Prologue:
The beautiful creature and I were separated only by a layer of mossy glass. Her eyes as gold and bright as a sunny beach stared back at me. No, her eyes stared me down. The contempt in her gaze was expected yet still a bit jarring. This mermaid in this tank’s hate was Justified, she was ripped from the ocean by my dad like so many mermaids before her. My family used to run the most prominent canned seafood factory this side of Flotsam Harbor and our most popular canned food item: Mermaid. I remember seeing the livestock mermaids swimming en masse alongside the dingy tubes that lined the old factory. Those Mermaids being processed would rarely look at you, just sucked forward in the glass pipes that would carry them to their deaths. Through the mossy glass cylinder before me, I can see the scared mermaid's gaze now fixed on the clunky wooden harpoon gun that was pointed at her rattling in my shaky hands. The terrified mermaid is wondering if I’m going to kill her or not.
I’m wondering the same thing.
~
Chapter 1: What We Aim To Catch In Our Nets
The crashing of the waves against the dock's rickety wood is the only noise that broke the ever-droning sound that polluted the pier, learning to drown out the constant hum is one of the many adaptations you have to make living in an industrial epicenter. The source of the incessant buzzing was from the many slaughterhouses scattered around town, why anyone would choose to live in a town where you can never hear your own thoughts is beyond me. That being said I've lived here in Flotsam Harbor Town since I was born. On either side of the dilapidated dock that I was dangling my feet off, in the distance, were factories connected to the beach just pouring smog into the already cloudy sky. This abandoned pier I’m sitting on was one of the few places in Flotsam Harbor that the sound of factories at work wasn't completely in your head. Somehow the waves hitting the surrounding rocks and old petrified wooden pillars were just enough to drown out the factory’s neverending thrums. There are some days I don't even notice the sound pollution and some days I'll do anything to escape it; I've even considered jumping over the large wall that bared the back of the town from the harsh wilderness and letting whichever creature was the fastest turn me into a light snack. Speaking of catching prey, I've not caught anything all day. Now I wouldn't call fishing one of my joys in life but it did give me a pretty good reason to escape the smell that you couldn't help but let waft into your nose. Much like the noise, there was no escaping the smell.
Sometimes I really wonder why more people don't want to live in Flotsam Harbor.
No matter how long I stared at the red and white fishing float bobbing above my submerged net, there was no sign of a catch in the vast ocean beneath me. This old dock with a rusted old plack reading Marloch pier brought back memories of the days my friends and I used to try to outfish each other. The competition was intense but we enjoyed every second of it. Most of my friends have long since moved away. There are a few still left in town that I've lost touch with. You would think it hard to lose touch with good friends in a relatively small town like Flotsam Harbor but the factories around here turn most folks into cog’s in the machine, even myself.
My dad at one point owned one of the biggest factories in town, Fine Fin Foods. Fine Fin was one of few companies in the world to sell the hottest selling food at the time, canned Mermaid tail. When I was young my dad would try to get me to eat mermaid. I try it a few times but really would never touch the stuff, I was a picky kid. Because I was always in dad's fishy-smelling factory, I lost an appetite for seafood in general.
Since the closure of Fine Fin Foods ten years ago my dad has struggled to make a decent living, I defiantly help as much as I can. Life has been hard for my dad since the mermaids disappeared about ten years ago. I really do wish there was more I could do to help out my old man financially, but sadly my job really does not pay much at all, none of the jobs in town do. I have this overwhelming sense of guilt when I think about how hard my dad works in comparison to me and how I pretty much live at home for free. My old man is well known in town by the factory owners who used to have to compete with my dad for profit back in the day. You can really feel their disdain for my father when he and I are always given some of the worst possible positions in whatever factory we turned to work at. Part-time I clean grime and other assorted masses of meat chunks leftover in Bob’s Beasts and Beef factory. Day in and day out I come home smelling like Minotaur meat and satyr guts. I’ve only tried Bob’s famous satyr thigh drumstick once in the company cafeteria and kind of hated it. Eating something you wind up smelling like every day really isn’t appetizing in the least. That's not to say I don't eat any meat, chicken and beef are some of my favorites. My dad and I will light our own fires and set up a grill over a fire pit and have ourselves a tasty barbeque. Though our town has a lot of different livestock factories most of the businesses here ship out their best meat to richer neighborhoods. Unless you're swimming in dough, don't get too fond of delicacies like prime centaur cuts and start growing a taste for chicken legs.
