I was born the daughter of a mighty king, whose dominion stretched as far as the far blue horizon and deep as the darkest pits of the unfathomable sea. My father had six daughters, and all were graced with the brilliance of the full moon and the beauty of the bright stars in the clear northern sky. But I, the youngest of my sisters, was considered the fairest of them all.
‘Mi-ohk’, they called me. Beautiful pearl.
And like the jewel for which I was named, it was only a matter of time before I was lost to the lure of the mortal land above.
I don’t remember when I began dreaming of the land above. Perhaps it was the statue, with its unnatural coverings and alien body, that had first piqued my curiosity. Perhaps it was the thrill of the unknown, of mysteries my young eyes had never seen.
Perhaps it was destiny.
But nothing gave me more pleasure than listening to my grandmother’s stories about the world beyond the ocean, of the great ships that floated over our waters, of the cities sprawled on the ground, of the animals and people with their strange appendages for tails – ‘legs’, my grandmother called them – that dwelt there. And so I began to long for the marvels in her tales – to see the lush green forests, to hear the sweet song of the fishes that darted between the branches, to smell the flowers that bloomed there with their impossibly sweet fragrance.
“What is it like?” I wondered. “How did they grow?”
“My goodness, child!” my grandmother would cry, when she grew exasperated of my persistent questions. “Your curiosity will be the death of you!”
…If only she’d known then how true those words would one day prove to be.
One by one, my sisters came of age, and one by one, they took their turns to rise above the waves, each bringing back fabulous tales of what she had seen.
But every year, I – the youngest – was left behind, watching them go.
Longing for my turn. Longing for my own day of surfacing.
And so I waited.
And so I dreamed.
There was music, and laughter, and as night fell, hundreds of red lanterns were lit onboard to swing merrily in the air. Captivated by the colours, the smells, the noise and the vibrancy, I could scarcely look away, hardly daring to blink.
On the evening of your twenty-fifth birthday, in a party held in your honour, you alone were not celebrating.
Eclipsed by brilliance, you were still the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
o.o0o.o
It grew late, but the little mermaid could not turn away from the ship or the handsome young Prince who stood sullenly at its prow. The lamps were put out. No more rockets shot through the air, no more cannons fired.
And then, from the depths of the sea, came a rumbling noise. A great wind picked up, and the waves grew in size. Black clouds could be seen on the horizon as blue-white lightning zigzagged across the sky. A storm was brewing, and the great ship tossed and turned in huge waves that rolled as if they were mountains, wanting to bury the ship and break its proud mast. The ship creaked and groaned, and the great planks seemed to bulge as the waves hit them. The mast snapped, the ship heeled, and the sea broke over it.
o.o0o.o
When I saw your body tumbling into the water, for an instant, I was overjoyed. I longed to take you to the ocean’s depths so that you could live there, like the jade statue of the boy in my little garden, forever, blissfully, by my side.
But then I remembered that you were only flesh and blood – only mortal, only human, and you could not breathe in the water like me. Your eyes would close and your body would eventually crumble to dust, your spirit long gone before you could see the beauty of my father’s palace.
As the wooden planks and the wreckage of the sinking ship fell around me, as you flailed and struggled desperately in the stormy dark water, it was only then that I realised the danger you were in.
But how could I let you die – you who were so breathtaking?
o.o0o.o
Forgetting the danger that she herself was in, the little mermaid dived through the waves and rode their crests, until she finally reached the young Prince, who was no longer able to swim in the raging sea. His arms and legs were exhausted, his beautiful eyes were closing, and he would have died if the little mermaid had not come to help him. Holding his head above the water, she let the waves take them where they would.
o.o0o.o
As the dawn broke over the horizon, I saw mountains rising in the distance, snow glittering on their peaks. Land – land at last!
Cradling your cooling body in my arms, I laid you to rest on the fine white sand of a sheltering bay. Now the waves of my home could no longer harm you, yet still you did not draw breath. Your full lips were tinted blue, icy-cold to the touch, your body still as in death.
