It’s said
humanity’s sins grew so great
that not even the ocean
could swallow them, no kingdom
of the land or sea could withstand
the death of phytoplankton. Mass
asphyxiation. Desertification.
As for the Seal of Solomon, well,
a team of outcasts ages past
discovered that it was a prison,
a prism of torment designed
to enslave…something. Someone.
Whispers of ghosts, marids,
the morning and evening star.
When that seal shattered,
magic receded from the world. The power
of a dying wish
for another’s freedom.
Story for another day.
Suffice to say,
competition for the remaining
habitable zones was vicious.
Everyone kept to their clans.
No trace of djinn, truces tense.
Seafolk cultivated liquid starlight,
brilliant blue algae nurseries cresting waves,
combed rocky tide pools into fertile tresses,
clam and kelp gardens along scavenged
deep sea chains. Coral reefs replanted.
After decades
of killing humans on sight
land and sea firmly parted ways.
But all his life
King Shahriman had a dream.
Sunlight decanting through his room
in the most peculiar way,
he had to make the bed,
he had to make the bed, and within,
an impending wave, aching to break.
It never arrived.
He was never satisfied.
No matter how many he lie beside
it was never quite right, oh,
he required size. Some kind of might.
In their cheek
his parents had named him
King Kingly Spirit, not that
he’d ever met the man, when asked
his mother dodged with
something something song of the sea.
King Kingly Spirit, very
gilding the lily, bleeding the pomegranate,
and not to be dramatic, but he saw to it
the wandering tribes united, gave rise to a city
with his own hands—and many others—
clay and earth and standing stones, concrete remnants,
sand scoured shattered and pebbled rainbow glass,
this location chosen
when he came upon three proud acacia
unscathed by tumult, took it as a sign,
knew as his mother taught, that a king
lives only as a burning effigy, his buildings
but temples in service of some secret divinity.
One makes the space
and if one be worthy
she sees it filled. Who’s she?
Well that’s just one of those things
you find out. You live long enough,
never settle and stay the course. Art
of surprise. But all his life,
that is three decades and change,
he had favor and lovers and dalliance aplenty
but no queen to rule beside, a man
cannot create a life, and that was fine.
It was fine. The city thrived, the people
were strong and happy. So why did he cry?
And every day he would ride
further and further along the cairn boundary.
He watched the sea.
And out there times were plenty dicey.
A number of mermaid kingdoms had gone
mad with grief. Some resorted to cannibalism.
How to address, even begin, to soothe a hurt
so vast? A blue planet. As fate would have it,
a great lady bore twins. Wholly unexpected
of their long declining fertility rates, the result
of humanity treating the ocean like a toilet.
A boy and a girl and the gift
of song. All of creation. Our twins set off
with the last marid and some dolphins
and caravanned into quite a spectale.
A found family of sorts, no,
a roving kingdom. Lights and amusement,
trinkets, relics, and trade. Comfort.
Sorrow.
In the water, you always know,
you can’t not. Toxins take their course
and a seaborn cannot hide.
They felt it all.
And each performance became testimony,
revelation, a judgment day, tsunami
or misted rain, these two had range.
But some humans yet remained
who hadn’t learned their lesson
the first time.
Engaged in dark commerce
with a mermaid death cult gathered
about offshore drilling platforms. I’m sure
you know the ones I’m talking about.
A wound cannot heal
with an active infection. Our twins
and their caravan caught in the crossfire.
Some convergence of foul plots.
Betrayed by the most decrepit
of their kind, for such a beauty
those humans paid a hefty price.
Ripped from the ocean
as the others fought to the death
and packed into a shipping container,
contents female,
the next thing she or these human women knew
was the screeching halt days, weeks later
of their rumbling transport.
Muffled slaughter.
Everything stank.
Too bright, too dry, too hot.
Different human women
shrouded in billowing garments
like a ship’s sails, armed
and mounted on horses and camels. Water.
They were alarmed at her skin,
dangerously fair, and soon she too
sported a similar style. With an added woven hat.
The others dispersed at checkpoints, crossroads,
carried off home, but our wayward seaborn
had nowhere to go.
Her voice was gone,
her limbs so very, very heavy.
Finally, in order to escape
the sun and whipping sand,
they descended into the quanats
hoping to make their…guest
more comfortable. One woman
had even taken it upon herself
to administer without fail
timely and lightly scented mist bursts.
They tried every form of communication
they could think of, even sign language,
told her stories regardless
of whether or not she understood,
complete with shadow puppets.
Once, after heated discussion,
they offered her camel salt.
Would that she possessed
the will to smile, loosed
a tear instead.
Where was her brother now?
The others?