Looking at the pathetic bucket next to me filled with seawater, no fish, and wasted time, I decide it’s time to pack up and leave the pier. The metal drones that survey the sea tend to scare away any fish anyway, they are the main reason people don’t fish much around here anymore. I remember once while fishing a smaller of the drones came by stole the fish I just caught in my net just as I was pulling it in, damn little thief. If damaging those things wasn't going to get me arrested by the polite society, I would have had some new metal grilling plates. Wait, that sound. The plucking noise draws my eyes to where I had my net cast out. The fish float was bobbing up and down quickly above my submerged net. This is it, the catch I have been waiting for. As I reel in the now heavy net I immediately think of my dad's face when I catch him a mermaid, my old man's jaw would drop. Dad spends all his time these days out there on the ocean in his own little fishing boat with two crewmen to help out, searching for mermaids and other marketable fish. Before my job of cleaning beast giblets off factory floors, I would tag along with my dad at sea. He keeps telling me to work as long as I can at Bob’s so I can eventually support myself. My dad really is a caring guy and I know he isn’t trying to kick me out of his house, he’s trying to encourage me to strike out on my own. I get the inkling he thinks he’s holding me back. I feel whatever monstrosity is in my net tugging pretty hard. With my newly caught “Mermaid” I’ll be able to support us both. Time to see this beauty up close, I reel in my catch.
As the nearby shoreside farmer’s market is coming to a close for the day, I jump over the wall separating the beach from the street. I decided to head over to old man Reggie’s little fish grill stand to see if he wants this decent-sized crab I just snagged from my net. Reggie is an interesting short older guy who seems to lounge about all day at his seafood booth without so much as a care in the world. Rumor is that he used to be some kind of powerful mage. Not a whole lot of people use magic these days. The more technology advances, the fewer people use magic. Why spend years of your life learning to summon fire to your fingertip when you can just buy a lighter? I’ll see old Reggie here light up his little stove with the flick of his wrist on occasion.
“How does 30 sound Regg?” I thought it was a decent price when I made the offer. I could probably fish for a higher price if all the booths weren’t already closing for the day. We haggle out a price a bit lower than what I wanted but it could be worse. Without taking it off He pulls a couple of bills from under the old ivy cap with the gold pin that he's always seen wearing. That hat always looks too big on him and covers his ears. As long as I've known him he's worn that same burgundy hat with the round gold pin that has a tree engraved in the middle, that hat must be ancient. I'm guessing he pulled the money out of his hat because he already packed away his usual register. He then resumes packing up his booth like he was doing when I showed up.
“You're always the last to pack up stuff. Hate to say it Regg but you don't really seem to have the same drive that some of these other sellers have.” You're easy to put in a good mood. Reg laughs with his usual jovial smile and just kind of shakes his finger at me then goes back to packing up. His dark completion contrasted heavily with the long white beard that just bare hid his grin.
“I won't sugar coat it kid, I’m not really making millions out here. but the way I see it, this beats breaking my back cleaning floors covered in animal blood all day. Look at you Zeb, you have a factory job and yet you don’t seem to make a killing either.” Reggie always spoke in a monotonous yet somehow rhythmic pattern. The way he had phrased his last sentence sort of rubbed me the wrong way, but he wasn’t wrong. serves me right for questioning the drive of an old fish cook. “I’m not trying to put you down Zeb but I can’t imagine you love scraping dead flesh off of a cold steel floor each day for scraps. The way I see it you can be poor doing something you hate or poor doing something you love. I just choose to do something I love.” a real fish market prophet this one is.
“Appreciate the business Regg, I better get going.” Just as I start off for the slog home Reggie turns to me.
“And Zeb, if you ever catch that mermaid, I’ll give you a sweet deal on it. Haha, I know an old family recipe to cook up mermaid just right.” You always have me in stitches Reggie, hardy har. The old man smiles as he loads up his grill in the rather large trailer he has connected to his truck, an arduous task that he seems very used to doing himself with haste. Much like many of the fish market sellers, Reggie sleeps in his truck. His and the other trucks just kind of park where they set up shop day in and day out.
