SELKIE

 

                                                       (Gustav Klimt, Fish Blood, 1897/1898)

I watch the shore and I think of you.

It can be so lonely at times.

The jagged coast. The rocks, emerging out of the sea like forgotten tombs in a graveyard. The waves, relentless. Did the ocean, and this desolate landscape, did they ever mean to nurture us? Yet we are their children are we not?

I take one deep breath. Salt. Seaweed. Sand. Wind. I can even taste them.

I close my eyes.

Mother. Will you let me love him? This creature from the earth? Will you accept him?

I know that the land is not generous. The earth is coughing up humans. So many of them. They scream, they hurt, they destroy and tear everything apart. I know that you have ignored my plea for a reason.

But I beg you Mother.

The love they offer is the sweetest thing: a rare orchid flowering in a crevice between grey rocks, a cloud berry bursting on the tip of one’s tongue, a hand holding mine and never letting go.

I close my eyes and I see them, my sisters. Are they seals? Are they waves?

At night, when the water is so dark I can’t tell sea from sky, I sit by the shore and I watch, and I listen. The surf is their smile, glowing a faint silver under the moonlight. The deep roar of the sea echoes in my mind and I hear their voices too.

Come back.

But I cannot.

They say we cast the spells, they say we are to blame. They have stories. So many stories about us, and in each and every one of them, we are always to blame.

Are they right Mother? I have lost my fins and found my feet. I can almost feel the roots plunging into the deep dry soil. My slithery, oily skin is but a distant memory.

They don’t know me. They think I am one of them. Yet they find me too pale, my eyes are too dark and watery, my limbs too lean and lithe. But they are jealous Mother, are they not? It’s all jealousy.

I have to go home now. He is waiting for me. He will get angry if I am late. He may even hit me again. I don’t mind the hitting so much, but he might hide the Treasure. Forever. And I cannot bear that.

You see, Mother, the Treasure is the most beautiful thing I have ever laid eyes upon. I call it a “thing” but even that feels wrong. It is alive. It is a pelt, so smooth and silvery, so soft and shiny I yearn to touch it. The mere sight of her (is it rather a “her”, I wonder?) makes me miss you so much. It makes me cry.

And then I taste my tears. They are salty. They taste of you, they taste of the sea.