Yesteryear Fiction

The Mermaid
By Melinda Giordano


When she fell upon the land, her scales had quite evaporated. Her torso was now fused beneath a satin cuirass, and flowering pleats grew down her dorsal side. The adoring fish that swam next to her had vanished; she was now surrounded by sharks that watched her and measured her...scales appearing in their eyes.

Her skin was warm, and glowed in the unfamiliar candlelight. The heat was very uncomfortable and she missed the nacreous water that cooled her until her body was as rare and precious as marble. The atmosphere was filthy with perfume and she choked on the scented oils that stained the air.

There were no starfish to wear in her hair. Her crown made from the skeletons of crabs and blue-eyed scallops was gone. Her currents of hair were now imprisoned in a painful sweep that sparked her eyes with tears - memories of the salt water that she missed so much.

She missed her pelagic ways; listening to the whales talking, the seals barking like salty dogs. She missed leaning against the rocks, singing: her voice lifting above the shells floating in the brine, the yellow froth, the marine layers.

Now, she had no voice at all.


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Melinda Giordano is from Los Angeles, California.  She has been published in Lake Effect Magazine and dansemacabreonline.com, gloomcupboard.com, and batteredsuitcase.com. She studies many histories - artistic, political - and anything to do with Aubrey Beardsley.