"If I ever obtain a mermaid, Ol' Regg will be the first to hear about it." Reggie who is now fading from my view while not rich is certainly one of the happier people in this rather gloomy town.
Nobody has seen or eaten a mermaid in years. Some think they are extinct. What’s strange is they didn’t thin in number over time, they just disappeared. Out of nowhere they seemingly vanished out of the blue about ten years ago.
As I walk through the downtown area, I notice advertisements for Bob's Beast and Beef. The flashy signs advertise prime cuts of Minotaur meat, Harpy wings, and lamia eggs. These were just a few of the things Bob’s Beast and Beef processed at the factory that I cleaned every day for a meager wage.
Flotsam Harbor is a small hillside town where the only color you see is the trace amount of twilight cutting through the thick grey air. Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t hate the place but you can tell any sign of life that used to circulate this town was strangled by the plethora of factories lining this town's seaside view.
A couple of loud buses drove by carrying factory employees to work. Nobody wants to live in this town, they only come to town for their jobs and leave just as quickly. I have the unique pleasure of living a twenty minutes walk from Bob’s Beast and Beef. Each night before bed I try to find something to do to remind myself that there is more to life than slaving away in a sweaty factory for twelve hours. At least that's what I tell myself to do. Very rarely now will I go out and fish, I usually just laze about after work waiting for my shift to start the next day. Thinking about all of this is turning the melancholy walk home into a downright depressing one. If someone has some extra luck or happiness, don't be stingy and send some my way.
While I made the trek uphill toward my house. I could see the “Polite Society” standing in front of the huge jagged nails that formed a wall separating Flotsam Harbor Town from the forest on the other side. The Polite Society has really cracked down on any “beast-Likes” such as wild centaurs, minotaurs, or anything with an animal body and human features from entering the city. The ill-named Polite Earth Society members were decked out from head to toe in armor and usually weren’t as polite as their name implies. If they knew of any beast-like roaming free in town they would usually round them up. If the creature that was detained was lucky they would just throw them over the wall of nails. The unlucky ones wouldn’t see beyond the wall again and would just end up on someone's dinner plate. The large forest trees standing resolute behind the guards and wall hide the entrance to the Hookfoot Peninsula which is full of unspeakable natural horrors. I know. I saw them once.
Between the Polite Society guards and the entrance of the peninsula stands that aforementioned wall of nails. Instead of a pleasant fence or a tactful border of some kind to keep the forest’s wildlife out of town, there are enormous black spikes sticking out of the ground pointing away from town and toward the forest. These spikes aren’t neatly planted either, they are jagged and unruly. I’m sure whoever planted these massive monstrosities in the ground several hundred years ago thought they would always look as clean as when they were first put in. According to town legend when the spikes were first laid in the ground they looked like a row of giant bent nails neatly pointing toward the forest with purpose. Just on the other side of the giant wall of nails were about five more layers of nails each smaller and smaller until they reached the forest. No matter the beast, anything that got too close to town would be met with a face full of grotesque metal. Now after so many years of use, the ground around these spikes has shifted so much that the border between town and the forest looks like someone's mangled jaw with their teeth askew and growing in every direction.
The layers of mutilated spikes are pretty thick but that's not to say a group of small kids couldn't maneuver their way through them. Years ago as a child, I needed to see past the spikes for myself. I would lay awake in my bed most nights just looking toward the forest. It was me and five other kids in town who decided to squeeze between the spikes one night and wander into the forest a bit. The Polite Society wasn’t around at that time when I was little so only the spikes stood between us and the wilderness. We all thought we were being so brave when carefully squeezed through the unruly metal border. One by one our little group of friends decided to turn back to town but I needed to see what was really out there.
