The Legend of the Mermaid

The Legend of the Mermaid

One stormy night,
Misty skies awakened
As the Heavens mourned
Their falling star;
She danced to the Earth below,
But to the others' eyes
Mira plummeted to her death.  

I looked out the window of the Sea-Side Pub.  I don't know why I did.  Looking at the night sky always made me sad.  To see the stars twinkling gloriously off in the distance, like little beacons of his memories, little keepers of his eternal soul.  A dark storm gripped the heavens tonight; I could tell by the way the glow of the stars seemed almost to flicker.  Just as he had taught me.  

Longing griped me, closed off my throat and burned my eyes with prickling tears begging to be set free.  If only I could touch his face one more time, stare deep into those gorgeous green eyes, eyes that he said mirrored my own.  Of course I never believed him.  His eyes could outshine the stars.  

Still, I kept on staring, wishing that somehow it could bring him back.  Memories of him solid enough I could see him standing before me once more.  That odd hope held me there, unable to turn away, even through the gnawing wound that still festered in my chest.  And as I stared, I saw it; a falling star.  

As I watched my falling star, I knew.  Not even this glorious star could bring you back.  

I hobbled out of the pub and turned toward the half-mile pier, forcing my heavy feet to move, trying to gather enough courage to push aside the flooding memories of you enough to keep moving.  

I rushed to the end of the pier, the salty sweet spray of the ocean mingling with the tears pouring down my face.  

I can still hear your chorus of laughter, "Look!  A shooting star.  It's silly how people wish on them; they're just falling spheres of flame."  Then I looked at you and smiled and wished we be together forever all the same.  

But now you're gone and I can't go on.  Neither can I stand and face my forced demise.  

Through the blue sky she fell,
Gravity's grasp hurtling her ever faster
Until at last she met with the ocean's vast expanse,
Felt the once-again weightless embrace,
The same embrace of her once-home;
Then, life on this planet was only a dream of hers.  

I climb clumsily onto the railing and turn to face the painful memories that plague those walkways, the paths that lead to memories of you.  Memories of moonlight walks and starlight talks and lessons about the skies.  Lessons that led us to the very spot where I now stand.  I close my eyes and force to the forefront the most painful of those memories: your death; I lose myself in that thought, draw courage from the crushing hopelessness it brings.  

"This is for you…"  

I teeter backwards and plummet toward the depths of the ocean below.  

This Earth, so full of life
Life teeming through the waters
Colorful, vibrant life
Life Mira longed to touch
To reach out and feel

But Mira was a star
She'd lost her flame
And her last ember of life
Blew out after her flaming fall
Lonely shielded from their contact,
Mira withdrew

And her porous shell met a swift current
Grasping and pulling at her
Just as the cruel gravity of Earth that had brought her here
Abandoned her in this forsaken, starless place
Is all of this new world truly so cruel? She wondered silently.  

The sting of the cold collision reverberates through my entire body, sucking out my air.  As I sink farther and farther beneath the surface, I gasp for air, arms flailing in a futile, unwilling attempt to survive.  The current grasps my already breathless shell and sucks me swiftly along.  An undertow.  Without my breath, my muscles can't gain enough strength to fight against the intense fortitude of the tide.  

Mira travels with the swift current
Sure that its abrasive run
Will harm some fragile being

Speeding toward her
Limp, devoid of struggle
A strange new being approaches Mira

Fluttering eyelids reveal gem-like eyes of green
Barely registering the ocean scene,
The simple star before her

My eyelids grow heavy as the seconds that feel like eons pass without a breath, hurtling through the freezing ocean.  I'm almost thankful for the cold.  It numbs the ache in my chest as my lungs scream for air and my heart still screams for him.  But even the numbing water could never take away the stabbing pain of impact with the falling star I had watched such a short time ago from the window of the Sea-Side Pub, cutting deep into my chest.  At last my eyes stop to flutter as I am engulfed by nothingness' sweet rest.  

Mira watched in horror
The fragile, angelic being
With star-glow emerald eyes
With hair of flame bursting all around her
Collided into her sharpest point

A crimson flood enveloped the pair
The girl motionless now
To Mira's sudden, aghast cry
A frightened cry of pain for the beautiful Maiden
And a cry of utter disbelief

Her viscous, ruby core
Burnt out of flame and magic; of life
Seeped out from Mira
It swirled and spun in the water,
Hovering beneath the creature's angelic face

Into her it flowed,
Soaked into her flesh
Like its life had always been there,
Inside that lifeless, tragic shell
And there it bonded as Mira began to wait

Mira's star-essence accomplished something strange
Her former shell it banished
With a forceful, graceful blast
And every cell, from head to toe,
Perfected and repaired

It tingled and fizzled down her head,
Her hair and eyes remaining unchanged
Cycled water through her lungs,
To teach them how to breathe
Repaired her stabbed and broken heart and chest

And on its mission traveled
To her tiny fragile legs and feet
Barren and free of scales
Turned them into fitting propellers
To make her body at last fit for ocean life

Mira gasped as a last, pulsing light emanated from the beautiful maiden's body, her body.  Still wrapped inside the current, among schools of traveling fish, she marveled at her new body.  The sights and colors were so much more vivid than from her former life.  

And the sounds!  She had never heard before in such a way.  The empathic abilities of the stars lent a sense of "hearing," but one could only hear another's unspoken words.  Now this hearing was so different!  Sounds came from outside as well as from within.  

Touch!  What a wonderful sense!  To be able to feel the brush of things, their texture and their shape.  Such things were impossible for the stars, whose only contact was collisions that splintered and shattered and broke them.  

Mira moved her hand through the water, reaching out to the ocean life that surrounded her.  She twirled and danced and swam with a freedom she had never before known, but as her body grew tired, and sleep crept in upon her eyes, one picture appeared, and a longing for the handsome creature, the man that the maiden had once loved, consumed her.  

A single tear from the new creature fell to a creature below.  And as the lonely Mira swam swiftly away to mourn in peace, the tear transformed the creature, much as her star-essence had done to the maiden's body.  And somehow, the memories of their love remained in the transformed creature.  

"Juliannae!  Juliannae!  Star-girl please come back!" he pleaded.  

Juliannae? Mira thought.  Star-girl.  Me? She realized, slowing her swimming to turn around and stare.  "Clayton," she stammered.  The name popped into her memory, a vivid scene of long ago when the maiden – Juliannae – and the handsome man – Clayton –had first met.  

Clayton had died.  How could he still exist, under the murky ocean waters after his death?  

"Your tears brought me here," Clayton thought, and so she understood.  The deaths of the lovers could not keep them apart; they were destined to be together.  Forever.  And so, through Mira, the tiny part of Juliannae knew: wishes on falling stars still do come true.  

And so became Mira, the blend of star and maiden, the first mermaid, and how their race began….