Merfolk Read online

  “I suppose…”

  “Just keep doin’ what you’re doin’. You look good. Knowledgeable. That’s what we want, what matters. So eyewitnesses?”

  “Sure.”

  Fat Mike nodded. “Still rollin’?”

  “Still rolling,” the hipster replied.

  Fat Mike pointed a finger gun at Marty and pulled the trigger. “Action.”

  Marty collected himself and said, “Beyond the myth and lore regarding merfolk, there have also been countless eyewitness reports of fish-tailed humanoids in our oceans and seas. In fact, there have been more high-publicized sightings of merfolk over the centuries than any other creature unknown to science. In 1493, Christopher Columbus chronicled in his ship’s logbook that he and his crew encountered three mermaids with distinctive human facial features off the coast of what’s now the Dominican Republic. In 1560, a group of Jesuits caught seven merfolk in their fishing nets off the coast of Ceylon, present-day Sri Lanka. The Viceroy of India, a learned physician, dissected the bodies himself before numerous witnesses. In 1603, several farmers of good reputation observed a mermaid off the coast of Wales for more than three hours. A few years later, in 1608, Henry Hudson encountered a mermaid that he described as having flowing black hair, white skin, and the fully developed breasts of a woman. In 1723, a Danish Royal Commission tasked with proving that merfolk didn’t exist ended up discovering a merman near the Faroe Isles. In 1739, newspapers reported that sailors of the English ship Halifax, recently returned from the East Indies, confessed to eating mermaid flesh. In 1830, a group of locals cutting seaweed on the island of Benbecula, off the west coast of Scotland, witnessed what appeared to be a ‘woman in miniature’ swimming with impossible ease and grace in the churning sea. A few days later the creature washed ashore at Culle Bay, where it was witnessed by the entire town and described as having dark hair, tender white flesh, the breasts of a woman, and a lower body like that of a salmon’s, lacking the scales. Three years later, in the Shetland Isles, which consist of about a hundred islands just north of Scotland, an esteemed natural history professor captured a merman, which he described as short-haired and monkey-faced. And in 1890, in the nearby Orkney Isles, hundreds of eyewitnesses reported sightings of a black-headed, white-bodied creature that became known as the Deerness Mermaid. Reports of similar sightings continued throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, though they were increasingly ignored by the major newspapers of the times. The age of science—including the biological sciences—had dawned, and people began to dispute or dismiss what they couldn’t comprehend.”

  Marty paused, thinking that was a good place to break. Fat Mike, however, nodded at him encouragingly.

  Marty continued: “So what should we make of all these eyewitness reports? Truth? Fiction? Group hysteria? Mistaken identity? Skeptics tend to believe they’re the product of the latter. Identifying animals in water, they argue, is inherently problematic, given that eyewitnesses typically only see a small part of the creature that is not submerged. When you add poor and distant viewing conditions, positively identifying even a known creature such as a human-sized manatee or dugong can prove difficult. A glimpse of a head or flipper or tail just before it dives under the waves—and voila, you have a merfolk.”

  He paused again, but this time for dramatic emphasis.

  “If you ask me, I’ve always thought this argument to be bollocks. After all, we’re not talking about a single eyewitness report. We’re talking about thousands, from isolated geographical regions around the world, and over the course of five millennia. Can all these scholars and scientists and explorers and entire townships be wrong? All making the same misidentification? All confusing mythology with reality? Which, it’s important to point out, are not always diametrically at odds with one another.

  “In other words, just because something is considered a myth or legend doesn’t mean it’s not based in science. Eyewitness accounts of giant squid, for instance, have been common among mariners since ancient times. They’re the basis for the Kraken and the Lusca and the Scylla, in Scandinavian, Caribbean, and Greek folklore respectively. Mythologies based on realities. And speaking of giant squid—despite being the largest invertebrate on Earth, it was only in 2004 that researchers in Japan snapped the first images of one. You’d think such a large animal would be hard to miss, wouldn’t you? But we must remember that most of our planet is covered with water—and only about five percent of that has been explored. Indeed, most of what we know about giant squid comes from dead carcasses that have floated to the surface and were found by fishermen. Now, imagine if giant squid were not solitary animals but social ones. Social animals like us that perform death rituals such as burying their dead. Intelligent animals like us that learn and adapt. Intelligent animals that have learned and adapted to keep far away from fishing nets—and encounters of any kind with humans.