The stupid kid version of me decided to keep on going through the thick dark forest until I hit a point where I almost fell off this cliff that came out of nowhere in my ill illuminated path. Out there in the pitch-black woodland area, I couldn't see the night sky at all due to how thick the canopy of leaves was. Just past the cliff I almost plummeted off of was an ocean of treetops that seemed to stretch forever covered in a soft blanket of moonlight that just barely made the treetops visible. The mistake I made was randomly shining my flashlight around the dark void stretch before me. The incident that disturbed me happened as manoeuvered the light around into that void. The light landed on a gargantuan creature’s hairy face. This creature towered over any of the trees that were below. Its face was well above the peak I was standing at. I have no idea how tall this cliff really was so I can’t fathom the enormity of the creature to this day. I was met by two enormous yellow eyes that reflected my flashlight back at me. Accompanying those two huge yellow glowing eyes was an elongated toothy human-like smile. Its smile grew wider as it started to make its way toward the cliff and me. The second it started to move I ran right back the way I came from. I was running so fast through the black forest that after a while when I glanced behind me I had already gone a distance away from the cliff and was nearer to the jagged town border. Oh and if you wonder how effective some grizzly black spikes would be at stopping creatures from entering the town, I can tell you with certainty that they would stop any unsuspecting creature. While running full speed back through the woods in the dark, my face came about an inch away from being impaled by the horrific black wall of jagged pins. That memory always comes back to me when I look at the border. As much as I'm not a fan of authoritative figures, It feels way less horrifying with the Polite Society there.
My walk back home from the fish market felt extra long today like it was hours ago I sold that crab to Reggie when in fact it’s been mere minutes. I was out a bit longer than I had hoped to talk with Reggie. If I had shown up a bit earlier I might have seen my neighbor Noira working in her garden. We used to be inseparable, once we graduated from school we haven’t really spoken to each other much. To this day I’ve never spoken about my dad having worked at Fine Fin Foods to her. She’s very much against the poor treatment of beast-likes. We were both young when my family packed up from our old enormous house and moved into the tiny house next to her tiny house. At the time she was just another kid from school, it wasn’t until we became neighbors that we grew pretty close to each other. I just gazed at the lovely garden next door full of tiny pixies for a second before heading inside.
When I get inside my house I debate on what to eat. Due to being at the factory all day I’m not really in the mood for anything meat-related at the moment, not that there is much to eat in my house anyway. A rut is what my current position is called, the events of each day seem to blend with the days before and after it. The thought of being watched by the bosses at work with those eyes that imply I’m failing day in and day out makes waiting for the next day feel unbearable. Day after day when I go into work I'm told I didn’t do X right, or Y isn’t looking clean enough. It’s another night where I don’t do much with my free time at home. I end up plopping myself on my bed and As I drift to sleep I wonder what it is I’m going to mess up on next.
Relieving me of my duties they called it, it was a fancy phrase for being fired. I packed up what little stuff I had in my company locker. I never really got to say bye to anyone I worked with. As much as I liked a small handful of them, it’s not like we were super close. The job I won’t miss too much but the people and money, mostly the money, I'll miss. I made the same slog out of the factory as usual though this time it was an interesting feeling. Yes, I was fired, but not having to return to that awful factory was a pretty nice feeling all its own.
I definitely won't miss the sad sight of livestock I would walk by every day. You really don’t give much thought to things like where your bottled water came from or what sort of life did your meat live before you scarfed it down. Each day when I would walk out of Bob’s gross meat factory I would see the Minotaurs grazing out in the muddy area they had them fenced in. The illustrations of ancient minotaurs you see in old books are these strong muscular creatures with a strong human upper half and giant bull-like legs. These Minotaurs behind this fence look plump like your friend’s lazy uncle who just sits around all day chugging booze. I’m surprised some of these minotaurs can even walk due to how messed up their legs are.
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In one pen over the fat little satyrs just grazed like normal, giving occasional maws as you passed with defeated looks on their faces. The ones I despised walking past were the centaur. Most of the centaurs at the factory were “workers”. If you called a farmer's workhorse a “worker'' it would be just as close a comparison. These particular Centaurs were muscular and would lug huge crates and whatnot around the factory. I never once heard a centaur complain about it’s job the couple times I chatted with them at Bob’s, though most can hardly speak.
