The mermaid hasn’t returned. Which should be a comfort but it isn’t. Normally after a fish makes its debut in my underwater world it returns, leaving the other fish and swimming up to me, introducing itself with a wide-eyed stare or a playful wriggle and a flick of the tail fin. I have a chance to become familiar with all of its special qualities—the subtle colourations of the scales, the shape of the gills, the mouth, the fins—before it melds into the school.
The absence of the mermaid makes her single appearance all the more ominous. She was an intrusion from another realm, one not of my making, and not following my rules of play.
While all the creatures in my underwater world emerge like surprises, they have come from the depths of my imagination, summoned by a hidden will that is in