Bas-relief story book scenery
increased on the home stretch,
some kind of reservoir or oasis,
a massive water processing station.
A temple. Unlike any seen in an age.
Enormous pillars
and stone latticework screens
conducting and shifting wind and sunlight
encircling labyrinthine
a grove of fruit trees and a deep
tiered fountain, really a multi-storey
series of waterfalls splashed
into ponds and baths.
She caught her breath.
Having sent ahead,
a calm and secluded chamber prepared.
No direct light. Silk swags casting
ambient hues as she might find
homelike.
All she did as sleep,
could not reconcile her surroundings,
adapt to these new ways, there were just
too many eyes.
So heavy.
Could these humans be trusted?
Did she care?
Scratched a new existence, clawed
bodily compliance until her spirit was raw,
into the hoary wee hours
as a steady droplet
splattered on stone,
ventured further and further from her room,
today one thing, tomorrow one more.
They left her alone.
Let her figure it out.
If a particular struggle protracted,
the next day things were arranged just so,
but never the sense someone hovered
or expected overmuch. They did not push.
Minute adjustments to her habitat.
Leaving out little treats and snacks,
Their efforts noted
and appreciated.
When she joined the others
in tending the grove
they acted as if
she’d always been there.
Fully included
despite never having spoke.
They acquainted her
with their people’s treasure trove.
Honeysuckles all the shades of dawn, jasmine,
starry sky purple petunias, tissue fleck pale lavender
blooms sprinkled atop mounts of creeping rosemary,
elephant bush gobbling entire fences,
boswellia, myrrh, cactus the colors of mountain blush—
neon crowns on snowy down
to towering night bloomers.
Many things rescued from far off, just cuttings
tucked in bags and pockets carefully proliferated.
A variety of figs, medjool dates, so many citrus,
carob, tamarind and moringa.
Great black lady wasps
taken up residence in brush,
busy over pomegranate buds and hips.
Their way was minimal subsequent interference,
just do it right the first time, big swings, indeed,
every cultivar present evolved with a retinue
of suitable attendants.
A plethora of creatures tiny to quite large.
One hardly noticed
the absence of her speech. Words were far
from necessary.
The women showed her spices, sweets,
teas, perfumes, cloth, medicines, and wines.
Stages of production, explicitly nontoxic.
Workshopped a strong enough humectant
to heal her badly chapped skin.
One day, they brought her to a special section.
So much easier to breathe. Very high humidity.
A courtyard housing climbing orchid vines
with a stumpery for their sole, humble companions,
the melipona bee. Mellow and stingless. What makes
a thing precious. One of the last things
that had come to them by sea.
In the summer they wore
tactical linens and gauze, head to toe
both heat reflective iridescent and producing
directed electric charge with movement,
and algae based oxygen compressor masks
for arid zone maintenance. Borders contested
against dunes shifting and slumbering,
at times howling and haunting. This
was a scorching sea
plunged frigid at night
only camels and sailors could navigate,
living ships in their own right.
Her own camel was young and bright white,
expertly trained, herself a joy and a prize,
with a fifty year expectancy
would be with her all her life.
This had been a gift quite mysterious.
A helper on her journey, equally fair,
rather birds of a feather in that respect.
It almost
made up for the trauma of abduction.
At night in the open air
constellations over a small fire,
tea and rose syrup pastry, some shortbread,
the women spoke of her former captors.
Curs crawled out from bunkers, vile
weapons and technologies, relics
from the fallen age. Convinced
their plummeting birth rates
would be solved if they just
defiled as many young women as possible,
stole them from all around. Traced at last
from their disastrous overreach.
It was indirectly
their lust for her seaborn genes and exotic beauty
that exposed their underbelly.
To preempt greater seaborn retaliation
against human interference
and as a show of good faith after such incident,
the Matrons of the Morning Star
had authorized a brutal strike
on the base of operations,
made it one hundred percent clear
the actions of these men an their enablers
were unacceptable
in the eyes of their society, turned
their corpses into a seaside display,
left their women to wail and haunt
every bunker breached with its toxins
neutralized. Their way of life.
They would adapt or die.
Not long after, an answering display
composed of those seaborn
who had likewise betrayed. An unspoken
covenant between mothers of the aftermath,
universal.
If you mean business, you put blood on it.
With a dark alliance disbanded
it remained to be seen
if the hand of friendship, sisterhood,
might be extended instead.
Things were
tense.
Her presence marked the potential
to transmute disaster into opportunity.
She prayed her family survived.
