Mermaids Aren't Evil

"WHORE!"
"WENCH!"
"DIRTY BITCH!"
Names were being called left and right. I had been caught. It was a difficult thing to grasp the concept of. Even more so was the fact that I was about to be thrown overboard. I knew my fate and I accepted it. I was terrified, of course. I knew I was about to die, who wouldn't be terrified? But I didn't cry, I didn't scream, I didn't thrash, or try to get away. No, my last moments were going to be calm. Even if the people around me weren't.
My only regret is that the last thing I'll ever see is greasy, unwashed, hairy men and their multicolored teeth.
I was thrown down onto the muddy, wet wooden flooring of the ships deck. Through the haziness of my head hitting the floor I was able to register that my back now accommodated a bone crushing weight of a dirty foot to hold me still and I was bound. The rope rubbed my wrists and ankles raw but that was the least of my problems.
The weight of the foot on my back was gone and the dirty hands of the sailors lifted me up. The names were still being called out as they began to walk me to the edge of the deck. My calmness evaporated as panic set in. I didn't even have time to plead before my body was thrown over, falling fast, then crashing magnificently into the water. I sunk, and for a split second my mind wandered to look at how beautiful the light was under the water. Then my lungs hurt. No, they burned. But I continued to sink into a vast, open sky of quiet death. The beautiful water blurred and my eyes closed as I died
~
For centuries men have thrown women over decks and into the sea to die because of bad luck. And for centuries women have sunk into the ocean and have been left to die. These women were never seen again. They never washed up on shore to be found by some unfortunate soul. And funerals hardly ever took place. The sailors thought they all died and their families had no clue as to where they were. But the women were always there, just under the waters surface.