In that shattering instant, I thought you were lost to me.
o.o0o.o
The sun rose out of the waters, red and bright, but the Prince’s eyes remained closed. The little mermaid kissed her his brow and gently brushed the wet hair from his face; she kissed him yet again and wished with all her heart that he might live.
o.o0o.o
My grandmother always said that mermaids were creatures of happiness. In bliss, we were born, and in bliss, we lived out our three hundred years in our kingdom beneath the sea.
But as I stroked your smooth brow and the proud arch of your nose, watching you dying before my helpless eyes, my heart seemed to ache like a foreign thing. For the first time, as the sun rose behind me, I tasted the bitterness of sorrow, the agony of loss.
Having no need for tears, a mermaid’s eyes could not weep.
Instead, I could only sing.
o.o0o.o
The little mermaid sang of the warmth of the sun she so loved, the vast blue expanse of the morning sky, of the richness of the world she had only just seen. Such a lovely voice had never been heard on earth, and perhaps it was her song that called him back from the brink, for suddenly, the Prince coughed weakly.
His eyes fluttered open.
o.o0o.o
“…Who—“
Barely conscious, you mouthed the word with difficulty, staring up at me with confused, pain-glazed eyes.
“Shh…” I whispered, tenderly wiping away the blood-pink water that gurgled from your lips. “It’s alright. You’re safe now.”
Your clouded gaze narrowed when they fell to my blue-silver tail, but suddenly your weak breath hitched again and your eyes rolled back, exposing the bloodshot whites.
No air passed your lips.
Frantic, I patted your cheek and shook your shoulder, but nothing I did could make you breathe again.
o.o0o.o
From over the white-gold sand dunes came the lively chatter of low voices, and a group of young men came over the crest. They were dressed in long robes of white and blue, and some carried rice-paper books in their hands. The little mermaid dived back in the water, covering her head in seaweed so she could not be seen, and waited to see who would find the poor Prince.
o.o0o.o
It was the smallest in the group who discovered you. He was fine-boned, and very slender, and his large eyes widened when they caught sight of your prone figure by the shore. From my hiding place in the water, I could see he was very young, hardly older than a boy-child, and very beautiful – almost too beautiful to be a man.
“Sir!” he cried, rushing to your side. He shook you as I had, before bending his ear down to your still chest. “Hurry and get the Professor!” he ordered his companions, who looked on with varying degrees of curiosity and worry. “He’s still alive, but he isn’t breathing. There’s too much water in his lungs.”
I watched as the young man heaved you on your side, and began to pound your back and chest. More blood-pink liquid spurted from your lips as your body was wracked with hacking coughs, but the colour began to return to your face and you started to breathe again.
Your dazed eyes opened and you stared for long moments at the boy who half-held you in his arms. “Can you hear me, sir?” the human boy asked, the worry evident in his soft eyes.
Ever-so-slowly, the beginnings of a half-smile flickered at the corner of your foam-stained lips. “…I’m… alive,” you murmured hoarsely to him. But you never looked back to smile at me.
You never remembered that it was I who saved you from the sea.
o.o0o.o
The little mermaid felt terribly sad as the Prince was carried away into a redwood building high on the green hills. When she could no longer see the figures in the distance, she dove sorrowfully down into sea and swam home to her father’s palace. She had always been quiet and thoughtful, but now she grew even more silent. When her sisters asked her what she had seen on her first visit up to the surface, she would not answer.
Many mornings and evenings she would swim back to the place where she had seen the Prince. She watched the fruit in the orchards ripen and be picked and the snow on the high mountains melt, but she never saw the Prince. She would return from these visits a little sadder, seeking comfort by embracing the statue in her garden, which looked like him.
At last she could bear her sorrow no longer and told her sisters about it.
“Come, little sister,” they said, and swimming together, their arms around each others’ shoulders, they rose to the surface when they came to the shore where the Prince’s castle stood.
o.o0o.o
Your home was a strong fortress on the craggy cliff overlooking the ocean. When the tide rose, the waves would crash over the rocks below, showering seething white spray over the stone walls like the blowhole of the great whale.
