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Well, the apple pie was a success at my grandparent's house, so much that my grandma asked me to bake her an extra one tomorrow since she's having some friends over for lunch on Friday. o_O Oh well.
Well, here it is. It's still one of those stories that just work better in Spanish, because of the style it was written in, but oh well. I'll be translating Hedonismo next.
Title: Swell
Word Count: 1300
Summary: Olivia meets a real mermaid when she’s thirteen, with the too blue sky that speaks of drought and the sweat staining the pink dress she likes so much.
Author Notes: A hasty translation of Oleaje, one of my favorite stories I've written. Un-betaed, so sorry.
Swell
Olivia meets a real mermaid when she’s thirteen, with the too blue sky that speaks of drought and the sweat staining the pink dress she likes so much. She’s been at the beach for three weeks already and the novelty ran out just like her lemon-flavored ice creams melt under the sun, leaving her fingers sticky and her tongue pasty. She’s dying from the heat, and from the boredom, and she misses her cat.
Her mother is tired of having her in the little house by the cliffs, and she sends her every day to ‘go look around’ with a five pesos coin in her pocket and her hair messy, not having been brushed. Grandmother isn’t any better, the smell of sickness filling ever corner of the house. Olivia’s skin hasn’t stopped smelling like salt for weeks, and the soles of her feet have thickened with the daily contact with grainy and heavy sand.
She spends her mornings at the beach, trying to make the coconut water last, which she buys from a lady with skin as brown as the logs that form the shack she works in. She writes her name on the wet sand with pieces of driftwood and builds sand castles only to tear them down herself once they’re complete. She goes to the pier on the afternoons, when the wood is warm but not too hot, just before sunset, poking insects with her fingernail and pushing her face against the little hole on the third plank from the ocean to the dry land and she sees the waves crashing against the rocks.
It’s in one of those evenings when Olivia first sees her.
Her eyelashes brush the wood every time she blinks in rhythm with the swell that’s agitated with the high tide, the thirteen bracelets she wears on every wrist to tempt the bad luck leaving imprints on her skin from having them pressed so close to the planks. The foam vanishes for a second, and a face smiles at her as if she knew herself better than Olivia already. Olivia practically jumps, too paralyzed to scream, and that night her mother asks her is she’s okay and why is she so quiet, is she feeling all right?
Her mother forces her to get out from under the kitchen’s table the next day, and Olivia sits on the sand, watching the sea with aversion and her arms crossed over her knees. Her breathing goes shallow every time she thinks she can see some sort of silver reflection in the immensity of greens and blues that go up and down and turn into the foam that damps her feet.
She doesn’t go to the pier for five days, until she has almost managed to convince herself that it was all a trick of her imagination, a hallucination caused by the heat and the apathy and that hypnotic sway of the sea that she feels even when she’s sleeping, up and down and start the cycle again against her pillow. She presses her left eye against the little hole in the wood again. Nothing, nothing, nothing and then another evil smile that makes her jump in fright. She runs towards dry land, but she stops before she crosses that small, two centimeter long separation between wood and cement. She hesitates, and turns around ninety degrees, jumps to the dry rocks at her side. She walks on the rocks under the pier, the shade giving a greenish tint to her skin that might as well be because of the nerves. The water starts filling the gaps between the rocks, and soon she’s slipping in her flip-flops as the water reaches her ankles.
The echo of her heart beats in time with the waves that insist in dragging her away to the opposite side to the one she doesn’t want to go, but by now she can’t even notice the contradiction. She doesn’t even notice when her blue skirt gets wet, and she keeps advancing, pillar after pillar and now she’s swimming more than walking. At this depth the water is still clear and transparent, and she can see the crabs getting near her feet. She goes on.
There are three planks left for the pier to end and the ocean to begin when her arm is pulled backwards. She turns around fast, and the mermaid is looking at her again, tongue between her teeth in a smile that looks more horrifying than cheerful – prey, it says, you’re prey and I can devour you whenever I please.
