mermaid fairytale backup

  The town is not on a map, for one cannot be certain it can be called a town. Indeed along the emerald green shore between steep cliffs and a dangerous cove of sharp spire stones there is a tiny sandy beach. Here is Bac'chelet; which consists in its entirety of a pub, an inn, a dairy farm, and a family of fishermen who sell some of their catch here and take the rest up the street to Marlando. There are scattered houses here and there about the country, farms and the like, usually considered part of some township or another. For whatever reason Bac'chelet fell just outside of anyone's domain; and there is a legend about that. However that legend is a bit ahead and ties to someone else of importance here. For in Bac'chelet there is a frequent visitor of the pub, an older relative of the fisher family. He is known by many a not so flattering name like Mad Jack, Jack the Joke, Jack of the Drink, and of course that drunk Jack Ass.

     Jack it is said was much respected in his youth, a handsome man who brought in many a haul out at sea. That was until his early thirties, still unmarried, an oddity in his day and these parts; he began to say very strange things. He would claim to have a wife, but no one else may see her. He would spirit away food stuffs on his rowboat and brave the dangerous cove claiming his wife lived just beyond there; but still no one could see her. This naturally raised great concern from those close to Jack; fear either he had gone mad and spirited away some unfortunate traveler in his mad desperation for companionship, hiding her away in some damp cold cave in the cove where only his boat could reach her for to swim there would be an assured death. Or else those more trusting of his nature believed he had indeed gone mad, but imagined a wife; saying his stories were like those of some silly fairy tale, like a Selkie or Merrow. It was for the former concern however that the authorities insisted one night, having ambushed the man in route with a wagon of salted fish, beer, and chips; to take them to see his so called wife and be certain she was not an abductee. Jack had been sorrowful as the record showed taking them to the cove. The constables did not say what they saw, but put it on record the man had committed no crime, and as the record reads should have been left alone to his happiness.

  That is where the record ends, but not where the tale of Jack ends. He had grown distant, despondent, distrustful of friend and family, accusing everyone he had ever met of fetching the constables and making him break his promise that no one could ever see his wife but him. That was until one day, at the age of forty five Jack had become happy again, but within a week isolated himself to his cabin, fearful of his own shadow. He grew thin, screaming at odd hours of the night, telling people he did so to drown out the singing and laughter on the wind. He barely ate and insisted upon walking about with a blindfold on. He does not do that anymore, the towns people, of what little there are say they don't remember when he stopped, but gradually he ate more; drank mostly, but refused to ever set foot upon a boat again.

   Speaking with Jack however he had a very odd tale to tell. Indeed the old grey bearded man is now in his late seventies, very few people who can remember his life as a youth first hand are still among the living. So it was we interviewed Jack.

   *

    "Aye boyo, you got the jist of it I reckon. Twould be a shame to sit here then and repeat whatcha already know aye? I am old man now, just an ole man and his drink, alone in dis world save for 'is memories and star'in at da sea."

   Jack was reluctant to speak until his beer was paid for by the interviewer.

   "Aye know aye's gonna come across as an old drunken liar, memories fogged by age and beer...awwwn aged beer I reckon as well. I know, I look out at dat der sea and I wish for when I didn't know what I's know. You see boyo they hide demselves, tricky devils they are. Behind two curtains, one for privacy, and the other which ya think isn't der when yas look past the first, why der be a second you's ask I reckon, well; its ta hide their true faces; maybe so we don't fear 'em or maybe to save our sanity."

   Jack took a moment to collect his thoughts, mentioning not wanting to go off on a tangent. Or in his own words, "I's had many a tale to tell even after I's left dis town and come back when I's thought it safe; seeing what I saw I's rather stick ta one spot. I'd tell you all about the mist things and the hideous biting things, the pixies' true faces, and deese bitey little whatcha whatevers I's saw hiding inside da dolls"

   He was dismissive of his own thoughts it seemed as he sank our wallets into his thirst. He took out a circular stone with a hole in it like a small wheel and stated, "Dis here been more trouble den it worth boyo, I's got it after the tale I tell yas now, so to be safe from dem out der in the water; shoulda never looked through it on a misty morning in Holland, or a walk through the woods in New York. Never mind all that."

  He pocket the amulet like object and continued his tale.