  “So if you ask me, yes, the universal misidentification of merfolk is hogwash. Merfolk do exist. Their mythology arose from the reality of their existence. Live specimens have been recorded in the past, and it was just a matter of time before they were recorded with modern technology. And that time is now.”

  “And that’s a cut!” Fat Mike bellowed, heaving himself to his feet. “I knew you were the man for this doco, Double M! I just knew it! You’re going to be a smash hit, mate. People around the world are going to love you.”

  ∆∆∆

  Marty woke at a little past midnight in the chair in front of his computer desk. A video he didn’t recognize was playing on YouTube. He remembered sitting down to watch the Netflix documentary, though he didn’t think he got through more than ten minutes before he passed out.

  He slapped the laptop lid closed, shuffled below deck to the master stateroom, and flopped down on the antique four-poster bed. Despite being bone-weary and still drunk, he found it difficult to fall back asleep.

  In the end, he tossed and turned into the early morning before waking at five a.m. to his radio alarm blasting AC/DC’s latest single. He cranked the volume and began packing a small carry-on.

  Part 2

  Mirissa

  “The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and a seal.”

  —Mark Twain

  Chapter 7

  MARTY

  Airports are the great equalizer. Every country, wealthy or otherwise, has one. You can be in Frankfurt Airport or Kuwait Airport, New York’s JFK or Peru’s Jorge Chávez, Paris’ Charles de Gaulle or Moscow’s Domodedovo, and they’re all the same: clean, organized, modern.

  Bandaranaike International Airport was no different. The Uber ride through the beat up, sometimes slummy streets of Colombo spoke to the country’s poverty. But you wouldn’t know that inside Bandaranaike. Stepping through the automatic glass doors, Marty could have been anywhere in the world.

  He made his way to the Cinnamon Air ticket counters where he’d agreed to meet Jacky. Dressed in khaki shorts, a green blouse, and stacked sandals, she stood with her suitcase at the entrance to the check-in queue.

  She saw him approach and smiled. “Good morning, Marty.”

  “We’re almost twins,” he said, glancing down at his khaki pants and lime-green golf shirt.

  “Except my clothes aren’t from The Gap.”

  “Actually, they’re from a Nike store.”

  “Nike sells khakis?”

  “They’re golf pants—”

  Jacky’s eyes widened. “Rad!”

  Marty turned to see Radhika clad in a wide-brimmed straw hat and sunglasses. She was hurrying toward them, all smiles and waves. “Surprise, fans!” she greeted, throwing her arms wide and hugging Jacky. She tapped her cheek with a finger, and Marty planted an obligatory kiss there.

  He immediately asked, “What the hell are you doing here, Rad?”

  “I’m coming with you! I wasn’t planning to. But I was up early, had nothing to do—I’m not filming again until next month—and decided this could be q
uite the adventure, after all. So I bought a ticket online and here I am!”

  “I’m happy you’re here,” Jacky said.

  “Marty doesn’t look happy. Marty—can’t you at least pretend you’re happy to see me?”

  “I don’t like surprises. And what’s with the shirt?”

  She was wearing a fitted pink tee-shirt emblazoned with the black silhouette of Bigfoot.

  “I wanted to get into the spirit of things, but I didn’t have anything mermaidish, so I figured this would do. You don’t like it?”

  “It’s not condescending at all.”

  “It’s fun, Marty. Live a little.” The head of a tiny Pomeranian emerged from a rattan beach bag that was slung over her shoulder. It yapped happily.

