Mike Catches a Mermaid

Mike was a deep-sea charter skipper. He has taken charters out fishing for big fish for nearly twenty years. He had been living and working out of Key West for the last ten years. He has an older Viking fishing boat. It wasn't a beauty by today's standards, but it could still go nearly 40 knots and stay out long enough. Mike had been taking charters nearly every day for two weeks, and he needed a break. A break for him was to go fishing by himself. He liked the solitude.

Mike headed out of Key West early one afternoon searching for tuna or sailfish. He stopped a few hours later in an area he has had success in the past. He stopped the engines and went to the back. He set a couple of trolling lines off the back, and went back in. He started up and began moving at 5 knots, dragging the two lines.

The first couple of hours was nothing. It was beginning to get dark. He was going to stay a little longer before starting in. It would take a couple of hours to get back, but he wasn't worried. He had brought it in late at night many times, and he didn't think much about it. Another couple of hours passed uneventfully and he was beginning to think about calling it a day when he had a strike.

He stopped the boat and headed back to the lines. One was singing as it went out. He grabbed the pole and strapped in. It was really moving. He let it run until it started to slow down. He then began to slowly real it in. He would gain a little then lose a little. The next hour was the normal cat and mouse game. He was slowly bringing it in. He just had to stay at it. It was late now, but the sky was bright with stars. He always loved a clear night on the ocean. It smelled so fresh and looked like you could see forever. A couple of hours in, he wished he had brought a friend with him. He couldn't drive the boat closer to the fish and handle the pole at the same time. He would have to make the fish come to him, and that does not usually work very well. After another hour, he thought he was making headway. He was steadily reeling in. He wasn't sure how much line was still out, but he was definitely getting tired.

Just as he was contemplating cutting the line, he saw a flash in the moonlight. He then pulled harder and saw a brief glimpse of a fishtail. He may have it by the tail. That is very unusual. But the sight of the actual fish gave him more energy and he attacked it harder. It was nearing midnight when he had the fish within sight. He did have it by the tail, but it looked like he had snagged it good. It kept pulling away from him, but he was able to wear it down. The water was dark, and he could not see into it.

He finally had the tail near the side of the boat. The rest of fish was still out of sight. He grabbed the spar and hooked the fish in the tail. He wrapped the line around the pully and started winching it in. He was really excited when the tail came up to the top of the deck. It was BIG. Maybe five or six feet long. He had never caught anything like that before. With one last pull, the fish flopped over the side and landed in the boat.

What he saw stunned him. He was staring at a mermaid. Half fish and half woman. They don't exist, but he was staring at one. She or it was so exhausted it just lay there. It was bleeding from where he had grabbed it. He didn't know what to do, but he didn't want it to get overboard before he could decide. He grabbed it by the tail and dragged it into the cabin. He rolled it into a blanket and locked the door.

He decided it would take a couple of hours to get back anyway, so he might as well head home. He pushed the motors to the limit to get out of here. He had images of other mermaids chasing him. He knew that was stupid, but so was having a mermaid in his cabin. When he was nearing Key West, he decided to stop in a quiet lagoon while he decided what to do. When he was anchored, he went into the cabin. She was NOT a mermaid any longer. She was sitting on the couch, wrapped in a blanket. Her leg was bleeding where he had speared her. She was terrified and watching his every move. He put his hands up and said "I won't hurt you. I know you don't understand me, but it will be okay."

She was screwing up her face. He could tell she was thinking, however they think. He was still wondering when she opened her mouth. "You must put me back in the ocean. I will die if you do not."

He was stunned. She spoke and it was English. "You speak English?"

"We can learn a language easily. We speak to all fish and mammals in the ocean. Once we hear the language, we can figure it out. You must put me back in the ocean."

Yeah, like that would happen. He had taken pictures of her laying on the cabin floor before he had rolled her up in the blanket. He wanted proof because he wouldn't believe himself if he told anyone without proof. "Let me fix your leg. So, you do get legs when you dry out?"