On some nights, you would stand at the edge of the rocky cliff, staring unseeingly for hours out into the far distance, until a smiling man in angel-fish colours draped his arm around your shoulders and led you away. On others, you would spin and whirl and dance for hours on the sands of the shore, the sharp edge of the sword gripped in your hands glinting blue-silver in the moonlight.
And still others, when the nights were particularly dark and the proud moon hid her glowing face, you would lie so still on the sand that I believed you almost dead again. But then your arm would move as you raised the bottle by your side to your lips to take another long drink. It was in those rare moments, believing yourself completely alone beneath the stars, that you would give in to tears.
I knew, because I was watching.
o.o0o.o
"If men are not so unlucky as to drown," asked the little mermaid, "don't they die as we do, down here in the sea?"
"Yes, they do," answered her grandmother. "Men must also die and their life span is shorter than ours. We can live until we are three hundred years old; but when we die, we become the foam on the ocean. We cannot bury our loved ones. We do not have immortal souls. When we die, we shall never rise again. We are like the green reeds: once they are cut they will never be green again. But men have souls that live eternally, even after their bodies have become dust. They rise high up into the clear sky where the stars are. As we rise up through the water to look at the world of man, they rise up to the unknown, the beautiful world, that we shall never see."
o.o0o.o
Tempted by the hope of winning your heart and gaining an immortal soul, I suppose it was only inevitable that I would eventually find my way to the lair of the sea witch.
o.o0o.o
“I know what you want,” the sea witch cackled. “And it is stupid of you. But you shall have your wish, for it will bring you misery, little princess.”
“I will prepare a draught for you, with which you must swim to land tomorrow before sunrise, and sit down on the shore and drink it. Your tail will then disappear, and shrink up into what mankind calls ’legs’, and you will feel great pain, as if a sword were passing through your body. But all who see you will say that you are the prettiest little human being they have ever seen. You will still have the same floating gracefulness of movement, and no dancer will ever tread so lightly; but at every step you take it will feel as if you were treading upon knives so sharp that the blood must flow. If you are willing bear all this, I will help you.”
o.o0o.o
“…I am,” I said, though my face was as white as a corpse.
Never again would I be a mermaid. Never again would I swim through the cool blue waters with my sisters to my father’s castle. Never again would I see my grandmother’s tender face.
…For your love, I would have borne anything.
o.o0o.o
“But remember, if you cannot make the prince fall so much in love with you so that his every thought concerns only you and he takes you as his wife, on the first morning after he has married another, your heart will break and you will become foam on the ocean."
o.o0o.o
Knives and daggers, heartbreak and sea-foam – what were they compared to the gold-glory of your presence, and the promise of an eternal life?
“A potion for the most precious thing you have,” she said. And I – with the most beautiful song in all of the oceans and the earth – what could I sell besides my voice, I who had no soul to sell?
o.o0o.o
“But if you take my voice,” asked the little mermaid. “What will I have left but silence?”
“You will have your beautiful body,” said the witch. “Your graceful walk and your expressive eyes. Speak with them and you will be able to capture any human heart. Have you lost your courage? Stick out your little tongue, and let me cut it off in payment, and you shall have the potion.”
o.o0o.o
“…So be it,” I whispered through trembling lips, and my doomed fate was sealed.
As the copper tang of blood filled my mouth, the potion in my hand sparkled like a star.
o.o0o.o
The sun had not risen when the little mermaid reached the shores of the Prince’s castle and pulled herself onto the soft sands. The moon was still shining clearly. The little mermaid swallowed the bitter, fiery draught, and it was as if a double-edged sword struck her frail body. Pain – more excruciating than she had ever known – tore her pretty tail asunder and she fainted away, lying on the ground as though she were dead.
o.o0o.o
Your dark eyes were the first thing I saw when I finally opened my eyes. Framed in the golden light of the rising sun, you were kneeling by my side, your body bent over me. For an instant you seemed almost taken aback by my waking, and immediately rocked back on your heels.
“You,” you said gruffly. “You, girl, you’re alive?”
‘…I will be,’ I thought, as I stared worshipfully up at your handsome face, partially covered by your wild mane of ink-black hair. When I shifted, something soft, like the whisper of seagrass, brushed against my bare arms. Glancing down, I saw that you had covered me in a long robe, where, at the bottom, a delicate pair of tiny feet peeked out.