  “You brought a dog?”

  “Yes, I did,” she said in baby-talk while kissing the Pomeranian between its fluffy ears. It licked her cheek affectionately. “My baby goes everywhere with me. Don’t you, Marty? Yes, you do.”

  Marty frowned. “Who are you talking to?”

  “My dog.”

  “His name’s Marty?”

  “So?”

  “You named your dog after me?”

  Rad laughed. “You and your ego! I’ve had Marty since he was a pup, long before I met you. Don’t you remember? When we met, and you introduced yourself, I told you that my dog’s name is Marty too. I named him after Martin Sheen. The Subject Was Roses is one of my all-time favorite movies.”

  “All right, people,” Jacky said, glancing at her gold wristwatch, “why don’t we move this fascinating conversation to the queue. The flight’s boarding in half an hour, and we want to be on it.”

  ∆∆∆

  A bus drove the dozen or so passengers across the runway to a small single-engine turboprop with a purple and white livery. The sun was now high in the sky, brightening the morning. Marty followed Jacky and Rad up a small set of aluminum stairs into the hatch of the aircraft. A smiling flight attendant checked their boarding passes and waved them down the cramped fuselage.

  “I’m right here,” Rad said, stopping in the aisle. “2B.”

  “I’m 2A,” Marty said, slightly stooped to avoid brushing his head on the ceiling.

  “I’m 8D,” said Jacky.

  “Why wouldn’t they put us all together? We checked in together, and the flight’s not full.”

  “It’s Sri Lanka, Marty. Your British standards are set too high.”

  A mustachioed man behind Marty cleared his throat impatiently.

  “I guess we’ll see you when we land,” Marty said, shuffling sideways to his window seat.

  Rad settled into the seat next to him, resting her beach bag on her lap. The toy dog—Marty couldn’t bring himself to think of it as his namesake—was looking at him with its beady black eyes, its tongue lolling out of the side of its mouth.

  “Has it flown before?” he asked.

  She nodded. “He flies with me all the time.”

  “He doesn’t bark?”

  “Marty never barks.”

  “Do you have to call him that?”

  “It’s his name.”

  “I know, but… Can’t you call him M or something, at least for today?”

  “How about I call you Em? How would you like that? It’s a girl’s name, for heaven’s sake.”

  “And that dog oozes masculinity,” he mumbled, lifting his butt to retrieve the ends of his seatbelt. He fastened the buckles, leaned back in the seat, and closed his eyes.

  “What are you doing?” Rad asked him.

  “Wake me when we land,” he said.

  “I thought you’d be too excited to sleep. This skull is like the holy grail for you.”

  “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  “I didn’t either, but I’m not taking a nap.”

  “Why didn’t you get much sleep?”

  “I stayed up watching your documentary. It’s on YouTube these days. Did you know that?”

  Marty scowled. “Why the hell did you watch that?”

  “I’m still trying to get my head around you being The Merdoc. I wanted to see what all the hype was about.”

  “Please stop calling me The Merdoc. It’s pejorative.”

  “I think it’s a good nickname. Reminds me of The Horse Whisperer, and The Merdoc is way better than The Mermaid Whisperer. By the way, it’s really good. The documentary. You’re really good. I don’t know why you’re so embarrassed by it.”

  He opened his eyes. “Because it was a lie, Rad, all of it!”

  “No, it wasn’t, Marty. The video of the…” She lowered her voice. “The mermaid might have been a fake. But what you talked about, all that stuff about historical sightings of merfolk and their physiologies and social structures, that was based on research and honest speculation. You should be proud.”

  He turned slightly in his seat to look behind him. A teenager wearing a large set of headphones sat directly behind him. An elderly woman reading the snack list was behind Rad. Neither were paying them any attention.

  He faced forward again and said, “I propagated a worldwide hoax.”

  She said, “So what? The documentary was entertaining, and it made you famous. Doesn’t sound too bad to me.” She was silent a moment before adding, “You never said they had wonky foreheads. You never once mentioned echolocation.”