The season progressed
and they sent goats up argan trees,
summoned from arid prairie rooftops
by some whistling language,
shook olives and pistachios onto tarps,
plucked saffron stigmas in early dawn
beneath shimmering cirrus, sweeping breeze
through her indigo and mulberry stonewash layers
stitched with sprays of tiny glass pearls
over deeper stains. This had been
yet another gift.
As to the identity
of this…benefactor, the women
remained tight-lipped. Custom sunglasses
for her sensitive eyes. Fine leathers
for riding and work. A clever falcon
to assist in pest patrol. Paints.
Goodness, someone
had certainly taken interest,
had given her every conceivable need
a great deal of thought.
The women’s glances lately laced
with high amusement,
especially when she’d periodically
whip around as if to catch
this observer in the act, squinting
with suspicion at random foliage.
This generosity vexed her so,
felt so conspicuous,
that she threw herself into her work.
Last to bed and first to wake, driven
by her need to convey
that she didn’t take kindness for granted,
if indeed “kindness” the precise intention.
Shied the distinction of special treatment,
had no desire to cultivate
resentment from her peers. Onlookers.
She devised a manner of message
in which these people might contact
her kin. Crafted a sense
of their spirit.
Late into her nights
she’d created deep sea lanterns,
all shapes and sizes
arranged in cascading clusters
affixed to textural starburst anchors,
vivid fruit and blossom mosaics
pressed and waterproofed.
One loose, round link at the end
in open invitation.
Her human family marvelled
and any seaborn not living under a rock
would recognize her handiwork.
Hopefully.
Well it was on the newly minted
Lantern Day festival
they met.
He seemed
a man of long suffering reputation, charming,
rather hard worn for one so relatively young—
near her own age—
but not unattractive by any means,
oh no, he looked good. Had anything been said
to go wrong, it went wrong just right.
He made her smile
even without words. If she couldn’t talk,
he wouldn’t either.
Thus, she acquired a visitor.
Rather than put her on the spot,
he joined in her work. She in his,
somewhat more public than her predilection.
They played games
and took tea with chaperones. Painted together.
He was very careful
to do her no dishonor. Nonetheless,
his intentions became quite clear.
He had apparently
abandoned any and all previous flirtations
for well over a year.
From the moment he saw her.
Damn near been living like a monk,
by his standards anyhow, and well,
she really wanted
to see what that hair was all about.
Seaborn were mammals of course,
but were mostly smooth to slightly scaled
with sleek locks,
they did not sport such rich texture.
She’d gotten used to the smell.
In his case, she liked it.
These days she scarcely noticed
the weight.
He brought her some distance away,
black goat hair tents along the steppes,
dug out and reinforced underneath.
Some sort of military encampment.
It quickly became obvious
he was the only man present.
It quickly became obvious
that the imposing woman before her
was his mother.
A Matron of the Morning Star.
He left.
They partook the provisions he’d presented
in silence.
The Matron noticed her studying the tapestry,
meticulously woven and beaded, a complex
landscape triptych of event horizons
radiating from three different nascent voids,
not unlike pearls.
“These represent
our sacred three. The great
intercessors. Goddesses
of the ancient world.
Al-Uzza, the Mighty, guardian
of trade and travelers, dealer
of justice and war.
Al-Lat, the Mother,
full as the moon, bringer
of monsoons, spring, and fertility.
Manat, the Eldest,
lady of fate, death, time,
and destiny.”
She unboxed candied orange rind
and spiced dates soaked in rum
then stuffed with ground nuts. Salt.
Landlife certainly had perks,
these people did things with food.
It could almost be said
she took a little color, pleasantly warm.
“Your people are right to be wary.
Our order hid for thousands of years
after the fall of Mecca. It’s so rare
for a man to be selfless
they couldn’t shut up about it,
said he was special until
they guaranteed another worthy man
would never be born again. Mark me,
little mermaid, and take this to heart:
no man
ever spoke the word of Allah
without a woman
who first put those words in his mouth.”
The Matron placed a marred signet ring
in her palm,
skin prickled, candles flickered.
“I was not blessed
with a daughter. But neither
did I raise a useless son.
He’s done some good here on Earth,
whether or not he realizes, all that’s left
is to find the right woman
to help him hold onto it. Tell me,
is that woman you?”
As far as pleas for a grandchild went,
that was top shelf.
No seaborn maman done better.
She surely understood the assignment,
closed her hand around that ring
without hesitation.
Shahriman would have plenty
to hold onto soon enough.
Some days later,
on a balmy late autumn night,
the land’s contours lush deluge
in the moonglow, the two of them alone,
he brought her to the top of a tower
to reveal a pet project.
Partially open air, optional heavy drapes,
columns and arches capped
with a small dome and striking finial.
In the center of the room
he had hand tiled a large round inset bath.
The entire floor.