  "So, bout time I started this tale proper boyo, now I tells ya there are three types o'people who talk about da sea; first ya got da the ones who know nothin then...nah, make dat four kinds o'people, ya got the ones likes I said who knows nothing about da sea, then you gots the romantics rights they's the types who swim wit...actually, lets go back, I am thinkin five types of people who talk about the sea...um..okay I said the ones who know nothin about it and just know what they sees on documentaries right; okay, den you gets the types who are all romantic about it, ya'know the type, they got nautical junk all over der hous, they got coral and dried up sea horses and they swim wit da dolphins right. So then you gets the scientists right, they send dem cameras in the water, they fish stuff up; den they go back inland and talk and examine the dead things, or they gots fish ina fish tank right. So they the types everyone listen to, even when dey gots da people showing dem stuff, and they be like...oh hows you see this when we don't see dis, or oh that can't be real because we didn't see it first, or we knows it all so that isn't real end oh conversation right. So den you gets the fishermen and dem people who live on and by the sea. Dey...okay, I said five types right? The docu guys, one, um, the romantics two, right, the scientists three, yeah dat's right; these last two dey know it. See dis second ta last is fishermen and people who live like around towns like this aye, so they see the stuff no one else seeing, they live by the sea, they know the fish, they know the barnacles, the gulls, the seals, all dat. They know dem personally and dey tells ya stories. I was like dat; but then I 'came ta be number five boyo; the ones who see da things in da sea that hide dem'selves boyo...scary things."

   Jack seemed reluctant, clearly procrastinating as much as he could, his speech slurring at odd times with moments of clarity as we recorded the conversation.

   "Okay, boyo, so here's where I am, dat story? Wanta know what the cops saw? What I had hidden in dat cove? Twas a mermaid."

  It was at this time that others in the pub interrupted the conversation, some men in their forties and thirties slurring profanities, telling us we are waisting documentary space interviewing this man. We had to reconvine the next day at Jack's residence due to the amount of disturbances to the interview to put it as politely as possible, a small shack atop a cliff near the sea some distance; especially as a walk, from the pub.

  A bit more sober Jack after seeing our recording from the night before decided to let that portion of the interview be as it and not repeat himself. Instead continuing where he left off, his speach considerably more coherent, although a tad off putting just how different his accent sounded from the night before as though that had been the real him and this a persona built upon and refined over his many years of travel.

   "Alrighty," began Jack, "I won't refute anything I said when drunk boyo, but I do want to clarify a few things. Firstly when it comes to the sea, now there is this stigma about fishermen and sailors being all superstitious, an old stigma, kinda odd really itsa still around; but the truth is 'cause of dis many a sailor and fishermen is kneejerky about anything; why it tooka so long for rogue waves to be recognized as real, and most who go out at sea will tell you anything strange is something mundane. Havin a history mind ya where people think men of your profession get so horny they can't tell a fat seal from a sexy fish woman or think any bit o'debris or some long fish is a giant sea serpent. Well that sorta thing makes you lie to yerself, you see some odd shape under the water, well pay it no mind you just saw part o'something; see an island one day not there the nexy, aye you's just gotten lost is all, a forest beneath the waves you don't see when you make a turn around to get a better look? A trick o'the light is all."

  Jack had paused a moment as though contemplating telling us anything else but *sighed* and continued on, "Alrighty then, 'nugh procrasting or whatever the term is. Now when someone tells you mermaid something comes to mind. First thing I bet is a descendent image from that one work o'fiction. Now when it comes to the sea people folks tend to get their information and base their mental images on one o'three things. The most common is (The Little Mermaid), which is a work o'fiction mind ya, and not one even based properly on mermaids; a religious parable is what that really was. The second then is folklore; the majority o'which is the sea wife type o'story and the sort of thing when ya examine it closely likely was based on some ancient asshole having abducted some poor girl to force to be his wife and her running off...or more darkly him killing her...and the whole oh she was a selkie, a merrow, or some other such thing that found the magic McGuffin I's had to keep her prisoner and ran off...always found that kinda dumb, as either way ya looks at it, the bastard still kidnapped someone and was for all intents and purposes holding her against her will and raping her...and the third type o'person to move this right along are them scientists and pseudo-scientists being all sea-mammals, fish, biology, making dem fake documentaries and using that stuff to discredit sightings; even in this age where people use computers to share countless sightings of information they can still quickly discredit them. Don't help the majority of stuff on dem is taken as silly little girl fantasies."