Rarely would you see Humans and Beast-likes mingle together. Most Beast-likes know what happens if you mouth off to the wrong person, you just need to look out on the company ranges at the rather plump livestock centaurs. Centaur meat was a bit of a specialty at Bob’s factory. After chatting with a couple of centaurs in my time it's near impossible to gain an appetite for meat made out of them. It was a bit depressing walking past those plump livestock centaurs that roamed the pastures outside the factory. The way they stared at you was unsettling to say the least. Any human that came around them would just get gawked at with this look that’s hard to even describe but it made you feel bad for them. Seems like they were almost waiting for you to release them from their bindings, the worst part was when they would utter a word at you.
These centaurs are never taught how to speak however they will pick up words and sometimes utter words at you like “Hello” and “goodbye”. I don’t think people give enough credit to these creatures and how smart they are. A livestock cow, as well as a livestock centaur, know why they at a factory like this so that's why seeing their sad faces really gets you down.
I trudged back home again like I did the day before. I felt defeated and the air felt thicker with smog than usual. Like a lighthouse brightening the cold dark sea, there was a beacon of light coming from the direction of my house. However, this ray of hope wasn't shining on my house. No, this light was piercing through the clouds and sat exclusively on my next-door neighbor’s house. It was the only house in town that was so covered in flowers that it resembled a painting more than it did a typical house in Flotsam Harbor town. As I walked past the sun-kissed house I noticed, well actually looked for, an equally elegant figure in this colorful palette of a home.
“Did something happen at work Zeb?” That voice of Noira’s always made my heart melt. Just hearing her chat about something as mundane as the weather or asking how work went could make the worst day of my life feel like a day where I just won some lottery. Her shining personality could light up a room faster than any lamp. You can tell the pixies floating all around Noira really seemed to enjoy her company as well as I did.
When I came home early enough on days like these I would see Noira working in her garden and chatting with the pixies and earth sprites. Pixies aren’t the best conversationalists but being around them tends to give off a pleasant feeling. Noira was always tender to any person or creature she came across. Unlike me, she refuses to eat any kind of meat.
I remember seeing the kind of flower she grew in her garden in front of some of the factories one day some years ago. I followed the trail of factories that had been hit by her small flowery vandalism. It led me to the ocean where she and a group of people from Creature Better were floating a bunch of flowers out to sea. I didn’t go out there to greet them, in fact, I believe I went to clock in at one of the factories once I left their vicinity. Creature Better was at times a pretty proactive group of activists but Noira was usually quietly holding a sign up in the back the few times I saw the group doing a demonstration against the factories or against the Polite Society. Creature Better and The Polite Society were known to be at odds with each other constantly through Creature Better was just a small group of activists and The Polite Society was armed to the teeth with drones flying around town and swimming around the shore.
As I mentioned, Noira and I grew up together as classmates and neighbors. Once out of school I hopped from job to job never really knowing what I was meant to do. While Noira on the other hand was always destined to take over her family's flower shop in town.
Noira could see that I was wearing a pretty desperate look on my face. Without a word she just flashes me a bright smile. Beyond Noira’s fence filled with flowers and pixies seemed like its own little world, a world where I would stand out as a monochrome intruder. Compared to the rest of this colorless town, her house seemed to absorb all surrounding color and flourished their yard with it. A garden Pixie landed on my finger as my hand rested on the fence between her and I. In all my life that I’ve lived next door to these pixies, this is the first time one ever came to me. Pixies are just as sentient as fairies or humans but it’s hard to see their expressions due to how much light they emit. They are about the size of your fingernail and will produce a glowing light even in the daytime. If you managed to stop a pixie from glowing you would see that its body looked like a needle-sized human. Before I knew it I was surrounded by pixies doing an almost choreographed dance around my head.
Following the brief silence after her last question, Noira spoke again, “They can sense how you feel and are trying to cheer you up.”
The soft look on Noira’s face and the carefree manner in which she presented herself gave me the feeling that everything was alright. I will admit that I’m in love with Noira. It’s not something I have ever said out loud to anyone but I’m sure you could tell by the way I talk about her. It was obvious to anyone who saw us strolling around town back when we spent a lot of time together. I myself never had the heart to ask her out in all the years I’ve known her. Rejection I can handle but not if it was from Noira. As a friend or lover, I just needed her in my life. Every single time I was about to tell her I love her I would chicken out. But today is different, I can feel it. Maybe it was the fact that I was just fired, but I felt untouchable. Not the superhero kind of untouchable, but the "nothing to lose" kind of untouchable. It had to have been that invincible feeling that possessed me to do what I did next.
