thrashed it's tail,

"It is clear to me that you are not well!

Bound here at bottom, in muck of the bay,

Only I can save, or could you not tell?"

"But it was you," she moaned deep from her heart,

"Who said t'would be good to swim through your part,

Of this here dark bay and stay here to dwell,

I'd much opt now to go back to the start!"

And at this comeback, the ghoul's teeth did gleam,

It's mouth hinged wide, those dark eyes schemed,

"Ha, you are mine now!" It said cold of heart,

And the mer-woman's soul filled with unease.

But then a flash, and fast in the water,

T'was the free flowing form of an otter!

Otter stopped, and with a question it beamed,

"Would you like to be free like me, daughter?"

"How can I," said she, a plea in her voice,

"I swam here alone, I swam here by choice,"

"She swam here alone," that ghoul said to otter,

"She swam here and these waters I enforce!"

"Yes but what is her choice, what is it now?"

Said otter to ghoul, "you know what's allowed."

"To late! To late!" screamed the ghoul in its voice,

"Just look at her chains!" that perverse ghoul howled.

"Daughter," said the otter, "Do you believe,

That there is not a soul too far to retrieve?"

There appeared a hook on a line unbefouled,

"I too was once chained, this is how I was free!"

The mer-woman looked, unsure of the hook,

"You really want more chains? Hear me! Now look,

You don't want this hook," the crooked ghoul seethed,

Yet at the sound of ghoul's voice the mer-woman shook.

"But if I stay I die!" the mer-woman cried,

And she bit on the hook and thought she would die,

But there was no tearing, no pain from that hook,

Nor was there death, for she felt life inside.

There was a loud "snap!"-the hook broke the chains!

And with those bonds went the burden of shame,

"Daughter," said a voice, "It was ghoul who lied,"

But it wasn't otter who'd said her name.

"Go swim no more in the shoals of that one,

Remember today the freedom you've won,

Let the hook guide you through wind and though rain,

And the ways of your days will shine like the sun!"