For today, I did a little polishing up of something I wrote a while back. I wrote it for submission purposes, and I stuffed it in a metaphorical drawer when it didn’t sell, but… here’s the first part of it, which is about a diver meeting a merman (and there will be more later)
-
Tab takes a deep breath before fixing the mask over his face. He closes his eyes and steps forward, dropping straight down.
The cold surrounds him in an instant and he’s in his own special world. He’ll only be able to go so far today, but between diving off the pier and being alone on a boat with Vinnie Ubel, the choice is easy.
And it’s an opportunity to explore the cliffs out beyond the beach. He takes pictures along the way, whenever he sees a glimpse of anything. Later, he’ll be able to look them over with his glasses on. Underwater, the camera lets him point and shoot — and review later. Anything he needs to see in the moment, he can see well enough without.
There’s something strange up ahead, something he can’t see clearly. A large, very large stain of something on the cliff wall, giving off a weird sheen in the refracted light. As the underwater cliffside ripples in and out of sight, he pushes himself farther, swims faster. He checks his watch again. It’s going to be a much less enjoyable trip back if his tank runs out and he needs to dog paddle home, but he can’t help himself.
He sees what it is when he reaches it, but he can’t make sense of it.
It’s the hull of a ship. Or at least a good-sized boat. It’s fitted into the side of the cliff itself, and the door has rusted off at the hinges — it’s wedged into place. When Tab swims through the open door, darkness surrounds him, only pierced by the light clipped to his goggles provides. Tab makes his way into a wide tunnel Why has it been jammed into the opening? Why would someone bother going through all that trouble just to narrow the passage, and how would they manage it?
Tab swims on, entranced. A look to his waterproof watch tells him he’s still fine. He hopes he can find the end before he has to turn back. Investigating this mystery makes the thought of having to swim his way home along the surface worth it.
The tunnel narrows after a while. Tab spots an old license plate lying on the floor. Sharks have been known to swallow license plates, okay, but how would one wind up here? He dives down a little closer and takes a picture, and finds the license plate isn’t alone.
There’s a metal cafeteria tray, too. An old coffee can, empty. A scattering of silverware. A lobster trap, its door ripped off to allow free passage. It houses a few little crabs. Tab photographs everything and moves forward.
By the time he reaches the end of the tunnel, he’s feeling lightheaded with the strange discoveries. The tunnel opens up into a rounded chamber of sorts, and here light filters down from above. At the far side, the wall of the cavern is made up of thick ledges and little hollows. There’s a fishing net across some of the hollows. Tab’s head swims as he does, making his way closer. Small objects float behind the net — a pair of glasses in one little hole, a small toy in another.
The wall stretches up without him and the light dims. Tab’s watch says he should have time, but he realizes what’s happening — he’s not getting oxygen. Vinnie, damn him, has given him a faulty tank, or one that wasn’t filled completely — but Tab should have been on top of that —
He’s too foggy to be as terrified as he thinks he should be. Mostly, he just feels sad. This discovery, and he can’t share it with anyone. He won’t show up to work to be gently teased about his addiction to the ocean, won’t come home Friday night for Family Dinner, won’t sell any of his photographs. None of his neighbors will remember the last time he was at his apartment, and no one will know for sure what happened to him. He and his camera will just be a part of this weird cache… Who knows when someone else might come along, if they’d even dive deep enough to find what’s left of him?
The world blurs out; he gasps and here it comes, the panic, the sheer terror of death —
And then the face comes out of the darkness.
It’s a human face and it isn’t. It’s a dying hallucination provided by his oxygen-starved brain, except that pale arms catch him and he’s going up, up, up —
When Tab regains consciousness, he’s not in the water anymore. He’s in the cavern, up on a wide rock ledge. And he’s surrounded by… things. Another pair of glasses, a hat, a leather suitcase that had seen better days, a battered radio…
There’s an opening above, overgrown with plants, green light filtering down. How far inland is he?
And then… then, there’s the mermaid. Merman? He looks like a man, but Tab has no idea. A fish person wouldn’t exactly have breasts, but the features are strange and delicate: a strong chin and brow, sharp cheekbones, a small nose and dark eyes observing him through long lashes. The rest of his body disappears under the dark water.