"Temporarily, yes. But I will dry out completely if I am out of the water for more than a day. I can't survive without seawater, and I need a lot of it."

"Ok but let me bandage your leg. That is the least I can do after harpooning you." She nodded, and he took a first aid kit out. He cleaned the wound, put some antiseptic on it and wrapped a bandage around it.

They sat looking at each other for several minutes. "I just can't believe you are real. I mean, come on. No one has ever caught one, or seen one?"

"We try VERY hard to make sure we stay away from humans. All the encounters we have had end badly for us."

"I understand. We are an arrogant, self-centered species that thinks the entire world is our plaything. You are wise to stay as far from us as you can. I guess that explains the whole "siren song of destruction" thing that humans believe."

"We have protected ourselves from your kind on a few occasions. However, we would much rather just stay away from you."

"So, what do we do now? If I let you go, will your people have to wreck my ship to protect your secret?"

"Not necessarily. There have been encounters that have ended mutually without incident. There are humans that know of us and leave our secret alone. There are even humans that we occasionally interact with on an emergency basis. They can be trusted to keep our secret."

They stared at the floor for the longest time.

He made a decision. "I have no more right to imprison you than your people would me. I must return you to where I found you. Can you survive until nightfall? We don't want to do anything during the day that might be seen."

She got so excited she forgot where she was for a second. She jumped up and hugged him. "Thank you, thank you. My life can continue. I spent the time fighting your line thinking I would be the one that would expose my people to harm. You are not what you describe as your species." She sat back down, embarrassed.

"I would like to think I am not a bad person. Besides, even though I would never be able to tell anyone, I would know in my heart, that I had met a mermaid, and a beautiful one, at that." She looked down and blushed.

"I will be okay until the sun goes down. Maybe we can be out there by then?"

"Yes, I will need to get some fuel, so you will have to stay hidden while I am in the harbor. We can keep you down here." He pointed to his bedroom cabin and opened the door for her. She looked inside and smiled.

"Thank you. What is your name, by the way?"

"Mike, Michael Mitchell." She went into the bedroom and lay down. Mike went topside and set off for the harbor. When he arrived and had docked, he looked in on her. She was fast asleep.

Mike spent the next several hours getting the boat fueled and running errands. He was not tempted to tell even his friends about this because he didn't trust himself. It was midafternoon when he returned. He went below to check on his guest. He found her in the bathroom pouring water over her head.

"Are you getting too dry?"

"A little. This fresh water isn't good for me, but it is better than nothing." She did look at little peaked.

"When we are away from people, I can pump some seawater onto the back of the boat to help you." She smiled and went into the cabin and sat down.

He spent the hour getting out of the harbor. It was late afternoon by the time they were out of sight of land.

"If you want to come out on deck, no one will think anything was strange seeing a beautiful woman on the back of one of these boats. It happens all the time."

She put her head out the door and took a deep breath of fresh sea air. She then stepped out onto the back of the boat and sat down on one of the cushions on a locker.

"You can breathe air, as well as water?" He thought this would be a good time to learn something about her people for the short time he had left with her. Besides, she didn't seem to care that she was naked and very beautiful.

"Yes, we have gills and lungs. The gills take the air out of the water and push it into our lungs. It is automatic, unlike sharks. They must swim to push the water through their system."

"Would you mind terribly if I ask a few questions? I mean, this is the only chance I am ever going to get to find out something about mermaids."

"I guess there is nothing I could tell you that would be believed anyway. Go ahead."

"Why have our sonar ever found your cities or homes?"

"No, everything is deep, protected by our technology. We are sort of like your Atlantis myth. Only, it isn't a myth. There are many of us, living in cities with shields to keep you away from us."

"That sounds like Aquaman."

"Aquaman?"

"Yes, a superhero mankind made up who lives under the sea. He is the king of the seas."

"Interesting. You may be closer than you think. We do not discuss humans much at all. None of us has ever met a human. When I get back, I must be careful what I say. There are people among us who hate humans, and they would not be happy to know I met one and let you live."