She’s covered in beads, necklaces and bracelets and tiaras from lost treasures tangled in the green hair colored by the water. She moves slightly towards Olivia, and she resonates when the fake stones and seashells and the few real diamonds clang against each other. A single note goes out of her throat, a small chant that barely starts when it’s over and it says,
in song,
‘boo.’
(And the world goes blue when she pulls Olivia under the water).
The mermaid’s tail wraps around her legs, full of scales of the exact color or the sea getting lost over the horizon, somewhat viscous and with seaweed hanging from the edges, as if this being was truly becoming one with the ocean.
Olivia kicks around, her tulle skirt becoming heavy around her. The mermaid goes closer to Olivia, puts her hands against her mouth as if she wanted to blow her a kiss, and what she does is throw her a bubble with a song inside, air with a side of melody that enters Olivia’s open mouth towards her lungs, until it reaches her eardrums and the tip of her toes.
Three, four notes more, and Olivia is still breathing underwater with borrowed air inside of her. She’s not even struggling at all, she just lets herself float amongst the rocks eroded by time, her hair and the mermaid’s mingling, floating over their heads.
Her grandmother once told her that mermaids can’t talk, they can only sing in wails and tricks to drown innocent children.
She was right.
But the mermaid is still singing to her in bubbles and smiling in that terrifying way that makes Olivia’s blood turn icy.
They float together in the blue-green immensity, and when the song is finally over, the mermaid steals one of the twenty-six bracelets around Olivia’s wrists. Just one, and she tangles it in her hair so it’ll keep company to the thousand and one seashells that live there. Then, she gives Olivia a light shove with her tail before she swims away so fast she leaves a trail of small bubbles on her wake.
Olivia floats there for another moment, before the need for air starts burning deep, deep inside her being, and by then she’s already breaking the surface with her mouth and eyes wide open, her skirt forming a circle of fabric around her. It only takes a couple of strokes for her feet to touch the rocks again, and from there it’s all automatic reaction until she’s hugging her mother’s legs.
----
The next day she realizes the mermaid left one her beaded necklaces tied around her ankle.
She doesn’t take it off again.
----
She spends her days with the sea up to her knees, lifting her skirt with her hands so it won’t get wet. She spends her evenings under the pier, sitting in the big ash-colored rock that marks the limit between dry land and open sea.
She doesn’t see the mermaid again.
She’s not sure whether it provokes her relief or sadness.
----
In Olivia’s dreams, the song with notes of encapsulated air underwater mixes with the incessant sway of the sea.
Every night for the rest of her life.
Well, here it is. It's still one of those stories that just work better in Spanish, because of the style it was written in, but oh well. I'll be translating Hedonismo next.
Title: Swell
Word Count: 1300
Summary: Olivia meets a real mermaid when she’s thirteen, with the too blue sky that speaks of drought and the sweat staining the pink dress she likes so much.
Author Notes: A hasty translation of Oleaje, one of my favorite stories I've written. Un-betaed, so sorry.
Swell
Olivia meets a real mermaid when she’s thirteen, with the too blue sky that speaks of drought and the sweat staining the pink dress she likes so much. She’s been at the beach for three weeks already and the novelty ran out just like her lemon-flavored ice creams melt under the sun, leaving her fingers sticky and her tongue pasty. She’s dying from the heat, and from the boredom, and she misses her cat.
Her mother is tired of having her in the little house by the cliffs, and she sends her every day to ‘go look around’ with a five pesos coin in her pocket and her hair messy, not having been brushed. Grandmother isn’t any better, the smell of sickness filling ever corner of the house. Olivia’s skin hasn’t stopped smelling like salt for weeks, and the soles of her feet have thickened with the daily contact with grainy and heavy sand.
She spends her mornings at the beach, trying to make the coconut water last, which she buys from a lady with skin as brown as the logs that form the shack she works in. She writes her name on the wet sand with pieces of driftwood and builds sand castles only to tear them down herself once they’re complete. She goes to the pier on the afternoons, when the wood is warm but not too hot, just before sunset, poking insects with her fingernail and pushing her face against the little hole on the third plank from the ocean to the dry land and she sees the waves crashing against the rocks.
