Let Me Tell You a Story - DEEP WATER

It was a dark and stormy night. I know. I know. That is quite a cliche to start a story with, but on this night it was true. Dark and stormy and the sea was telling tales. Drama played out as that deep water told of shipwrecks and the mermaids who had taken the sailors tossed into that deep, dark sea.

This particular night a maiden heard her name carried on the wind that whipped the waves in a frenzy of white caps and brine. She had never ventured past her pondside home until that Friday. The 13th. Compelled by an age old pull she left the safety of her home that night and I wish, dear listener, she never had.

The wind tossed her cape and she tugged it tighter to her as she made her way to the water's edge, the hem of her long skirt was drenched within seconds. The heaviness of the skirt brought her to her knees and the water rose up to meet her arms, her neck, her face.

As her life's breath left her she was cradled in the arms of a fin-tailed crone who carried her further into the deep water. The crone was the maestro of the mermaid chorus who had lured the maiden to the deep water with her eternal melody sung on the waves.

There would be no reprieve for that maiden. She was now a part of that mermaid's chorus. She would sing in a harmonious concert that would seal the fate of unsuspecting sailors who had the great misfortune to sail through the deep water of her new home far from the safety of that pondside home she had left on that dark and stormy night.