She only heard the voices under the shower.
The water flooded her ears and she could hear songs from distant lands, distant mermaids, charming her into idleness. Cecilia would just stand there, arm resting against the bathroom wall, and listen to the voices singing songs that had travelled far and wide.
The silver sliver of voices carried filth from the sewers washed with salt from the seas. The mermaid-spirits sung to her of algae in their hair and seashells on their spines. And all the time the water poured and poured, across Cecilia's high cheekbones, blood-red hair, porcelain ears, silk neck, pouted lips and closed gray eyes. In water she found her refuge from the dizziness which stepping oustide her front door implied. Under the water's soothing touch, Cecilia could dream herself a mermaid, and her beloved Dorian, a merman.
Together they were, unlike in real life. They swam together, breathed together, rejoiced together. Underwater, there was life for Cecilia.
Outside was cold, and the news of Dorian's death came over her in every second, each time hitting harder than the last. She was standing alone amidst a crowd of moving people; she had grown tired.
"Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the band
Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you'll marry a music man
Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand
And now she's in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my hand."
Oh, these twists and turns of fate: how the mermaids happened to be singing a song about a dancer and a musician. Cecilia tilted her head back, and her tears got lost in the streams of boiling-hot water. She was still alive, she was still yearning.
Today, the mermaids had scraped at her chipped heart again. It was torture she was familiar with, torture she welcomed with open arms.
The mermaids were taunting her with a forbidden fruit.
No comments:
Post a Comment