With a whole squad of pixies dancing around my head rooting for me, I think I can finally do what I should have done ages ago.
“Hey. I was thinking. If you are free. I can make us something to eat and we can hang out later tonight. It's been a while since we’ve done anything together. what do you think? Urr umm..well. yeah..” As you can tell I’m a bit of a wordsmith. Moira had this sort of surprised look as she started to fiddle with her short brown hair.
“You ask me right when I'm covered in dirt? I think you did that on purpose.” I can tell she was playing but her face was a bit red.
“Covered in dirt is how I’m accustomed to seeing you out here” her face looked a bit pouty.
“Watch it, or you will eat your fancy dinner alone tonight.”
“Nobody said it was going to be fancy.”
“Well it better be after your “dirty” comment.” she had this playful look on her face and giggled as she headed inside her house. I admit I did run through my own gate pretty fast to get inside as soon as I saw her shut the door. As well-intentioned as I hoped my invitation was, I didn’t take into account the state my father and I left the house, a mess. I spent the remainder of the twilight hours cleaning up my house. You wouldn’t think a small house like ours could get so bad in terms of clutter but my dad and I really let it go. To my surprise, it started to look like a house again after a bit of work.
Just as the veggie soup I was boiling was done I heard Noira walk up to the door. When I opened the door I was in a bit of shock. She never really dressed herself up around me. I suppose after having known each other for most of our lives we just got so comfortable around each other and our appearances weren't an issue between us. She looked stunning in her white sundress. She pinned one side of her light brown hair back. She was even wearing a bit of makeup which was also a rarity for her.
I gawked just a bit too long at her while standing on the porch,
“So are we eating out here?” she responded as she gave me her usual playful but sarcastic look.
“Ahh no, come on in.” I let her pass me at the door. The expression on her face is that of someone who was discovering a lost vista of sorts.
“Wow, It's usually pretty messy in here.” Again her face is brimming with a smile and it's adorable.
“Thanks for the compliment?” I genuinely laughed at her comment.
It’s probably hard to tell that I lost my job just a few hours ago by the dumb smile across my face.
After dinner, we chatted as we cleaned the dishes. It had been quite a while since we were able to talk to one another for so long. Our conversation still felt so natural after all this time, almost as if our last conversation was yesterday and not a couple of months ago. We talked about what had been going on in our lives recently, stuff we watched on tv, and her family’s shop.
Anytime she would ask where I was fired from I avoided the question. I tried to keep my talk of the factory to a minimum due to how she felt about the treatment of the animals and Beast-like. She was part of a small but loud activist group called “Creature Better” which tried to improve the well-being of livestock in town. Noira once visited a place called Driftwood Harbor town that was clear across this peninsula that our town is attached to. Anyway, there was no Polite Earth Society in Driftwood Harbor and to a better degree, they treated the Beast-likes a bit more humane there. She says the Beast-likes like centaurs, minotaurs, satyrs, and the like were still very much going to be slaughtered there but at least they weren't wallowing in the horrible conditions that they were in our town of Flotsam Harbor. Seeing how they treated livestock in that town is what caused her and her friends to form Creature Better in the first place. I think a part of the reason I was losing touch with Noira had to do with how bad I felt that I was actively impeding her cause and never really letting on that I've been working in meat plants. Trust me I tried finding work elsewhere but, no luck. My father and I really need the money.
Noira knew my family wasn’t the best off in recent times. I was really young when my family sold off Fine Fin Foods and I moved next door to her. After all these years I’m positive she doesn’t know that my family was almost entirely blamed for the disappearance of the world's mermaids. It’s not like my family wiped them out, they just disappeared one day. My dad solely carried the blame wherever he was, which is why he was rarely seen in town and preferred to go out on his boat. Noira’s family never seemed to ask about what my dad had done. It was almost as if they didn’t know and if they did they didn’t possess any ill will for my father. Why Noira’s parents never brought up who my dad was to Noira was beyond me. They always treated me like family and when I was younger would even look after me while my dad was away. If it was for my sake that they never told Noira about my family's involvement with the disappearance of the mermaid then I owe her folks a debt I could never repay. Dad and I were still to some degree able to live off what he made selling off Fine Fin Foods years ago but I wouldn't call it a lavish lifestyle by any means.