“Uh… hello. You, uh, you saved me?” Tab asks. He leans forward, cautious. He feels stupid for speaking, he doesn’t expect a mer-person to speak English. He doesn’t know what he expects. He’s still too dizzy to be rational.
“You were in distress. I don’t know how you found this place. No divers come here. You did not see the cliff…” The merman says, shaking his head. His voice is low and soft and pleasant. “Human divers only see the cliff.”
“There was a ship’s door in the cliff. No one else can see that?”
“No one else ever has.”
“Um… Okay. Thanks, by the way. For saving me. I’m Tab.” He holds out a hand, feeling awkward. Still, it’s the little things in a situation like this, he thinks. It’s the little things that keep you from going off the deep end. So he says thank you and he offers a handshake because it’s polite, and otherwise he’s going to scream. r Or maybe he’s going to throw up because this is the biggest moment of his career. Or his life. Same difference.
The merman mirrors the gesture, making no attempt to take his hand whatsoever. “My name is Rune.”
“Rune,” Tab repeats. He takes the hand in his, hesitating a little, but Rune doesn’t draw back from the contact, even if he looks at him strangely.
Tab looks up to the skylight again, when the handshake ends. Wherever he pops up, he’d be able to find his way somewhere. That is, if he doesn’t fall and hit any of the rocky outcroppings on the way down. But between the many ledges and hollows, and the vines that grow closer to the opening, there might just be a chance. . He has no choice: without oxygen, there’s no way he can swim through the tunnel again.
He needs rest first, anyway, and so his attention returns to Rune. There’s a delicate webbing that comes up between his fingers, to about the halfway point. It seems to have enough stretch and to leave enough of each long, slender finger free for Tab to imagine those hands are as dextrous as any human hands, but better equipped for an aquatic life. His long tail is pale pearly white when he brings it closer to the surface, as if he was stretching. When the light from the opening above hits his scales, they glitter with opalescent colors, flashes of pale pink and blue and green. The fins are wide and frilly, pearl white tipped with blue. They seem so delicate. His ears are similar, they come to long points with those blue-edged frills extending from ear-tip down to his jaw. He has pale, cool-toned skin above where the scales turn smooth, and slightly fluttery-looking gills over his ribcage. Tab has never seen anything more beautiful.
“Can I take a picture of you?” He asks, picking up his camera.
Rune stares, confused, so Tab pulls up the photographs he’s taken. He takes his time, showing them to the wide-eyed merman and explaining how it works. When he asks a second time, Rune agrees with a shy nod and pulls himself up higher onto the rocky shelf, where the light hits.
“You only have pictures of underwater.” Rune’s brow furrows.
“It’s a special underwater camera.” Tab nods. “It’s so I can get pictures of fish. I — I study fish.”
“Then you have no pictures of on-land.”
“Well… No. I mean, I still can take pictures out of the water. Would… would you like me to take some, and then come back and show them to you?”
Rune’s tight-lipped frown relaxes into a smile and he nods.
“I’ll show you, then. I’ll come back — soon.” Tab promises. This time when he reaches out his hand, Rune takes it.
Tab rests a while before he has to start the risky climb up the inside of the cavern. He tests the vines here and there when his handholds threaten to slip. He can’t rely on them to bear his weight, but they can buy him a moment to find his grip. To use the footholds, he has to fasten his flippers to the rest of his equipment and grip on with his bare toes.
Making his way from the cavern ceiling to the opening is what feels truly dangerous, and he does have to rely on the vines there to get him just far enough to get hold of the lip, to haul himself up. Finally he’s on solid ground, in the little bit of Pacific coast rainforest that covers the cliffs over the coast, and from there he can find his way back. It’s slow going with the flippers he’s had to put back on, but at least they keep the pine needles from digging into his feet.
