It is at precisely 1:14 am1 that I’m suddenly awake, staring at the ceiling. I know every crevice in the spackle like every nerve in my leg, scars painting the accident that took me down as a child. Not sure how long these severed and sewn limbs will serve me. Sleep ebbs and floods with the spasms. By 5 am, I’m done. I don’t care what day it is, tired of feeling shitty. I take another look at the hydrocodone bottle in the medicine cabinet.1a I slam it shut, grab my towel, goggles around my neck and drive to the beach to find relief in the cold winter water. Driving east, the moon races to the horizon behind me.

 

Sunrise is a half hour away. In the twilight, life stirs. Mullets create a disturbance on the surface, occasionally jumping into the air, and birds take the deep dive. Dolphin families make their way up the coast, celebrating in leaps and showing tail. There is man curled up in the sand, duffle bag tucked under his crown of dreads, restless in his sleep. He seems familiar but the hunch is fleeting. The moon is setting, full and mirroring the invisible sun.

 

It’s high tide so the walk to the water is short under my throbbing legs; the sandpipers scatter and fly. The chilling water hurts my ankles. I acclimate, then go in further, slowly up to my knees, breathing through the shivers. Stepping waist high—that’s like, wow, brrrr. The sun is cresting right below the horizon and just as the opposing moon sets2, I see a tail. It’s very close and very big.

 

Another deep breath. Don’t panic; remain still, hope it passes by. Strong undercurrents around my legs. Shit, it knows I’m here. Then with a powerful push of its tail and a swift undertow, it’s gone. I’m tumbling in the water in its wake. I’m out of here. Painfully getting to my feet, toes curled, gripping the sand, walking backwards, I see the tail again.  All at once the rest of this creature reveals herself in one giant leap. I freeze as she swims toward the shore. Cold water has done some strange things to me. Dizziness, vertigo, hypothermia… but it’s never been a hallucinogen. Yet there she is, coming straight toward me, her tail conjuring itself into a seal-skin shawl around her broad shoulders.

 

I’m straight-up scared and completely enamored. Her legs, appearing out of the water like magic, are showing faint scales. There’s a tattoo on her right foot: “Kristina”. She speaks first.

 

“Hi.” Like we just met in line at the coffee shop.

 

So, “Hi-hi,” I stammer. Her wet hair shifts shades of red and brown. She looks me straight in the eye. Her words soft but urgent. “There’s a child coming.”

 

I’m looking up and down the shore scanning for kids. She touches my nose with her finger and turns my face back toward hers. She’s closer now. I can feel her breath.

 

“Michael, there’s a child coming. Meet me at the river, after dark, downtown under the blue bridge.”

 

In the absence of a tattoo bearing my name and feeling completely out my league, I blurt, “Need a ride?”

 

She takes a step back, the corner of her mouth curling up in a smile. “I’m a mermaid there, Aquaman.”

 

She tosses me a pouch, turns toward the water, her seal-skin shawl drifts back down over her legs as they melt away into a tail. She pushes off into the breakers, leaps into the air and slips back into the sea just as the sun breaks the horizon.3 I barely remember the drive home. My phantasmagoric morning might be a dream, though I do have this pouch in my salty hands. It contains what looks like a bunch of frigging seaweed. My leg is screaming so I lay horizontal in bed, hoping the swelling recedes, postponing further consideration. Something about the pouch invokes sleep as the rivers and streams on the ceiling fall away.

 

Hours later, I am roused by a roaring in my head. 4 The river is blocks away. I never heard it like this, like I’m in it, when I’m not in it. Instinctively I know it’s the peak of the ebb tide and sunset is coming. Pouch in my pocket, goggles still around my neck, I make way to the river and begin the walk north along the bank, to the blue bridge.

 

Ten minutes in, the pain is deep. It’s difficult hiding my limp from passersby. Don’t want questions. There’s a steep catwalk up and over the railroad tracks. The climb is excruciating.  Not sure if I can make this one. Hands staying warm in my pockets, I hold the pouch tighter and feel an epiphany. The sound of water becomes comforting, reassuring, revealing that she, the water, travels with me always”.1b Pretty cool for seaweed.

 

The blue bridge is just ahead. The sun is setting opposite the moon5, temperature dropping. Just want to get off my feet.  Pain pounds my legs as I seat myself under the blue bridge. Waiting. I can still hear the rush of the ebb tide. The rising full moon6 pulls the river back out to sea while I’m holding back a flood of tears, thinking about that bottle of pain meds. I hear a voice beside or inside me... I can’t tell.

 

His long jatas twisted in a bundle on his head, one eye open, one eye squinting in the moonlight, he says, “You… You’re part of the water system.” 1c  I have a clouded memory of hearing those words on the beach one sunrise last year. Tell me twice.

 

He drops his torn duffle bag and extends his hand. “Willis,” he says.

 

His hand is warm. “Okay there, Willis, I’m…”

 

Willis interjects, “Michael,” but I’m in too much pain to feel surprise. It’s cold and these legs have taken me down.  

 

Willis reaches in his bag revealing a familiar seal-skin shawl.

 

“Stay warm, Michael,” he says, draping it around my shoulders.

 

I recall him from this morning. The man in the sand. He acknowledges with a nod as if he could hear the thought. Twilight ends7 as I feel the shawl’s grip, and we are under the power of the moon.

 

“Journey ahead, Michael. There’s a child coming,” he says. “You won’t need these,” removing the goggles from my neck.

 

He places them on the ground, the moonlight beaming through the lenses at his feet.  Looking up, I see his dreads unbundle with a life of their own, like Kristina’s shawl. Beautiful locks, touching the ground.

Willis is pointing to the pouch Kristina gave me and I hand it over in disbelief. I’m game for anything. Had no idea when this day started that I’d be hanging with a homeless angel with magic dreads in the cold, waiting on a mermaid named Kristina. Still, I hear the currents in the ebbing river. In the roar, I pick up Kristina, tunneling against the tide, making her way to the blue bridge. I feel her angst when she leaps high into the air and our eyes meet midflight.

 

Splashing down, she high-tails it directly to us on the bank. 

 

Swimming in place, she intones, “To the sea with you Michael, while the tide is ebbing.8 There is a child coming.”

 

I look at Willis.

 

“The water is your blue bridge, Michael.”

 

Willis touches the pouch to my forehead then empties the contents over my shawl. It unfolds its way down my body, the pain in my legs finally disappearing as they merge into a magnificent tail. Willis nudges me into the river with his foot and I slip into the water beside Kristina.

 

I can see and hear everything as she leads the way just under the surface. Willis is distant on the banks. He speaks but I know his mouth isn’t moving.

 

Through my continued astonishment, I hear, “She is sad and broken, Michael, but you won’t see her tears under the water. Learn your new legs. I’ll be in touch soon.”

Swimming close behind her toward the ocean, untethered, I test my new tail and kick up a swirling undercurrent. 

 

“Hurry,” she says, “while the moon is still far from the sun.” 

 

(to be continued)

 

For Michael G., Kristin K., Willis, Christina B., Barbara C., Tim F., John J., Beth S., Steve and Parker W. and you.

 

Comments: jim@jumpingfish.net

 

Origin stories begin here: All the Angels Come

Learn more about Willis (William) and Kristina

Title illustration by Christina Boykin

 

Photography and other illustrations: Jim Alabiso