My feet.
I smiled.
“Have you got a name?” you asked, somewhat unsteadily, still not looking at me. It was almost as if you were deliberately avoiding my eyes, and only when your question received no reply did you turn back to me.
“Well?” you growled. “I asked you a question. Can you understand me? Are you deaf?”
I shook my head. Not deaf, only dumb. Slowly, I opened my mouth, revealing the grotesque stump where my tongue once had been.
Your eyes widened and the impatience on your face immediately melted into disgust and anger. “What happened? Who did this to you?” you demanded.
I shrugged. Only myself.
It was a small price to pay to be with you.
“…What am I doing, demanding answers from a mute girl?” you mumbled to yourself under your breath. Looking almost embarrassed by your senseless questions, you turned away again, rolling smoothly to your feet. “Well, whatever happened, it’s over now. No one will hurt you here.”
Some steps away, you paused, looking over your shoulder back at me. “Can you walk?”
I gave a hesitant nod, and slowly pushed myself into a sitting position on the warm sand. The fabric of your borrowed robe fell away at my actions, and faster than a startled eel, you whipped back around, your broad back turned to me. Between little hiccups of air, you gritted out, “…Look, put it on properly.”
I stared at myself, confused by your strange behaviour. Only then did I realise that my nakedness was uncomfortable for you.
With some difficulty, I shrugged on the dun-coloured robe. The fabric was sturdy but worn, completely swamping me, and I smiled in delight at the strange feel and scent of it. It was almost as if I was cocooned in you.
But pleasure became staggering pain when I struggled to my feet, as if flaming daggers were piercing the tender soles. Unprepared for the sheer agony that ripped through my body, I gave a soundless cry and would have tumbled face-first onto the sand had your quick reflexes not saved me. Heaving an exasperated sigh, you waited for me to recover, while I could only pant in your sudden embrace, dizzy with the blissful torture of the moment.
“Did they cut off your legs, too?”
Your question was callous and cutting, but the arms that cradled me were infinitely gentle.
...They spoke more loudly than words ever could.
o.o0o.o
In the castle, the little mermaid was clad in royal clothes of brightly embroidered silk. She was the loveliest person in all the land, though she was mute and could neither speak nor sing. When night fell, the Prince led her into a large hall where the most marvellous banquet was laid out. Just as the witch had warned, each step felt as if she were walking on sharp knives, but everyone who saw her marvelled at her grace and wondered how she could tread so lightly.
o.o0o.o
“—Tell me, Guh-ol, does this lovely girl of yours have a name?”
Seated at your right-hand side, the man in angel-fish colours quirked a sly smile as he raked a speculative gaze over me. In his long-fingered hand, a delicate fan flicked open and shut as gracefully as a butterfly’s wing.
Your eyes flickered briefly in my direction. “Can you write your name?” you asked.
I shook my head.
At this, your colourful companion gasped theatrically. “That won’t do! Why, such a beautiful little lady can’t go without a name!”
“…Guh-ol, what shall we call her?” he asked, leaning closer to inspect me. Self-consciously, I ducked my head, twisting the rich fabric of my dress in nervous fingers. “‘Joo Eun’? ’Eun Kyung’? She does have the most unusual-coloured eyes… just like the sea after a storm.”
You shrugged, uncaring. To you, I was simply ‘the mute girl’, the dumb foundling you had found swept in by the sea.
“…Well, what do you plan to do with her?” your companion asked curiously.
“What else?” you replied. “Ship her home, of course. …Once I work out where that is.”
“Do you have a home?” you asked me. “Family?”
Slowly, I shook my head.
Home is with you now.
You sighed heavily, but your friend smiled his fox-like smile and draped a familiar arm around your shoulders. “You could always keep her,” he whispered into your ear. “Mute though she is, she would make pretty enough a concubine…”
You elbowed him heavily in the ribs, sputtering indignantly. “Don’t spout such nonsense!”