When he gets to Vinnie’s shop, Vinnie isn’t behind the counter. Tab doesn’t know if he’s relieved or pissed off. He rants to Vinnie’s assistant about the faulty tank he’s been given, and the assistant tells him his next tank will be half off, then. Tab would like to say there won’t be a next time, but if Emmy isn’t back by tomorrow night, there will be. He can’t wait for the return of his his usual scuba shop owner, he has to get back to the cavern.
He spends some time taking pictures of the little seaside ‘tourist’ part of town, the edge of the forest, bikes, cars, dogs, people… He goes home and takes pictures of his cat, his furniture, his food. He nukes something frozen for dinner and while he eats, he thinks about the glimpses he’d caught of Rune’s sharp teeth. He thinks about watching something disappear between them, thinks about running his finger over each. It isn’t an entirely scientific line of thought.
Emmy is still out of town the next day and so Tab is at Vinnie’s the first chance he gets. Vinnie’s assistant isn’t behind the counter, when he gets there — Vinnie himself is. If it wasn’t for Rune, Tab might have turned back at that and come back another time, but he has to get back to that cavern.
As predicted, Vinnie does not honor the deal Tab tells him about.
“Dude, you almost killed me with the last one, if I could take my business elsewhere, I would!”
“You’re an experienced diver, you should’ve asked me for another one if it was light in the shop. If there was a problem with the tank before you left and you didn’t notice it, that’s not on me, kid. You’re here breathing, ain’t you? How ‘almost killed’ could you have been?”
“I was drowning — ”
“Then how’d you get back, if you were so close to drowning in this tunnel of yours?”
“You almost killed me, if it hadn’t been for the merman pulling me out — ”
“Kid.” Vinnie cuts him off, expression unimpressed behind his ever-present sunglasses. They’re the kind of sunglasses that say ‘I’m a frat boy’, except Tab doesn’t think Vinnie ever went to college — he’s not even sure he could spell it. “Don’t talk crazy in my shop, in front of my customers.”
“I’m not crazy,” Tab says, and he can practically feel the eyeroll he can’t see Vinnie giving him. The list of things he hates more than being called crazy is short, though being called ‘kid’ might be on it somewhere — he’d heard crazy all too often as a child, the weird little savant who was too stupid to be so smart, who must be getting those answers from somewhere, the self he’d cultivated his entire adult life around not looking like. He still gets called crazy sometimes, though usually without much sting. Still, he’s not about to put up with it now, not from fucking Vinnie. He pulls out his camera, and pulls up the photo of Rune before he can think about the consequences.
“Holy shit.” Vinnie grabs the camera, he even pulls off his sunglasses to squint at it. “Holy shit.”
Tab snatches it back. “Yeah. Not so crazy, right?”
He shakes his head. “All right, half off. Just this once — and if it comes back damaged, you’re paying for that.”
The thought of consequences hits Tab then, and he cradles the camera to his chest. “Hey… Vinnie… You’re not going to tell anyone about this, right? I — I mean I — this is still — I mean, the scientific community still hasn’t — You know. Like… found out about this. And I don’t know how to, like… How best to, you know…”
“Kid, I ain’t about to tell anybody I believe in mermaids unless I have one sitting in front of me in the flesh when I say it. But, uh… yeah, maybe keep this under your hat for a while. Scientific community probably wouldn’t buy just a picture, you know?”
Tab nods. He already regrets telling Vinnie, even if it does get him half off his tank. And every little bit counts, because he has to rent a boat to get as close to the tunnel as he can in order to to both maximize the time he can spend underwater and minimize the time it takes him to get out to the cavern.
When he reaches the cavern, there’s barely any light from above and his headlight isn’t enough for such a wide space. But it’s enough to draw Rune up on the rock shelf.
“I’ve been thinking about you all day!” Tab greets, as soon as he’s free to speak, and the light gleams on Rune’s teeth when that nets him a smile.
“And I you.” Rune nods. “You came so late, I was afraid I wouldn’t see you.”
“I had work — um, I… you know, work? Like… duties to perform?”
“I see. I’m glad you did come.” Rune flicks his tail in the water, and Tab scoots over to sit right next to him, kicking his legs in the water as well.
“I brought you some pictures — here, why don’t you hold my light?”