"That will give me nightmares. Am I going to go fishing only to be overrun by the people of the trench?"

"Trench?"

"Same movie. The creatures used by the underwater people to get rid of boats that get too close."

"We do have enforcers. But they vary rarely must do anything. Our people are a happy, contented people that get along with each other very well."

"Heaven, that sounds like heaven."

"Heaven?"

"Another topic we're not getting into. Do you want that water now?" She nodded, so he pulled a water hose out of the storage area, connected it to a bilge pump, and turned it on the deck. "If you are ready, just lay down. I will try to fill this area a little without sinking myself."

She lay down on the deck, and he had to shake himself. She was gorgeous, laying naked on his deck, as casual as if she was sunbathing in a bikini.

"Before I start this, there is one question left that I must ask. What is your name?"

She looked down. "We are not supposed to tell humans our name. It is special to each of us."

"Ok, I respect that. I am just going to call you Mary Mermaid." He turned the water on, and the deck began to fill with water. When it was six inches deep, she was splashing it on her legs and torso. When it reached one foot, he turned the water off. She was able to keep her legs underwater and by rolling over, she was able to wet her entire body. He could see how much better her complexion was and how vibrant her motions were. She was coming back to her normal health. It made him happy that she was going to be okay.

"We should be at our previous location in a short time." He stopped talking because of what was happening right before his eyes. Her legs were changing back to a tail. The transformation was mesmerizing. Within a couple of minutes, she was back to being a mermaid. She was splashing the water in her face and laughing. The sound of that voice was smooth and velvety as honey. He could see how sailors would be captivated enough to sail to their own doom. It was all he could do to concentrate on his job.

"Thank you, Michael Mitchell. This is wonderful. I feel alive again. My tail has healed, and I am ready to go home."

He stopped the boat at the same coordinates as the night before. "May I pick you up and put you over the side? I would like to touch you one time before you go."

Her face clouded up and she waited. "We have always been told to never be touched by a human or to touch a human. I don't know."

"Well, you know, when I caught you, you were so exhausted that I picked you up and carried you into the cabin. So, technically, I have touched you before. I would just like it to be with your consent. If it is a problem, I will just live with last night."

She smiled, "Ok Michael Mitchell, you may put me over the side." He gently picked her up to put her over the side. As he did, she put her hand on his face. The shock of the connection caused him to almost drop her. He could see the same surprise in her eyes. He gently dropped her into the ocean.

She swam a little way from the boat, stopped, turned, and called out. "My name is in English is "Mystic". And she was gone.

He waited for a while to see if he could see her again in the waves, but she was gone. He reluctantly turned the motors on and headed home.

His charters went without incident for the next couple of weeks. He sailed through those coordinates whenever he was in the area, but, of course, there was no sign of anyone. It was almost a month later, when he was at the exact coordinates by accident, it happened. He had a small charter, and they weren't having much luck. One of them had a strike. While everyone was on that side of the boat, he was dumping used water over the other side of the boat. She popped her head out of the water and he almost fell overboard.

He pointed to the other side of the boat and put his finger to his lips. She nodded, "Come back tomorrow night. I wish to talk to you."

Mike smiled, nodded, and she was gone. Mermaids really are quick. He had to sit down and to catch his breath. Did that just happen? Was he really going to see Mystic again? He had not stopped thinking about her since that night. It was tormenting him to think he would never see her again. He knew no human woman would ever captivate him after her. Then a cloud came over his face. What if this is bad news about the enforcers? It may be a trap. I would become just another who "succumbed to the siren song of the mermaids. He would have to think about that later.

He arrived at the designated location as the sun was setting. He had brought supplies to stay the night. He let the boat drift. He was sure she would be able to find him. He was nodding off in the cabin when he heard movement out on the deck. By the time he got there, she was sitting on the edge of the boat. But there was a big, dark merman sitting beside her. He didn't really look so happy, and she was clearly nervous.