  Jack at this time decided to get himself a drink and offer us some, we declined. However he quickly returned to his tale, "Now I sees how you's looking at me, the second thing right, kinda fits going by what people told ya about me. But I assure you I had no magic seal skin or feathered cap. No such silly thing, think back to what I said last night when you first interviewed me boyo, they hide themselves. So let's begin at the beginning."

  Jack took a moment to collect his thoughts, "Now, I can't say exactly how it happened boyo, and to be honest in hindesight I'd rather overly romanticize it all. In truth I'm no poet, no screen writer, and never occured ta me to write it all down. Honest,"

   -at this moment he was examining his bottle of booze- "I've tried more to forget this than anything; so I'm not about ta spin some yarn about magic on the beach, following some beautiful music and falling for a gorgeous sea woman. Well...yeah, that's all there was to it I suppose. At least back then that's all there was about it. But I've had years to reflect, time to learn the truth. I can think of a few odds and ends, I am certain the beast had checked us out, messed with us, and picked me out as the easy victim."

   Jack took a moment, deciding if he really wanted to tell us his tale, the look on his face and mannerisms till this point told us that on the one hand he likely believed we wouldn't believe him and he'd be wasting his breath being ridiculed once again as he had no doubt for many years; on the other it felt like the events were far more tragic and had a darker side to them than we had been lead to believe; at least going by our own bias and experience with the same fiction and folklore Jack was bringing up to not think about.

   "Well as ya know I was a fisherman, this would be back in the seventies, so as you can imagine well past any point anyone could have taken any mermaid sightings seriously. As much as younger folk like to believe anyone over sixty somehow magically lived in the eighteen hundreds; just really bad at math I'd imagine. We had been out one day bringing in a small haul when we pulled up a net that looked like it can been cut to pieces, as in half the links were severed. That I figure was the first odd thing. Not long after we had an anchor break off, a propeller broke off one of the engines; in a way that even the mechanic said looked like it had been pulled off, the metal stretched and everything; but nothing could have done that...albeit the others with me believed it was wear believing the broken anchor related to this like it had been tied around and pulled...even though we'd have noticed the anchor being pulled into a propellor. The biggest one was the leak, like a hole punched in the bottom. When we dry docked the ship the whole bottom was scratched to bits as well; I can picture it clearly; everyone kept telling themselves it was rocks, not sure how they missed them, but those marks were four long cuts here and there, the kind of marks a human or an animal would make with claws or fingernails raked across something.

   But like I said I was a young dumb fool, I didn't put two and two together till much later too. See some days later while the ship was in dry dock I decided to just go fishing for me self, got a little boat, a line, and went around the rocky bend not far out, just by the cove. See the thing is we had been taking the ship out a tad closer to those waters, moving from one spot to another as the fishing dwindled from one; ya know rotating fishing spots or whatever. Come near dusk as the tide was coming in making the waters about there a tad choppier than was safe as I was heading home I heard the song, indeed boyo, that tune has played in my head so many times that only booze could drown it out."

  He actually stopped the interview there to take some drinks as though actively trying to clear his head.

   "I followed dat tune boyo, and saw among the choppy rocks a large green fish tail splashing. I didn't see anyone that first day. Next day I heard the tune again and I saw someone in the cove, a little cave tucked away. I called out and this woman with long blonde hair was floating in the waters rising and falling in the waves. I called out again, see there is no way to swim about there and not be smashed against the rocks in those waves; this person only laughed and dove down, big green scaley tail. I headed home. But I saw her as I paddled the boat and drew in me line, beneath the waves this huge green tail, scaley like a fish but flat like a porpoise...like a mermaid I reckon are, but under the water it looked...bigger, alot bigger, kinda scary big and moving under me boat. Could barely see it, I dropped engine and sped back to shore. Funny thing is, right now I can remember the fear I felt, and remember when I looked in da water it was all green, black hair maybe, nothing human but...at the time I don't know. This was a fuzzy memory. Truth be told till about ten years ago, had you asked me about this, this part I wouldn't have remembered, just the next part; and maybe not have included the stuff that happened to our ship. One reason I suppose folks think I'm lying, can't keep a story straight they'd say; those other fishermen didn't see any of dis and they'd tell you it was rocks that damaged the boat and a line around the motor. But likes I said I didn't connect dose dots till later anyway.

  So here's the part where had you asked me before I cleared me head of deese enchantments, where me story would have begun.