Tab scrolls through the pictures for him, explaining everything as he goes. It’s clothes that seems to trip Rune up the most, as he asks for Tab to flip back and forth between different pictures of people.
“We wear different things for different reasons,” Tab says, and he holds his arm out. “See, I wear this when I dive. It keeps my skin protected a little and helps insulate me from the cold. People wear clothes to keep from getting sunburned, or to look nice for a special occasion, or just… like, because a lot of humans consider themselves indecent if they aren’t dressed?”
“Odd… but it does look nice.” Rune touches the sleeve of the wetsuit, curious. “Well, some of them do. The colorful ones.”
It’s when the light falls on the edge of that sleeve, where some of Tab’s tattoo peeks out, that Rune’s general curiosity gains a sharp focus and his fingertips slide down to trace the bright blue there.
“Your arm…” He peers closer, holding the light up to it. “Is it all right?”
“Is it — ? Oh! Yeah. It’s all right. Do you want to see?”
He unzips his suit to the waist and shrugs out of the top half. There’s a giant pacific octopus curled around his shoulder, one arm extending over his chest, others wrapping around his upper arm, one more in a spiral over his shoulder blade. Splashes of blue sea extend down past the elbow, and on the other side he has an orange Pacific sea nettle jelly, its tentacles winding down his arm to the elbow. He’s got room for something on his chest, between the small but dense patch of curls and the scars from getting his tits massively reduced, but he hasn’t decided what yet. An otter, maybe, or a shark. Or a merman.
Rune hesitates a moment, awaiting permission before he touches Tab’s skin again, gasping softly.
“Your skin is so warm… and — they’re pictures! How — how do you have pictures?”
He explains the tattoo process to an utterly fascinated Rune, and he’s never felt so interesting. Not just because of the tattoos, though he likes the way they’re admired. But Rune doesn’t treat him like an oddity, no matter how odd he is to him. Rather than pointing out all the ways Tab isn’t like other people, Rune is fascinated by the ways he’s simply human, and the stories he has to tell. And in return, Tab has never wanted anything more than to learn about what life is like for a merman. They touch each other’s hands, exploring the difference between webbed and unwebbed fingers, and when Tab says he’s considering a shark for his next tattoo, Rune beckons him into the water, excited.
With his light fixed to his mask once more, Tab follows him down into the inky depths until he can’t dive any deeper. Rune motions for him to wait and dives beyond where Tab’s light can penetrate. When he returns, there’s a filetail catshark swimming at his side. Tab would estimate it about forty-five centimeters long. It swims around Rune, using him to shield its milky blue eyes from the light.
Rune speaks, but it’s not English this time — it’s lilting and musical; and it seems wordless to Tab’s ears. He takes Tab’s hand and guides it to stroke along the little shark’s side. When Tab motions that he needs to go back up, Rune lets the little shark return to the depths and takes Tab’s arm as he propels them both back to the ledge at a smooth, steady pace. Tab is grateful — in the dark, where he couldn’t make out any features of the cavern, where nothing existed except himself, Rune, and the shark, he could easily have gotten turned around and lost himself to the depths. When they reach the ledge again, Tab helps Rune up after him. There’s no more light from above, but he doesn’t think it could be that late — the trees would block a lot of sun in even the early afternoon.
He removes his mask and reaches for Rune’s arm again, the excitement overwhelming.
“Filetail catshark!” He grins. Rune grips his arm in return, and the light catches his sharp teeth again when he grins back. “They live so deep I’ve never seen one in the wild! And I petted one!”
“She is very sweet… a little undersized, and of course she doesn’t like to leave the floor, but sometimes she will. My clan keeps larger sharks as well, for guarding and hunting.”
“You have a clan?”
Rune shrugs. There’s no flash of teeth in the dark, and his tail swishes through the water, agitated.
“I do not live among them. It is… considered… unwise, to have such an interest in on-land as I do.” He admits. It sounds as if ‘unwise’ pains him to say. Tab can understand.
“People think it’s weird for me to spend so much time in the water… and that it’s weird for me to like sharks and things like that so much — humans, um… we don’t have a good relationship with sharks, I guess.”
