The Mermaid Who Walked Upon The Land

The Mermaid Who Walked Upon The Land

My daughter squirms and giggles with delight while regaling her little schoolmates with stories about when her Daddy dated Princess Ariel. My wife, Miranda, sniffs in disgust at the stories of Ariel’s passion and bravery; she mumbles that nothing was as great as Ariel’s ego. She speaks from the vantage point of a woman who knows her place. Miranda knows she is neither my first love nor my greatest love; she is only the woman I actually married.

Ariel was the first girl I ever saw. Until I went to school, I never saw any other children, any other people than my parents. How can I explain the exquisite joy that flooded my senses? I remember I was overcome with my need to rush towards her, to convey my delight at her existence. The effect on my mother of being in the presence of a princess only heightened my appreciation. Here was someone who could quiet and still my mother. Someone who could make her bow down her head and speak graciously. I knew after all that the sea was a marvelous place to have such a creature in it.

In those days in her heart, Ariel was just a girl. Her head hadn’t yet filled with notions of what it was to be a princess. Seeing my mother prostate herself, Ariel giggled and rushed to take my hands with what seemed to be delight at my existence. Perhaps I was the first boy she had ever seen.

But Ariel was a princess and I was just one of her subjects; politics decreed that our time together be secretive and limited. We would sneak off to the water’s surface for some time together after our respective schools. She would tell me of her sisters and how she slipped squid dye into their combs or how her father had whisked her away from Etiquette Class to show her a passing schooner. I would tell her of my parents and how my mother once kept me fixed to one place by placing a large rock on my tail.

Ariel would take my hand and whisper, “Never mind, Harry. You are loved. I love you Harry.”

Sometimes at night when I’m asleep I hear that whisper and in that moment I am warm and alive and everything is wonderful and possible. But that moment always slips away from me just like she slipped away from me. Because no matter how tightly I squeeze my eyes shut; I wake up.

By the time we were teenagers, I became almost like Ariel’s hidden secret diary. I felt her resentment as more of her time was taken learning to behave like royalty. I felt her revulsion at the princes she was expected to someday choose from to marry. I knew of her fascination with all things not of the sea – buildings and seagulls and clouds and the people she saw, with legs instead of tails, aboard ships. Her family never knew, but I knew. I knew and I worried that nothing good could come from Ariel’s fancies. But to criticize or deny her would be to lose her and I couldn’t let that happen.

I was with her that day when she first saw him. It was love at first sight for her. One minute we were talking of how beautiful the day was, how bright the sun, how blue the sky and the next she was talking of his hair, his eyes. . . . I couldn’t see it. Why she might as well love a starfish or a dolphin. Or me. Even if I wasn't a prince, I was at least her same species!

But I held my tongue.

Soon she was missing our planned rendezvous’ only to swim to the surface alone to catch a glimpse of him. When I would catch up with her, she’d be out of breath and her eyes wouldn’t meet my gaze. She had secrets too deep to place in this diary’s protection. I would go to our place, our rock, with a small bubble of hope of seeing her only to leave heavy and cold and alone. One day, she did show up, “only for a minute.”

“I couldn’t bear it, Harry, if I thought you were still coming here waiting for me, not knowing I was gone.”

Ariel wouldn’t answer any questions and, really, what was I to ask? I couldn’t possibly imagine her plan. Her hand brushed my check just once before she left and she whispered, “I’ll always love you Harry. Remember you are loved. You are my truest friend.”

Of course, I followed her. When the Sea Witch silenced Ariel’s voice, she might as well have silenced mine as well for all that I spoke up about it or intervened.

I swam beneath Ariel’s new legs as she floated, nearly lifeless, to the surface. I heard her choking gasps for breath when she reached the air. I saw him lift her to the deck of his boat.

They say if you whisper a sentence into someone’s ear and that person whispers in someone’s ear and that person whispers into someone’s ear that by the time the words have completed a circle, a different sentence will be whispered into your ear.

I created the legend of Princess Ariel. I whispered of her bravery going to the Sea Witch. I whispered of her passion and her love for the world and it’s creatures and her land-walking prince. My whispers spread to other people’s whispers. Now she has committed acts of bravery fighting creatures I’m not sure even exist. She has suffered sacrifices that in reality she never knew. There is talk of proclaiming a holiday in her name. When it is time to see a doctor, my daughter talks of being brave like Princess Ariel. I smile and tell myself I did the right thing. Because I never whispered everything. I never told all I knew to tell. And while they whisper of her children and her happy life on land, only I know the truth.

Princess Ariel lives now only in my heart and my dreams and in the legends that they tell.