My being fired from Bob’s was still permeating my mind and I think it was beginning to show. Noira and I both just sat on my couch for a bit without a word now. She sat a lot closer than I thought she would, in fact, we were now sharing the same small couch cushion.
“Uh, hey” was the best I could come up with as she seemingly got closer. The closer she got the more nervous I became. This wasn’t the fun kind of nervous I usually would get around her, I was feeling guilty. “So...uhh you know never mind.” I think my dodging the subject of where I had just been let go from was catching up to me.
She ignored my useless attempt at banter and laid her head on my shoulder. Not that it was intentional but I could smell the fragrance of her shampoo. The skin on her arm that was slightly cold was now warming up rapidly as it brushed up against my arm. In the corner of my eye, I could see her head turn toward mine. Because of how nervous I was I pretended not to notice.
“I really missed being around you, you know,” Noira said as every last syllable she uttered brushed my ear in a pleasant way. The girl whom I’ve been in love with for as long as I knew what love was is really getting comfortable next to me. The closer she moved toward me, the more her thin white sundress clung to her body. As the gap between us shrank, the guilt of working in a meat plant grew. Why wasn’t I able to turn toward her? Come on guy, Noira is right there. Look at her! The bottom seam of her dress started to hike up higher and higher exposing more of her thigh than I think she realized. I could feel her breath on my neck now. She even gave a little kiss to my neck.
The shock of that little kiss probably made me jump. She found my reaction amusing. I can tell by Noira’s silence that she noticed I’m avoiding her advances. I have to tell her now that I was cleaning the blood of the very animals she was trying to protect off of the cold steel ground. I don’t even know how she will react to me telling her but I’m sure it’s not something she wants to hear. I mean it’s not like I’m employed there anymore, well as of earlier today anyway. I really wish I had told her before I asked her to eat dinner with me where I was fired from.
My obvious but reluctant indifference to her was becoming more and more apparent as each second passed us. I was almost wishing she would back off a bit. Trust me, it’s not her, or this situation. I can’t think of anywhere I would rather be. It’s all ideal but I feel like I’m lying to her by not telling her that I worked in a meat plant. I finally turned to her but after seeing her face I wish I hadn’t. This girl I knew my whole life and loved was putting herself in this rather compromising position for me, a dream come true and...and the look I gave her when I turned in her direction was one of pure disgust, disgust I was now feeling for myself.
“I was fired from Bob’s Beef and Beast factory...” She fell silent but still lay on my shoulder. “I’m...I’m so sorry I didn't tell you earlier.”
“I appreciate you telling me. Must have been hard. You know where I stand with the killing of animals and Beast-likes. But I know you and your dad have been having a rough time for years now so I can understand why you worked at Bob’s. I hate that so many fish died at your guys' factory way back when, but I know a lot of people eat fish and that it’s a lucrative business so I can’t fault you guys for making a profit off of it.”
“Uhh...fish?”
“My family told me years ago you use to own some fish processing factory and it went under.”
“The meat we served…”
“Was that why you were so pensive? You were afraid of my reaction to you having worked in a meat plant. It’s ok. I still love yo…”
She covered her mouth a bit. We both went silent. I wasn’t expecting those words to come out of her mouth. The words that left my mouth next though I expected even less.
“Mermaid…”
“...”
“Fine Fin Foods, my family’s plant, processed mermaids. Now...now they are gone.” after I told her that, Noira stood up swiftly. I could tell by her body language that she was hurt.
“I...I” She was struggling to talk past her ever-growing sobs.
“It’s not like my family set out to wipe out the mermaids. It just kind of happened.” I can tell that was a horrible thing to say. I was now at a loss for words.
“One of the most beautiful souls I had met as a child was a mermaid girl I used to play with on the beach. Little did I know that the day she tried to teach me to swim was the last day I would ever see her. She never came back to the beach after that day. Now I know whose fault...” She cut herself off before she could finish her words. Words that cut deeper than anything ever shouted at me before.