“We know.” Rune frowns. “But you are different.”
“Yeah.”
“I cannot show you where the clan lives. They would not permit you to know it… I would not see you harmed.”
Tab closes a hand over Rune’s. “I wouldn’t see you harmed, either. And it’s okay, I get it. I mean… I’m just glad I met you. I don’t need to meet any others if they don’t want to meet me. But… they would let you go back, right? You get to visit them?”
“It is permitted. But… I do not enjoy it. They are critical of my home and my collection. Humans are to be watched warily, and the things they lose to the sea are to be left alone…if they knew about you, I — ”
He cuts himself short and turns away. Tab imagines cupping his cheek, stroking the smooth, cool skin. He imagines folding him into a hug. He doesn’t know what kind of gestures merfolk use among themselves, what would be welcome if he wanted to comfort.
“I’ll be your secret, then. Did you learn English from watching humans?” He gives his hand a gentle squeeze. Rune shakes his head at the question and pulls his tail up onto the ledge.
“My people must have, once. We speak it when we are above-water. In our secret basking places, or in caverns like mine, or just when we surface. It is meant to be heard on air. Our language can only be used under the water.”
“What are secret basking places?”
“Rocks out at sea, with spells cast on them like the one on my door. Humans will only see seals there, but we like to come up and enjoy the sun sometimes. As long as our gills don’t dry, it is comfortable to be above-water. I find it pleasant to sit up here with you. I lie here in the middle of the day often, when the sun comes through above, then this spot is warm for a little while. I wish I could be warm always… we are not made for it. But you are. You carry the sun inside your veins… And you have…” He frowns a moment in concentration. “Legs. You’re like an otter.”
Tab blushes, but he doesn’t argue the point. In the right light, he thinks ‘like an otter’ could be flattering. “I guess I am. A little bit. Legs, warm blood, gotta breathe air… Kind of like an otter. Not quite as furry.”
“A little bit, though.” Rune laughs softly, fingertips trailing over Tab’s arm and the fine hairs there. “I like it.”
“I like you,” Tab says and he blushes harder. It feels so stupid now that he’s said it, and in the dark, he can’t see Rune’s expression well enough to read it.
“Can I touch your, your legs?” Rune ask, his voice soft.
“Yeah. Yeah. I mean — can I touch your tail?”
“You can.”
Tab feels more than sees Rune nod. He feels up from just below the knee to mid-thigh, stopping when he feels Tab tense a little.
“You’re so soft… no scales, and… even your skin seems different,” He marvels.
“I know what you mean.” Tab strokes over Rune’s tail. Each scale is smooth and cool, pleasant to the touch. He’s handled a lot of wet, scaly things in his career and never found them unpleasant, but he’s never encountered anything that seemed to invite touch the way Rune’s tail does. But even Rune’s skin feels somehow more armored than his own. It’s not rough at all, but it has a strange firmness. It would have to be thick, or resistant to damage: he doesn’t wear anything to protect himself, yet he would have to be safe when navigating coral reefs, rocks, or encounters with other undersea creatures.
Tab wishes he could stay. When he does need to go, Rune escorts him through the tunnel and up to the surface, bidding him goodnight at his moored jet ski.
Out in the open water, three more sharks come to circle around them, bumping gently up against Rune for affection. He introduces each to Tab, the moonlight bright on his sharp grin. One leopard shark, one shortfin mako, one thresher…
“They won’t bite, you’re a friend,” Rune promises, guiding Tab to pet each.
He should probably be afraid anyway. He isn’t.
“Cute… which one of you babies wants to be part of the Tab Museum of Ink?” He laughs, letting them nudge around him.
“They must have known you were a friend before I did… or you never would have made it to my home. I am happy that they have such good taste.”
“Yeah.” Tab breathes. He’s treading water and taking in air, but he feels lightheaded as if he were sucking on an empty tank. He likes Rune’s sharp teeth, but he likes who he is more: gentle, loving towards his pets, inquisitive and intelligent. His natural armor is hard, but his nature is soft. And, like Tab, he lives in a world that isn’t his, studies and daydreams about impossible places, creatures and things…