Glittering copper grout, deep ocean porcelain
with quartz flecks, let out into
grogged burnt umber Moravian stars
on gradient kelp greens, brushed
with faintly iridescent grit as he’d noticed
she loved texture. Man been busy.
Sitting up to their knees, hands linked,
he asked for her name.
But it was so heavy.
So she kissed him instead,
flung off his clothes still hot on his neck,
yes, her hands were still fast.
Before he knew it, they were in the bath.
Not precisely the evening he’d planned,
but he was a flexible man, evidenced
by the unique position she had him pinned,
one hand in his hair and the other
possessively nipping his lower back,
damn, he here was
trying to be a gentleman. Right.
The second gift, he’d almost forgotten.
“Wait, my love. I have something
that might help.”
A slightly metallic taste on his lips,
warm salt tugging some very taught strings
low in his belly. Hardly felt his age.
Extricated just long enough,
thrilling like a boy
under her piercing gaze. Opened a box
and inside were two luminous stones
warm to the touch and shaped somewhat
like eggs. One of the last
remnants of old magic.
“Let’s see what I can do
about that weight.”
They were in fact
a pair of very special pearls.
With this new breathing room
he thoroughly perused
her every contour, working dense muscles
with the warming stone, catching
lonely glistening bits in his mouth,
admired her flush, patches of scales
curiously soft. Oh, not so different
from humans after all. She soon found
what the second stone was for.
As one moved underwater
the other hummed, and he kept that palm
firmly rooted to its station,
not that her relentless flesh, wracked
with wave after wave after wave,
would willingly relinquish its prize. She gasped.
She clawed. She cried. She felt light.
When, trembling,
she indicated he should replace that stone
with himself,
again he asked
for her name.
She couldn’t provide it,
but she was so close.
He would wait.
Shahriman was a patient man.
Once a week did the asking, postponed
his own release, and when finally
a month had passed, well,
her body had decided
it was very much Ready for a child
and he was just gonna have to lie back
and take it like a man.
She wasn’t hearing no. Fuck that tub.
When she jumped him on his home turf,
poor Shahriman tidying his chambers,
minding his business being a good boy,
he knew he was in trouble.
She was, after all,
inexplicably heavy, tossed on his sheets,
and his traitor flesh
sprang alive immediately all gods yes,
today’s the day, I rise
to the occasion.
But suddenly,
as she tenderly freed and hungrily
handled his dripping
fruits,
let them know
they had a job to do,
well it just up and popped out,
“Julnar.”
Oh? Oh! Open lipped surprise.
“Julnar!” He pointed
with unabashed delight. Her eyes
darkened with honeyed purpose
when she briefly licked and nipped
his offered finger.
“Julnar.” Possessive. He didn’t fight.
And oh, he was in trouble. A seaborn
knows how to build, suspend, and execute
a climax.
Couldn’t even remember
his own name in the end. Only hers,
caught in prayer, liminal space. He learned
the meaning of devotion
over and over and over.
They were married.
He heard the whole
of Julnar’s story. They found her family
rather tripled in size
and an alliance was made. Mermaid midwives
delivered their twins, and neighboring peoples
of land and sea opened trade. Great arches crisscrossed
the reinforced coastline. Festivals of lights above
a floating marketplace. Seaborn would join in celebration
of Lantern Day.
When one fine dawn
Shahriman sat beside his wife
on the shore with her falcon and camel
with one babe clutching her breast
while the other slept strapped to a hump,
and he was so happy he could die, his ribs could crack
and his soul just fly away,
the last marid
momentarily in the form
of a large leopard seal
galumphed up to them, Julnar
called out with joy to him, quite familiar
with all his shapes and tricky ways.
Made for introductions, but Shahriman
recognized a damning shared beauty mark
on a face untouched by time, son of a,
faint outrage, the last marid turned to him
twinkle in his eye
and said,
“Wish granted.”
.
@~^~
.
Well summer is here early and it was either AC for my bedroom or AC for my chickens and I’ll do anything for those flussy cabbages. Plus, I wasn’t willing to incur mortgage sized electric bills yet to do both, so cumulative heat stress had me struggle bussing through my work week like a zombie. Not much time to create when you gotta vegetate and stare at the ceiling for a couple hours just to cool down after clocking 40 and doing chores. Even thinking makes you hot. If I happen to miss a week for the next five or six months, assume I Am Tired.
.
Anyways, turns out when you remove all the rape, slavery, and religious fapping from 1K1N you’re left with almost nothing. I pulled from a Shakespeare play and a Bible story—I’m sure you can guess which ones—and hit some notes I’m sure you expect from me by now to spin this yarn.
wyrdwind 