She had told this story to him that night they took a walk by the side of the river. This person she would never touch, never kiss and never be able to see again in her life. It would take her 4 years to realize that this man she would give up her life for, never wanted it. That he did not love her back. But then they walked, as friends, talking about their families, his dreams, her hopes. They had just met recently. He wore a black t shirt with a grey six pocket. She was in a black dress, black moccasins on her velvet legs, a hint of kohl, and her hair drawn into a ponytail halfway up her head. She had told him the story of the Little Mermaid then. He had still not told her he loved her. That would come much later on a teary eyed August night. And out of the corners of her eyes she saw fireflies dancing after the tropical showers. She had always loved fireflies, they were angels who crept into her room at night, and told her everything would be fine, before a hot examination day.
Later, much later, she ended up on a parched land, her profession taking her into a place where people bowed before her, were scared of her. That girl had changed. She had cut her hair, she swore at men, she drove hordes of rugged people out of the premises with a single shout. One look from her would send men looking down if they had done something wrong. She saw to it that those who depended on her got what they wanted. She looked different. Very different. But deep in her heart, she was still the same girl, still madly in love with that boy she had walked along that night, throwing caution to the winds that her parents informers would be watching, that it would be known that the daughter of so and so in town was seen walking with a stranger.
The mermaid fell in love with a human prince she had saved from drowning when there was a storm and the ship carrying him capsized. She braved the hurricane all night and only when the storm abated did she put him on the shore. On the first sign of humans approaching him and inquiring after him, which she watched behind some rocks did she turn back to her home. She could not keep his mind off him. And since it was impossible to get to know him, she went to a witch to get legs for her fins. The witch said it would be dangerous...that once she turned a human being with legs each time she took a step it would be like walking on a razor blade. She did not care. She wanted to see that prince from the Earth world. The witch took three drops of blood from her breast, a toad, some twigs, and made a potion. For her fees she took the mermaid's sweet voice and asked her to swim up the ocean and take the potion with the first rays of the sun. With the promise she would become a human.
And this kohl eyed girl could not fall out of love because she chose not to. It was not an excuse. It was her life. And one which had been grotesquely misshaped out of a very odd sense of humor life played with her. But it didn't mean the end. She was and would be only person he took his first steps with. She was the one who he told he did not go to parties with friends because he did not have money even for a dutch treat...That he had once one and a half cigarette left. And no one could change that silence, that magic. No one else could stand in that night watching fireflies dance they way they did that night. Not much later when he wanted to change history with geography, she allowed him to do it. Because he believed in never turning back. She should have known the last time he walked away in a faded maroon shirt and a jeans he had been wearing for 8 years. Now he wears designer labels matched with his new love. And she still watches out for him somewhere.
Her mistake into thinking she would ever be able to change someone's insecurities were given a rude slap in the hands of a queer word called 'Situations'. But she stood for a long time, watching out for him, praying for him, even after getting every indication that 'Distance' is the easiest excuse. Maybe she thought, if he is so uncertain about giving her any happiness, and is suffering, that he would rather have reasons to condone her, and things would be better for him. Weird thoughts, things that come to mind when someone is totally desperate. Its unimaginable. Sometimes your faith cannot go that long a way. Never trust love to be that strong. If the other end is weak, the thin thread will fall. That was the thing with her case. She was too busy idealizing the setup without knowing what was about to happen soon enough.
Now she banks on her memories to fade just like Little Mermaid did...She could not kill the prince to become a mermaid again....And as the first rays of the sun fell on the feet she had magically got on her limbs, she decided killing him to become a mermaid again was no option. She could not cry because that power was lost. She had given her voice and in exchange for the limbs she got by which she walked to see her prince. Her family implored with the witch to bring back their daughter and the witch relented with the condition that she could become a mermaid again if she killed the prince she loved...She had to stab him in the heart with the first rays of the sun. And the blood that would flow down to her feet would turn them into a fin. And she would become a mermaid again.
She remembered the time when he hung up after he asked her ' How much money do your parents have...' She knew things would change. Here he was, weighing the cost of their love with her parents money. Stupid she was, she was truthful to him to the core...they were on either side of a peninsula...Her answer numbed him...And that was how it all began. 'Shit I have nothing'.. And the endless days when he would not utter a word. They could not meet. She had taken the promise he should not come to meet her until he found the path he was following. They were living their moments of happiness on a fast ending quota of savings on his side and her pocket money she had saved to buy a guitar because she sang rather well. She did not want her parents role in it. She wanted to show that two of a kind from four of their kind would find happiness together. How wrong she was.
