| ibshambat2004@hotmail.com 2005-08-18, 5:56 pm |
| The Prince and the Mermaid fell in love, and the Mermaid cut off her
tail. They married and lived in a big castle on the side of the ocean.
The Prince loved the Mermaid, and the Mermaid loved the Prince. And
soon they had a daughter whom they named Alicia.
The Prince and the Mermaid loved each other. But the Mermaid was
unhappy. First it was just a feeling, and she punished herself for it.
She said to herself, "You live in a castle and you are married to a
wonderful man. Can't you see that you have a beautiful life?" But her
unhappiness grew.
The Prince was aware that the Mermaid was unhappy, and it ate him
inside. He asked her what was wrong, and she said, "I don't know. I'm
unhappy. I am sorry." He held her and tried to comfort her. And though
the Mermaid knew that he loved her - and that she also loved him - she
just could not stop the pain and depression inside.
As the years went by, they grew apart. The Prince was angry at the
Mermaid, and the Mermaid was angry at herself. He kept asking her, "Why
can't you be like other wives? Why can't you be perfect?" And she would
just answer, "I don't know," and she would cry.
The Prince's anger with his wife grew. In frustration he would insult
her and hit her and tell her that she was not worthy of the life she
had. And as he grew angrier, the Mermaid stopped seeing the man she had
loved and saw a monster. She thought, "I've married the Prince, and he
turned into a frog." And then she thought, "Maybe it was me kissing him
that made that happen."
Feeling her luminous life turned to darkness - and thinking herself at
fault - the Mermaid ran out on the beach. Her magnificent blond hair
rained on her shoulders and covered them with gold. Her elegant arms
and legs scintillated in the light of the moon, as tears ran down her
cheeks. She had come to the ocean - to the place from where she had
come - to jump into it and drown and end all her miseries.
Then suddenly from the ocean came an indistinct wail. The Mermaid felt
something pulling to her, something tugging her on the heart and her
lungs, something calling to her from the water. She came to the water's
edge, and coming toward her she saw a face. It was a dolphin, moving in
wavelike motion.
At first she could not make out what the Dolphin was saying. Her memory
of her days in the ocean was a blur, and she had trouble recollecting
the language. Then she started remembering and understood. The voice
said, "You have cut off your tail to be with the Prince. But because
you have left a part of yourself in the ocean, you could not truly be
with the Prince, and he could not truly be with you. You were out of
your medium. You did not know how to live on land, and you were missing
your home. You can't live like that any more. Go back to the ocean, put
on your tail, and invite the Prince to come swimming with you."
The Mermaid said, "I can't just leave him. I am married to him, and we
have a child."
The Dolphin spoke in return. "He loved you when you were in the ocean.
The more you lived on the land, however, the less he remembered the
person that he had loved. If you come into the ocean again, he will see
you again for the Mermaid he loved, and he will again love you."
Reluctantly the Mermaid waded into the ocean. She wrote a note to the
Prince, and a seagull delivered it. It said, "My love, I cannot live
like this any longer. You are destroying me, and I am destroying you.
Come to the ocean, and swim with me. Do you remember when I was in the
ocean and you loved me? We can love each other like that again."
In the morning Alicia knocked on her father's door. "What's the
matter?" asked the Prince. His daughter answered, "Where's Mommy?" The
Prince asked, "What do you mean, where's Mommy?" Then, seeing his
wife's side of the bed empty, he looked around and found the note.
The Prince flew into a fury and sent for the archers. Surrounded by
archers, he went to the ocean. The Dolphin swam to the beach.
"What's this thing?" asked the Prince. As the Dolphin started to speak,
one of the archers, named Atticus, started translating.
"What have you done with my wife?" shouted the Prince. The Dolphin
answered, "She was going to kill herself. I saved her life." "Saved her
life?" the Prince continued to shout. "How about saving the family? I
married her. She made a vow to be with me all her life. How dare you
destroy our marriage?"
The Dolphin responded, "She could not save the marriage that you had
and still live. You loved her when she was in the ocean. But you made
her cut off her tail, and she could no longer be the person you loved."
"Does it matter that she could no longer be the person I loved?" the
Prince continued to shout. "She is my wife! I decide what kind of a
person she can and can't be. She is the mother of my daughter! She has
responsibilities!" At which point the Prince ordered the archers to
take aim at the Dolphin.
The Dolphin looked the Prince in the face. He said, "You can kill me,
but that will not save your marriage. You loved her when she was in the
water, but in the castle she could not be what you loved. Your life was
destroying her and destroying also what you loved. She was dying in
that castle - that life was killing her - can't you see that? Kill me
and your wife will simply die. Learn to swim with her, and you will
again be with her."
The Prince told the archers to put their bows down. He went back to the
palace and brooded for days. On some days he wanted to kill the
Dolphin; on others he wanted to kill his wife. He even thought of
making huge chains and whipping the ocean.
There were other women who wanted to be with the Prince. They comforted
him, and he thought of being with them. But his thoughts always came
back to the Mermaid. "I must bring my wife back," he decided, "whatever
it takes."
As he was walking along a river feeding into the ocean, he heard a
voice that said, "Jump in the river." "Jump in the river?" he
responded, "What do you mean, jump in the river?"
"It means just what I've said," responded the voice. "Jump in the river
and learn to swim, and then you can have your wife back."
He thought that was a ridiculous thing to do, but he wanted to gain
back his wife at all costs. So he did. He took off his golden robe and
jumped in the river. The current carried him to the ocean.
He did not know how to swim very well, but his determination made him
stronger. He learned quickly how to swim, better than he had ever swam
before. He swam like a master after a couple hours, and as he kept
swimming in the ocean he saw the Mermaid.
"What have you done?" he shouted at her. "What have you done to my
family? How could you have betrayed me?" The Mermaid said, "I could not
keep living like this. I am a mermaid, and I belong in the ocean. You
loved me when I was in the ocean - can't you love me now that you meet
me in the ocean again? Come swim with me, darling. I have so much to
show you."
She continued, "Please understand me. I don't want to leave you behind;
I just have to regain what I was, or else I would die. I am asking you
to come swim with me, and then we can at last be together completely."
"I want to tear you to shreds!" said the Prince. "You are my wife, and
you belong to me!" The Mermaid responded, "Tear me to shreds, and do
not have your wife at all. Or come with me, and we'll regain what we
had when we got married."
A thousand thoughts crowded the Prince's head. He wanted to kill, he
wanted to shout, he wanted to punch and hit and scream at the universe
for having done this to him; but the more he saw the Mermaid swim,
effortlessly, elegantly, beautifully, sensuously, and at last happily,
in the ocean that was her home, love filled his heart for this
magnificent creature, and he remembered their romance. He swam up to
the Mermaid, and they embraced. They swam out to the ocean and
frolicked for hours, looking at the beautiful fish and richly decorated
coral reefs and the clear blue sky above them.
And they kept swimming at night and going back to the palace during the
day and loved each other happily for as long as they remained alive on
the planet.
Ilya Shambat.
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