The playful man merely laughed, amused at your discomfort. “Fine, fine, no concubines for His Highness then.” More seriously, he added, “But you should give her a home here, you know. With His Majesty away this year, no one would question your authority. And besides, you would know better than anyone what it’s like to…”
He trailed off, gesturing expressively.
For the longest time, you gazed off into the distance, an unreadable expression on your surly face. Finally, with arms folded, you turned back to me. “Do you want to stay?”
A smile of pure happiness blossomed over my face.
I nodded.
Forever, if you’ll let me.
o.o0o.o
Time passed, and as the leaves on the tall trees turned from green to gold, the Prince had men’s clothes made for the little mermaid, so that she could accompany him when he went horseback riding. Through the sweet-smelling forest they rode, where the tree branches touched their shoulders and the little birds sang amongst the leaves. Together they climbed the strong oaks, and her feet bled so much that others noticed it, but she smiled and followed her Prince higher and higher until they could see the clouds sail below them, like flocks of birds migrating to foreign lands.
o.o0o.o
I loved you with all the tender passion of a woman’s heart.
You loved me as if you would love a child.
But every day, as I walked forwards with my unnatural legs and bloodied feet, I walked towards the remote hope that one day, the choice would be obvious to you.
o.o0o.o
See me.
Love me.
Make me yours.
o.o0o.o
Beneath the light of the stars, I found you again. The bitter scent of wood-smoke and liquor clung to you, and not for the first time, I wondered what pained you so.
I touched your arm, but you did not react at all.
For long moments, nothing passed between us except the sound of the crashing waves and the howl of the cool autumn wind.
“…Today is the anniversary of my brother’s death,” you finally said.
Wordlessly, I stared at you, offering whatever comfort I could with my silent presence.
“When I was eight years old, there was a great fire in the castle. I’d been hiding, trapped inside, and my brother ran back to rescue me.” The long sigh that escaped your lips bespoke of deep regret, and loss. “I lived.”
Clenching a fist, you bowed your dark head. “He……”
Helpless and unable to ease your suffering, I could only take your hand in mine, smoothing out the clenched fingers. Ever-so-carefully, I wiped away the bloody imprints that your nails had scored into the sword-roughened skin.
In spite of your distress, I could see that my actions charmed you. Your soundless chuckle was almost rueful, and the small smile that teased the corner of your sensuous lips took my breath away.
“You really are the most innocent little thing, aren’t you?” you murmured, gently ruffling the top of my hair. “There’s something about those strange eyes of yours that look so familiar…”
I smiled. Perhaps you would remember. And then, perhaps you would understand.
Tenderly, I kissed your palm, and you did not pull away.
...I could have lived in that moment forever.
o.o0o.o
Everyone said that the Prince was to be married, he was to have a neighbouring king’s daughter, a beautiful princess. A magnificent ship was built and made ready. It was announced that the Prince was travelling to see the neighbouring kingdom, but that nobody believed. “It is not the country but the princess he is to inspect,” they all agreed. But the little mermaid shook her head and smiled; she knew what the Prince thought, and they didn’t. “I must go,” he had told her. “My father demands it. But they won’t force me to carry her home as my bride. She is a complete stranger, and I cannot love her.”
o.o0o.o
Like a fool, I believed those words.
Like a fool, I believed in you.
o.o0o.o
“You—“ the Prince exclaimed. “You’re the boy who saved me, when I laid half-dead on the beach!”
The Princess lowered her eyes in embarrassment, shaking her head. “Not a boy,” she replied. “Only a woman in a man’s disguise.”
A bashful smile broke over the Prince’s face, and the happiness in his eyes shone like the stars. “…And the Princess I am to marry.”
The Princess inclined her head. “That, too, my lord.”
o.o0o.o
Over the sound of ringing bells and joyous laughter, I heard the sound of my heart breaking.
o.o0o.o
At the wedding feast, the little mermaid whirled in dance, glided as the swallow does in the air when it is pursued. Everyone cheered and applauded her. Never had she danced so beautifully; the sharp knives cut her feet, but she did not feel it, for the pain in her heart was far greater. She knew that this was the last evening that she would see him for whose sake she had given away her lovely voice and left her home and her family; and he would never know of her sacrifice. It was the last night that she would breathe the same air as he, or look out over the deep sea and up into the star-blue heaven. A dreamless, eternal night awaited her, for she had no soul and had not been able to win one. Until midnight all was gaiety aboard the ship, and the mermaid danced and laughed with the thought of death in her heart.
o.o0o.o
Ritual-dance, duty-dance, death-dance, footsteps tracking invisible trails of blood on the floor.