"Would either of you like a blanket?" He didn't know if they wanted to lose the tail or stay with it. He didn't know how long they were going to be there. At least there wasn't the horde of the trench, like the movie.

"Cold doesn't bother us, little man." The distain in his voice gave me a clear indication of how this was going to go. She must have let slip that she had met me, and they weren't pleased. He moved the other side of the boat. No need to antagonize him any more than he had to by merely being here, still breathing.

He tried to start on a reconciliatory tone. "I know I am not allowed to know your name. Mind if I call you "Man of the Sea?"

"As long as it is not my real name, I don't care what you call me." He sat there looking at me. "Now, what are we going to do with you?"

"Why do you have to do anything with me. I made a conscious decision to bring her back and leave her alone. I never expected to see her ever again. I have not told anyone what happened that night, and I promised her I never would. I know you have had many bad experiences with humans, and I know what horrible people we can be. That is one reason I brought her back here. I knew she would have a terrible, short life with humans. I didn't want that for her."

"Sounds nice, human, but it is not that simple. We have not had any contact with your species in over a thousand years. We live a very long time, but even with that, there is no one left who has ever actually seen a human up close. And it goes without saying that none of us had ever talked to a human. We are faced with a dilemma. Do we trust you, or take no chances? I must tell you the elders were mostly wanting to just send in the enforcers to take no chances."

Mike sat there wondering why they hadn't. That is what he would have done. "I must admit that in your position, I would have done that without question."

"Now comes the dilemma. She foolishly touched your face. Contact with the skin was something that hasn't happened for so long, we didn't know the effects. We had to look it up in our history. It appears that a mermaid or merman touching the face of a human of the opposite sex connects them to the human. We only have old records of such a thing happening, but the stories are very dramatic." He stopped talking and I could tell by her face, she was struggling. This could be a problem.

"I must admit, that after she touched me and departed, I have never felt the same. Human women don't seem to have any effect on me. I even went to a couple of bars to pick up women, and they didn't really do anything for me." I could tell by what I said that he was very unhappy.

"She has the same feelings now also. She is bonded to you, and you only. Her fiancé is none too pleased. It took a direct order from the council to keep him from coming with us to kill you. But, even if he had, it would have no effect on her. The council terminated their arrangement. Now, if we kill you, she is left with hundreds of years of solitude. But she can't come to the human world. She would not survive very long. Her body would dry out."

"I found that out. Even after one day, I had to spray her with seawater to keep her revived until I could get her here."

"So, you see our dilemma. There seems to be no way out of this. We felt she deserved to tell you what has happened." We sat there looking as forlorn as we felt. She had accidentally condemned both of us to loneliness for the rest of our lives.

There was only one way that he could see, and he didn't think they had a way to do that. "What about if I come to her world? I know it sounds crazy, but there must be a way out of this without a lifetime of loneliness."

Mystic and the Man of the Sea looked at each other. He caught the look between them. They had thought of this.

"There MAY be a way. It has never been tried for a thousand years, but it is in the records. Our scholars are researching now to see if they can replicate the procedure. We are not sure if it would work, and we don't know anything about the cost. Since you are considering this, I will leave for a moment and let the two of you talk." With that he slipped back into the sea.

They sat looking at each other. She slowly swung her tail into the boat and asked for a blanket. He handed one to her and she wrapped it around her tail. "Thank you for considering this. I was so foolish to touch you. I didn't know what it meant."

Mike moved a little closer to her, and whispered, "Mystic, even if this thing doesn't work, I wouldn't change anything for the way I feal about you. I would rather risk it than spend the rest of my life like I have for the past month." She smiled, reached out and took his face in her hands. She opened the blanket to reveal her human legs. For having "left us alone", the man of the sea sure popped back in the boat awfully quickly.

"Then, I take it, you would like to try?" Mike nodded. "Very good. I am going to leave Mystic here with you and tell the council to prepare." He started to dive over the edge when Mike stopped him.