  “Because their mermaid in the video didn’t have a melon. Their special effects guys either never thought about giving it one or, more likely, they wanted to keep it a stereotypical mermaid: beautiful, exotic, seductive. Anyway, I’m done talking about this, Rad.”

  “Done! I’ve known you for two years, Marty, and I hardly know anything about you! I think you owe it to me to talk about whatever I want to know.”

  “Not the documentary.”

  “Come on! So it was a hoax. So you got punked. So what. Can’t you let it go?”

  “Let it go?” he said angrily. “It ruined my life, Rad. How do you let something like that go?”

  “I mean, you’re here now, in Sri Lanka. You have a new life. You’re on the verge of the greatest discovery of your career. Live in the moment.”

  “I’m trying to.”

  “If you want my opinion, to do that you need to be at peace with yourself. And for that, you need to talk about what’s eating you up. You know what they say about repressing negative emotions—”

  “I’m not repressing anything. Jesus, I’m simply trying to leave the past behind and move on with my life. Why don’t you get that? If my family died in a house fire, you wouldn’t be prodding me to talk about them, would you?”

  “If their memories were eating you up inside, I would.”

  Shaking his head again, he closed his eyes again.

  The Pomeranian yapped twice. Radhika murmured to it, using Marty’s name over and over, which made her impossible to tune out.

  ∆∆∆

  “Marty?”

  He didn’t know if Rad was talking to him or the dog. He cracked open one eye and looked sideways at her.

  “Were you sleeping?”

  He’d been dozing in the netherworld between sleep and non-sleep. “Was,” he said emphatically. “What is it?”

  “I’ve been thinking about something you mentioned in the documentary.”

  He closed his eye.

  She elbowed him sharply.

  “Ow!” he said, glaring at her. “Give it a rest, Rad.”

  “You know when you were talking about whales?” she went on, unperturbed. “You mentioned how they used to live on land, evolving from small animals into the biggest fish in the ocean.”

  “Mammals,” he corrected her. “The biggest mammals in the ocean.”

  The general theory regarding the evolution of whales was that around fifty million years ago there were several different groups of amphibious hoofed mammals that favored hunting along the rivers and estuaries and salt marshes of prehistoric Asia, as the bodies of water allowed a convenient escape from predators. Some of
the mammals were deer-like and racoon-sized, while others were more crocodile-like with large jaws, or otter-like with powerful tails. Over time, their descendants spent more and more time in their aquatic environments, and their bodies adapted for swimming. Their forelimbs became flippers and their tails’ flukes, their hind legs disappeared, and blubber replaced their fur coats to keep them warm and streamlined. The now fully aquatic mammals began to expand their ranges and diversify, eventually giving rise to the two groups of whales alive today: baleen filter feeders that lost their teeth (such as blue and humpback whales), and those that kept their teeth (such as dolphins, porpoises, orcas, and sperm whales).

  “Mammals, fish, whatever,” said Rad. “My point is, those tiny land animals became the biggest things in the ocean.”

  “It’s the best-documented example of macroevolution in the fossil record.” Marty stifled a yawn. “The buoyancy of water prevents growth restrictions, and the bigger you are, the easier it is to stay warm.”

  “And whales need to stay warm because they’re warm-blooded?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Merfolk are mammals too…”

  He sighed. “What are you getting at, Rad?”

  “Well, merfolk are warm-blooded and need to keep warm too. You mentioned in the documentary they’ve been spotted all over the world, not just in tropical waters. So…maybe merfolk are gigantic, like whales? Or at least a lot bigger than us?”

  “You saw the skull. It was the same size as yours or mine.”

  “It could have belonged to an infant.”

  Marty rubbed his forehead, sensing a headache looming. “I doubt that very much.”

  “Why?”

  “I just do.”

  “Come on, Marty! Humor me. I think I’m onto something. This is a totally feasible—”