short stories

"Nibby" (nibby68) 08/25/2020 at 10:07 • Filed to: None

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A friend found this site and shared it with me... some of these short stories are an experience.

https://jellyfishreview.wordpress.com

Mermaids

I used to date a mermaid, though our dates were more like lectures. She told me things she wouldn’t say near the ocean in case the waves might pull her words into the deep.

For instance, mermaids are a proud people, though the ocean lost its sparkling majesty centuries ago. With overfishing and pollution, they are starved and angry. They lack education, and half of them are illiterate, which they overcompensate for with swollen muscles and push-up bikini tops. If you find yourself on the coasts where mermaids come up for their part-time jobs as fry cooks and beauticians, they will treat you with gruff hostility. After all, the last time they trusted too freely, land-dwellers built cargo ships and submarines, dumped chemicals in rivers, and tossed plastic bottles just to see how they would float.

But I am a land-dweller, I said.

I know, she said, putting a dry hand on mine.

She called me land-dweller, but with sweetness. She wasn’t fond of pet names, so that was the closest to a term of endearment. When I asked her to explain things like El Niño or how the moon controlled the tides, she gave me the most pitiful look. You land-dweller, she said.

She liked to say mermaids swim with their heads screwed backwards. They are uninsured but will vote Republican; they think immigration laws are too strict but will yank at divers’ feet to warn them away from mermaid territory. They stumble on land but will belly-laugh at land-dwellers who gasp and flail in public pools. Fucking shit, she said, sometimes out of the blue. Fucking mermaids.

I once asked her what one good thing about mermaids was; the cynicism was beginning to tarnish and dim. She was silent for a few minutes, checking her phone as if she hadn’t heard my question. Eventually, she said Vin Diesel. I laughed, which made her frown. Oh, come on, I said. He’s not a mermaid. Yes, she said. Yes, he is. Why do you think nobody knows his heritage? That was another thing that filled her with smoke; that people assume mermaids are blue-eyed and pale-skinned. In reality, mermaids are varying shades of brown, and when they are on land, their hair dries big and messy with dark curls. I remember not being able to place her when we met at a gay bar. I remember kissing her skin, expecting saccharine but tasting salt.

On a camping date, we told ghost stories, and her laughter rang through the trees. She couldn’t believe how feeble my ghosts were if their best effort was turning door knobs and slamming kitchen cabinets. The ocean is the biggest graveyard, she said, opening her arms to hold the night sky. Had I heard about the bodies thrown overboard, how the water sometimes vibrates with gargled screams? And the vengeful volcano goddesses that burn through villages on land but graciously spare the ones in the sea? What about the spirits of sea creatures, how swimming through the ghost of a blue whale is like listening to a familiar song too far away to decipher?

Don’t you dare tell anyone, she said more than once. I mean it. I hadn’t realized these stories were secrets. If you tell anyone, they’ll come onto shore and find you. They’ll find you and flood your car and your house. Her arms were crossed, iron bars.

Mermaids take themselves so seriously, I said, hoping for a smile.

After we broke up, I drove down the Pacific Coast Highway and found the emptiest beach. At the water’s edge, I whispered three of her secrets, the smallest ones, the ones I could repeat without her getting angry. The silver corner of a granola bar wrapper winked at me, so I plucked it out of the sand and put it in my pocket. Then, I sat down and watched the waves rush and roar only to softly retreat.

This next one is something else...

Extinction

The headlines that summer: ALL WHALES EXHIBITING SIGNS OF LESBIANISM. Scientists worldwide were distressed by the possible extinction of whales and tried all different ways to inseminate the females: by injection of sperm, by introducing males into their territory, which frequently resulted in lethal fights, by releasing hormones into the ocean with a syringe the size of a submarine, by training members of the human species to learn whale-song and impersonate suitors, by introducing inflatable whale-sized dildos to entice them, by ladling whales out of the ocean and into tanks so that they could be more closely studied, by performing surgeries, unspooling their intestines like lengths of ribbon, securing brain and bone samples, asking animal psychologists to question why, why now, are they suicidal, do they no longer care about the continuation of their species, have they inherited the human quality of selfishness, do they have a language for loneliness, singing and giving birth alone for so many millennia, are they like the animals that return to die in the same place they give birth, what do they do with their umbilical cords, do they knot the cords into nooses or bury them on the seafloor or eat them raw like eels, do they surface to breathe or to watch us, do they know the concept of drowning, do they think the sea is as endless as we do, the depths we have never touched with our tongues, though we wonder about the dark, we wonder what it means to live inside it, in a place where light goes extinct, what do whales drink, does thirst exist in their vocabulary, does desire?

facw > Nibby 08/25/2020 at 10:13

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bob and john > facw 08/25/2020 at 10:20

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oh my fuck XD

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > Nibby 08/25/2020 at 10:20

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The mermaid one was. . . well. . . interesting. I think that explains a lot.

facw > bob and john 08/25/2020 at 10:25

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https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2008-02-05

Nibby > Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available 08/25/2020 at 10:46

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this is one of the wackiest things i;ve read

MUSASHI66 > Nibby 08/25/2020 at 11:43

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Imagine having a brain that can write so well, but a brain so weird that it can write only this bizarre stuff...

In other words, wtf did I just read??

Nibby > MUSASHI66 08/25/2020 at 11:52

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i know right? it kinda wants you leaving for more

sn4cktimes > Nibby 08/25/2020 at 14:41

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I liked the mermaid story. Short fiction like that is always a neat read. The author’s built an entire universe to spit it out onto 1-50 pages... very enticing. 

MUSASHI66 > Nibby 08/25/2020 at 15:52

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Nope :). I’d be very happy n ever to waste a  few minutes of my life on another story like that.

Nibby > sn4cktimes 08/25/2020 at 16:09

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for sure! glad you enjoyed it

InFierority Complex > Nibby 08/25/2020 at 18:22

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jminer > Nibby 08/25/2020 at 18:56

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We can always rely on you to share something a ‘friend’ of yours found. It’s always a strange and enjoyable trip - never change.

Nibby > MUSASHI66 08/25/2020 at 20:20

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your loss

Nibby > jminer 08/25/2020 at 20:20

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no really, it was a friend who is in high school and was looking for short stories for inspiration for a writing assignment

sn4cktimes > Nibby 08/26/2020 at 09:53

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I read a lot of sci-fy books. Every now and then I read short story anthologies. Sometimes the author gets enough positive feedback that they’ll expand their universe and write full length   books. So  I always try and write to new and not often published authors that deserve the feedback. I like to hope that sometimes it can make a difference and encourage them to keep at it.