It was my soundless swansong, my final hour of grief, and all the while you took the breathlessness to be gaiety, the wild movements to be bliss.
You called me naïve, but you were the ignorant one.
There would be no place in Heaven for me, now, nor beneath the Sea – only the empty oblivion of my form turned to foam, tossed and forgotten upon the waves.
As the sun set on your wedding day, I knew I had lost everything.
o.o0o.o
The night grew quiet. Only the little mermaid was awake. Aimlessly, she walked along the shoreline with her white arms clasped about her and looked toward the east. She searched the horizon for the pink of dawn, for she knew that the first sunbeams would kill her. Out of the sea rose her sisters, but the wind could no longer play with their long beautiful hair, for their heads had been shorn.
"We have given our hair to the sea witch, so that she would help you and you would not have to die this night. Here is a knife that the witch has given us. Before the sun rises, you must plunge it into the heart of the prince; when his warm blood sprays on your feet, they will turn into a fishtail and you will be a mermaid again. You will be able to live your three hundred years down in the sea with us, before you die and become foam on the ocean. Hurry! He or you must die before the sun rises.”
o.o0o.o
Cold rage and bitter anguish warred within me as the naked metal of the seawitch’s dagger seared like ice against my palm. Your life was forfeit – mine to save, mine to take away.
My silence for your suffering, my suffering for your death.
A blood-debt repaid.
…It seemed only fitting.
But as I parted the crimson cloth and stood soundlessly by the side of your marriage bed, as I looked down upon the beautiful bride asleep with her head resting on your chest, my hand faltered.
When I heard you murmur her name in your sleep, my decision was easy.
She was your harbour.
And I was the sea.
o.o0o.o
The little mermaid’s hand trembled as it squeezed the knife, but then she flung it from her, far out into the waves, and the waves turned red where it fell, as if drops of blood were seeping through the water.
Mournfully, she watched it sink into the ocean’s depths.
o.o0o.o
If this was what it means to love, then I have loved, and loved truly.
My ears roared with the sound of the surf and the cry of the gulls overhead, and as the sun rose and the last moments of my life slipped away like the sand beneath my feet, I realised, then, that I regret nothing.
There was no pain, now, no fear or hatred or sorrow.
Only acceptance. Only peace.
…The sea called out to me.
o.o0o.o
The sky was fast reddening for the break of day. All alone, the little mermaid stood at the top of the cliff, waiting for the sun to rise over the waters. Her storm-gray eyes were already glazed as if in death, and her long hair whipped about her pretty face like a funeral shroud as she moved to step off over the edge.
o.o0o.o
A strong hand grabbed mine before I could hurl myself into the sea, and I found myself whipped around to face your wide, horrified eyes.
Dishevelled and only half-dressed, somehow, Fate had led you to me.
“What the hell are you—“ you cried, but stopped short when you felt cool wetness on your hand. It smeared white and bubbly on your fingertips, and your eyes widened in shock.
“Foam…” you breathed, looking down at me.
The heat of your touch burned like the sun itself on my frozen skin.
“You…” I watched you swallow, the sudden, sickening realisation dawning in your eyes. “You’re…”
You knew.
But it was too late, now.
o.o0o.o
Tears glinted in the Prince’s eyes, but the little mermaid only shook her head.
‘Do not cry for me.’
The kiss she placed on his palm was as cool as the ocean spray, her smile as dazzling as the rising sun.
o.o0o.o
From the sea I was made, to the sea I would return.
‘Be happy,’ I thought, anchoring myself in the deep sable of your eyes. The sunlight danced over the tangled strands of your unruly hair as I stepped back, surrendering myself to ocean’s relentless embrace.
o.o0o.o
For you.
And for me.
