Sound of the Sea

1861 Words4 Pages

The only time that I can sneak into the bathhouse is in the midnight, when everyone is in their beds asleep, when the hot water stops running from the mouths of the marble lions around the bath pool so the water is cool enough, and when I am all alone. As I lay myself into the water, my waist below joints, I can feel my legs mingle together, wrapped with another skin so tight, and covered with fish scales in the color of aqua that glimmer under the moonlight through the window. Then from the tips of my toes expand an enormous fish-like caudal tail. Here is the only place that I can reveal my true form. Though my movement seems bound, it is in fact the time when I actually feel free. It was not until by my age of four did my body started to have this kind of transformation when I was put into the water. I remembered Mother nearly fainted, and she assumed that she must be cursed to have given birth to such an inhuman creature. Since the day after, my parents looked at me in a disgusted way as if I were a demon which would bring adversity to this house. Father imprisoned me in a small cabin near a pond in the forest—they segregated me, still kept me secretly, for no one would wash their dirty linens in the public. They fed me everyday just to keep me alive, but that was all they did. They believed that if I died, the evil spirit of mine would remain and took revenge. I knew I was no longer loved, and I knew that they were waiting, waiting for the chance to drive me out. Father and Mother never worried about that I might escape away due to my inability of speaking. My words were aerial, merely fricatives or nasals to them, so they deemed me a dull nuisance. However, they never knew that everything got reversed in the water. Un... ... middle of paper ... ... the mare, and the salty breeze gently shave across my face. I listen to the sound it makes when the wave hit against the reeves, which I assure it belongs to my language. Step by step, I walk into the water, immersed my waist below in it. As I turn around and take a final glance at him, I sink into the brine. The current washes my clothes away, and I feel revived. The sun now has risen, so I swim near the reef that the prince stands on, wishing to leave a gift for him. I hand him the pearls I preserve. He is astounded, yet nods as if he knew what to do with them. I smile and disappear myself into the deep blue. Near the end of the day, when the sun turns into tangerine and dyes the sea with its reddish beam, I hear a loud splash behind me. Then a voice rises from the very bottom of the ocean, welcoming the figure that jumped in and says, “Welcome home, my prince.”

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