I felt a sense of anger wash over me after she told me about her mermaid friend. I felt a loathing I’ve never really felt in my life. This anger wasn’t aimed at her or my dad who ran the factories. This anger was aimed at me. I turned down her advances and then when she tried to make me feel better I dropped the truth about how the mermaids died on her. I felt unworthy to be in the same room as Noira. I could see the really embarrassed and shook-up look on her face as she grabbed her stuff and headed for the door. In what felt like an eternity, I could see all of our years of friendship and trust rapidly dissipating before my eyes.
I got up and tried to say something, anything to her as she stormed to the door. I trailed behind her until we reached the front door and that door slammed in my face, Noira was telling me not to dare follow her. Why the hell did I have to get fired? Why did I ask her to dinner?
She must have built up a lot of courage if she put herself out there like that for me, kissing my neck and even forgiving me for working in the meat plant. She really seemed to want to just be here with me. For God's sake, she ate my awful meal. It was bad, really really bad. But for me, she smiled the whole time eating it. She was getting warm with me only to find out what my family did. Thinking about it now, when I saw her put flowers by the ocean before, it must have been for her mermaid friend. I thought it was just like a sign of grievance for all mermaids. I’m such an idiot.
I grabbed the half-open drawer in front of me and tried to slam it shut in anger but that wasn’t happening, it was too filled with bills that I hid from sight while cleaning for our dinner. My dad was out there busting his ass to keep the bill collectors happy while I couldn't even scrape a goddamn floor proper enough to hold a lousy job. I accidentally fell to the kitchen floor after slipping on one of the fallen letters. I hit the ground pretty hard and as I lay there I slammed the ground pretty hard with my hand. I promise you there was nothing poetic about my display either, it was a pretty pathetic sight.
All this stuff I’ve been trying to keep my mind off of just starts flooding into my head as I curl up on the floor. Just before my dad left on his current boating expedition, I could see this look of defeat on his face. He had just come from the town office. I later found out he was there trying again to get another extension on his bills. When I offered to help him pay some of it, he became irritated with me and told me to use my money on myself. Just let me help you old man, damn. When trying to pull myself up off the kitchen floor using the counter for balance, my hand skidded on some pixie spice harvested from Noira herself off the flowers in her garden. The smell was nice, it reminded me of her...and how horrible I just was to her. I have to go talk to her now. I don’t care if she never speaks to me after tonight I have to say something. anything before it’s too late. I swung my front door open and saw the last person I expected to see standing out in the rain.
My dad.
“I thought you would be asleep at this hour. Did you know I was at the door? Anyway, you have to come and help me out.” he said with a big smile on his face.
“Oh..uhh. Sure thing but first I have to go talk to Noira.”
“Hah, I’m sure Noira will understand. Come on, get your shoes on! we have to leave now.” My dad says all that with a smile. This is probably the happiest I’ve seen him in a long while. Must have been a great haul of sea bass again. My dad rushing me along really gave me a small bit of clarity though, I’m sure Noira really doesn’t want to see me right now.
“Yeah, lemme get my shoes on.” As much as I pestered my dad to tell me why we were rushing, he just smiled the whole drive down to the seashore and told me I should have answered his phone calls that I apparently ignored earlier. The only thing I know is he dropped something off at an old storage warehouse on the dock that a friend of his owned. He told his two crewmates to keep it safe while he came to get me. It wasn’t a long drive to the little warehouse built on the dock. This warehouse has seen better days, but it's about the size of a two-story house which was actually pretty big compared to most of the storage shacks dangling off this dock.
“Nobody can know we have this stashed here. She's worth a fortune. You ready Zebbadia?” My dad called me by full name and was still smiling bigger than I’d seen in so long. The sound of the rain rapidly picking up outside was almost drowned out by the loud creaking steps on the flimsy wood under our feet.
“I guess dad, what is it?” My dad's worker Piero took us to a large glass container on the west side of this warehouse. This giant cylinder was filled with water and something floating toward the bottom of it.
When I got closer to the murky container my eyes locked with hers, I was hesitant to look away from her big deep eyes. There’s just no way. The girl in the tube and I just stared at each other. A Mermaid.