The mermaid was the maid of honor at the wedding of the prince. He married a woman he thought had saved his life, because she found him unconscious on the sea beach after a dangerous storm in which his boat capsized. He did not know it was the Little Mermaid who had braved the storm all night keeping him afloat against the dangerous waves. She saw them asleep in their nuptial chamber. When she had found out he was going to marry a lady who was merely passing by after she had carefully laid him on the beach in the morning she tried to cry but couldn't. It was one human trait she could not have. She lied next to him through out the night watching his gentle breath rise and fall. The morning was approaching.
What followed was odd. His periodic outbursts when he would constantly remind her of their backgrounds. And no matter what she said couldn't do anything..They were so far away they didn't even have an idea about the scent of one another. She tried to tell him her future was with his. But he was unsure he loved her anymore, worse, if he loved her at all. At that time she was spinning stories how she would walk with him to take him to meet his father, someone he had always shared a difficult relationship with. But he was beginning to find her intrusive, her attempts to connect him to his mother were doubted by him to be trying to put him on the peg. Her attempts to infuse some of the love fast dying out of their relationship were met with resistance. He decided to snuff it out.
The sun was rising, and the first line of a ray stilettoed slowly into the room through a pane. If she was to kill the prince, she was to kill him with the first rays of the sun. She raised the knife. There was no going back. She would die if she did not kill him. And no one would know she died a human death because she would dissolve into foam just like all mermaids did. If she killed him she would live..and turn into a mermaid and return to her loving parents.
For him the issue was that she tried to make him guilty. She did not know how it could happen. What she wanted to know is that how was it that he could find solace in other peoples company to come and find small faults with her. She wanted him to be happy, but couldn't find a way to make him. He did not want to meet her, but he opened up to his deepest secrets with her, or at least so she thought. There was so much chaos, so many things occuring all at once. He was going through a period of clash.She wanted to be there for him through then. He eventually came out of it, like a car out of a Car Wash. And the small label of hers that was stuck in some insignificant place on his life was wiped off without a trace. He went on and she kept loving him. Through days when he would burst on her if she accidentally asked his whereabouts. She was distressed why he chose to throw her away just like that after having once said he wanted to spend all his living moments with her. She was frustrated, she screamed, ranted, swore, lost her temper, went ugly. Her madness drove him further away. It became another reason why he could not be with her. Now he had an alibi. That every way she reacted was so unnatural. She desperately wanted to tell him how much she loved him. But one part of her know he would perhaps not be happy with her. She could not accompany him to his greatest joys. She was required in more dangerous jobs. He sought solace elsewhere. In a land of plenty, he took an unquestioning beauty. And they started a happy life. And began their 'Ever after' chapter. As for her....
The mermaid took one last look at him before the sun's rays fell on his heart, then, instead of bringing it down on his heart, she threw it away. And kissed the prince one last time. The sun's rays bore through her human legs, and they started to dissolve. She kept on watching him in his sleep. And just before she was to turn entirely into foam, she mouthed " I love you, my prince". And a single drop of human tear testimony to her presence dropped out of her eye and fell on the sleeping prince's chest....And she vanished into nothingness.
The fact that she would always continue to love him. And she knew. There would not be another person who could love him more than she loved him. She stood long after the curtains had fallen. And he was sleeping in his new love's arms. And she took a bow and disappeared into nothingness.....
How much money does it take to buy happiness ? And how much love is enough to get one's love back ? How is it possible to decide that someone you have never wanted to see, never wanted to be a part of your life, never wanted to settle a quarrel with, never wanted to own, is not compatible with you ? Why is happiness only in his quota, and not hers? Is the only interpretation of love is that to be near some body? Can distance really make that big a difference? What exactly does life want from people?
The compass and the note she had given him 4 years back had stated. 'Find your direction in life. Go wherever you can. But if you go that long enough, maybe you will realize you have ended up right next to where you started.'
One can never find an answer to these questions. I would wait for their respective lives to unfold....May be she will find her destiny somewhere else. And may be this is what was always meant to be.
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