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IF YOU HAVE EARS....I MEAN
- © by Eva Maria Franchi
all rights protected and reserved -
After months of hard work, she could finally enjoy the well-deserved Christmas holidays that were her due.
Her friends had advised her well. This hidden bay of Ko Samui was a paradise, one of the few uncontaminated places left in Thailand, a country that had now become more crowded than Italian coastlines in the Adriatic. She was almost always alone in this bay. Tourists were rarely seen in these parts and even the natives seemed to ignore it.
That day though, a beautiful blonde lady was sunbathing at the other end of the beach. "Another tourist", thought Lisa "so I’m not the only one who knows this place. From her looks she could be German or Swedish. Slim and lean body. She must go in for sport".
Lisa was proud of her slender, curved body, in good shape from her daily exercise. She only felt contempt for women who complained about their soft, fat bodies but who couldn’t even make the smallest sacrifice to keep them in shape. Beauty is not only a gift but also a conquest, she had always sustained, and she was pleased every time she saw women like her who, in her opinion, looked after their appearance.
It was a splendid day. The hot sun warmed her and obscured her senses and willpower. "I should get up", she thought, but she couldn’t escape from the suns rays that enveloped her in such a pleasant torpor.
After a while, she thought she saw a mermaid come from the sea. She seemed to come out of the water and drag herself along the beach, using her flipper as a rudder, and heading towards the other tourist. "I’m dreaming", Lisa thought, "I’ve been lying in the sun too long". She quickly sat up and looked in the direction of the tourist. In fact, a lovely Thailandese girl had approached her, but she was not a mermaid, she was a woman like anyone else, who stood on her own two feet. "Massage?" she asked. Evidently the tourist accepted because the girl began massaging her body. Strangely enough though, she didn’t massage her legs that were covered with a towel.
"Probably the lady has got some circulation problems. No sun on the legs and no energetic massage. Strange, for a sportswoman", thought Lisa who, being a health fanatic, looked for confirmation of her convictions by meddling in the health of others. Stimulated by these thoughts, she began to practise some yoga positions on the beach. She was balancing perfectly on her head when she saw the most incredible sight. The tourist had removed the towel that was covering her and her legs had been replaced by a mermaid’s tail!
Lisa couldn’t believe her eyes! She lost her balance. Stunned, she saw the tourist drag herself across the beach towards the sea and lose herself amongst the waves. The Thailandese girl had disappeared.
The day after, she returned to the bay in the hope that something would happen. This time she was completely alone. But after a few hours she saw a girl swimming who looked like the mysterious massager that she had seen the previous day. She was heading into the shore. Lisa watched carefully, this time she had a wide straw hat on to protect her from the sun. This couldn’t be due to sunstroke, her eyesight had always been perfect. The girl had a mermaid’s tail and was heading towards Lisa herself. "Hi", she said.
Lisa was lost for words for a few moments, then she got her courage back and asked "Do you speak English?" "I speak every language in the world. I’m a mermaid. I don’t need a mouth to speak or ears to hear. I perceive people’s thoughts and I talk to their minds". That said, she took two rubber plugs out of her ears. "I don’t need these when I’m out of the water".
"And that woman I saw yesterday? Is she a mermaid too?"
"No. She’s a human like you. She lent me her legs for a day and I lent her my gills and my tail. That way she could see the sea world and I could visit the earth. Would you like to make a swap too?"
Lisa couldn’t refuse. This was an unrepeatable experience. It would have been stupid to waste an opportunity like this. "I accept", she said "but only for a day".
"You won’t regret it. For you humans it is an extraordinary experience to be able to swim along the seabed without worrying about getting tired and running out of air. But if you want to make a bargain you’ll have to promise that you’ll never speak about me to anyone. I’m a mermaid and men are cruel. If they discovered my existence they would lock me up in a laboratory and study me as a rare animal".
"I promise. I won’t tell anyone." Lisa reassured her.
"That’s not enough", said the mermaid, "promise on something valuable. On your ears for example!"
"Oh, alright, I swear on my ears!" As soon as she uttered those words, she felt her legs burning like live coals. A moment later she had the tail and could admire her legs on the mermaid.
"See you tomorrow " the mermaid said to her. Then she began to run along the beach. Lisa immediately hurried excitedly to the sea. It was wonderful to be able to travel for hours and hours immersed in the sea beds; it was the most beautiful experience she had ever had.
The day after, she met up with the mermaid again. She got back her legs and gave back the tail and the gills. She still couldn’t believe that it had really happened.
She went back to the bay in the days following hoping to meet the mermaid again and to make the exchange once again but she didn’t appear. On the other hand, the tourist had returned and was in a separate place in a corner of the beach. Lisa wanted to talk to her, ask her about the mermaid, share their experience with her but she had promised she wouldn’t reveal the mermaid’s existence to anybody. Still, what harm could come if I talked to the tourist, she thought. She knew everything too. She too had swapped her legs. So Lisa gathered her courage and tried to start up a conversation. "Do you speak English?". The woman signed at her to look at her face. "I’m deaf" she said in English, "I have to watch your mouth move".
"Do you know the mermaid?" Lisa asked. She offered to swap with you too, didn’t she?
"Yes", answered the woman. "She offered the swap on the understanding that I would not speak to anyone about her. The penalty being the loss of my ears!"
"For you it wouldn’t be a great loss", thought Lisa. Then she said "That’s funny! She made me swear on my ears too".
"Ears are important for a mermaid. They don’t have them and they really want them. You should know that mermaids live for hundreds of years and its only thanks to their ears that they can have fun listening to other people’s conversations in order to pass the time."
"But can’t they communicate with their mind?"
"They can communicate with their minds in a one-to-one conversation with another person but they can’t understand the a group of people all talking at once. And they love listening to sailors’ conversations".
"But the mermaid I saw yesterday had ears. I remember clearly."
"She had my ears," the tourist answered, and moved back her long, blond hair. Lisa saw with horror that the woman had no ears.
"But why?" She asked.
"Like you, I couldn’t resist the temptation of talking about the mermaid to a friend either. And I lost my ears. Besides, she had warned me. But she gave me a chance of getting them back. "If another person swaps with me and doesn’t keep her promise I will give your ears back", she told me"
Lisa felt a terrible wave of heat invading her ears. The same heat that she had felt when her legs were being swapped. "No!!" she screamed, bringing her hands up to her ears. But to her horror she realised that they had disappeared.
"When you make an agreement with mermaids you have to listen to them very carefully. If you have ears, I mean…" the tourist told her.
But Lisa was now completely deaf.
E-mail: evamaria@ecodance.com
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