Creative Writing: Rusalka

In the grey morning, he heard singing.

The melodies and harmonies woke him up from his deep slumber, creeping into the small cottage through the bedroom window. He rose to his elbows and listened intently; it wasn’t loud, but it wasn’t soft, either. It was like a missed lover come home, calling to him, missing him. His thoughts flew to the girl that occupied his bed with him the night before, and called out her name.

He waited for an answer and got none.

Sighing, he rose from the bed and put on his day’s clothes: a faded cotton shirt, dark pants, and boots. A lowly underpaid fisherman, he was, and he lamented the moment he opened his blue eyes to the dreary morning that came each day. It was a dank job, with no purpose at all, barely enough wages to keep his pathetic little dwelling up to par with the rest. It caused a riff in his life: the girl he loved was barely there, snaking around bars as a maid, scraping up a few pennies here and there.

[i]Just to help[/i], she insisted time and time again as she kissed his lips in the morning, when he was actually awake, and ducked out.

The singing grew more insistent at that moment, and a great urge to follow it and find the source was gnawing at his gut. He finished up, running a hand through his flaxen hair as he shut the door behind him. And it continued, the singing, as it brought him down to the bluffs that the cottage overlooked, where small caves lingered.

It was frosty out and he shivered as he trekked down, wetting his boots and the knees of his pants in the small water ways that dotted the seaside and leaked into the caves. He cursed his rotten luck momentarily. And suddenly, the singing was right in front of him, in the cave. Cautiously, he went in, afraid of what h...

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...ough…I must ask something of you, Nicholas.”

He worried about what she might ask of him, but curious and skeptical, he said, “Go on.”

“Meet me in the caves by the bluffs in three days,” she said, giving him another grin before reaching up to kiss him again. This time he let her, and he was disappointed when she pulled back. She put her cold, wet hand to his cheek again and whispered, “Don’t make me wait.” With that, she turned and swam off.

Suddenly, he snapped out of his momentary trance and began to holler after her, “Wait! Natasha, why—“

Then he stopped. In the grey light, glittering in the overcast sun, Nicholas watched, astonished, as Natasha stopped in the vast ocean and, from behind her, a pink tail rose from the water. It was as if she felt his shock and blew him a kiss; then she dove deep into the water and didn’t rise again, leaving him in the cold.