It’s in one of those evenings when Olivia first sees her.
Her eyelashes brush the wood every time she blinks in rhythm with the swell that’s agitated with the high tide, the thirteen bracelets she wears on every wrist to tempt the bad luck leaving imprints on her skin from having them pressed so close to the planks. The foam vanishes for a second, and a face smiles at her as if she knew herself better than Olivia already. Olivia practically jumps, too paralyzed to scream, and that night her mother asks her is she’s okay and why is she so quiet, is she feeling all right?
Her mother forces her to get out from under the kitchen’s table the next day, and Olivia sits on the sand, watching the sea with aversion and her arms crossed over her knees. Her breathing goes shallow every time she thinks she can see some sort of silver reflection in the immensity of greens and blues that go up and down and turn into the foam that damps her feet.
She doesn’t go to the pier for five days, until she has almost managed to convince herself that it was all a trick of her imagination, a hallucination caused by the heat and the apathy and that hypnotic sway of the sea that she feels even when she’s sleeping, up and down and start the cycle again against her pillow. She presses her left eye against the little hole in the wood again. Nothing, nothing, nothing and then another evil smile that makes her jump in fright. She runs towards dry land, but she stops before she crosses that small, two centimeter long separation between wood and cement. She hesitates, and turns around ninety degrees, jumps to the dry rocks at her side. She walks on the rocks under the pier, the shade giving a greenish tint to her skin that might as well be because of the nerves. The water starts filling the gaps between the rocks, and soon she’s slipping in her flip-flops as the water reaches her ankles.
The echo of her heart beats in time with the waves that insist in dragging her away to the opposite side to the one she doesn’t want to go, but by now she can’t even notice the contradiction. She doesn’t even notice when her blue skirt gets wet, and she keeps advancing, pillar after pillar and now she’s swimming more than walking. At this depth the water is still clear and transparent, and she can see the crabs getting near her feet. She goes on.
There are three planks left for the pier to end and the ocean to begin when her arm is pulled backwards. She turns around fast, and the mermaid is looking at her again, tongue between her teeth in a smile that looks more horrifying than cheerful – prey, it says, you’re prey and I can devour you whenever I please.
She’s covered in beads, necklaces and bracelets and tiaras from lost treasures tangled in the green hair colored by the water. She moves slightly towards Olivia, and she resonates when the fake stones and seashells and the few real diamonds clang against each other. A single note goes out of her throat, a small chant that barely starts when it’s over and it says,
in song,
‘boo.’
(And the world goes blue when she pulls Olivia under the water).
The mermaid’s tail wraps around her legs, full of scales of the exact color or the sea getting lost over the horizon, somewhat viscous and with seaweed hanging from the edges, as if this being was truly becoming one with the ocean.
Olivia kicks around, her tulle skirt becoming heavy around her. The mermaid goes closer to Olivia, puts her hands against her mouth as if she wanted to blow her a kiss, and what she does is throw her a bubble with a song inside, air with a side of melody that enters Olivia’s open mouth towards her lungs, until it reaches her eardrums and the tip of her toes.
Three, four notes more, and Olivia is still breathing underwater with borrowed air inside of her. She’s not even struggling at all, she just lets herself float amongst the rocks eroded by time, her hair and the mermaid’s mingling, floating over their heads.
Her grandmother once told her that mermaids can’t talk, they can only sing in wails and tricks to drown innocent children.
She was right.
But the mermaid is still singing to her in bubbles and smiling in that terrifying way that makes Olivia’s blood turn icy.
They float together in the blue-green immensity, and when the song is finally over, the mermaid steals one of the twenty-six bracelets around Olivia’s wrists. Just one, and she tangles it in her hair so it’ll keep company to the thousand and one seashells that live there. Then, she gives Olivia a light shove with her tail before she swims away so fast she leaves a trail of small bubbles on her wake.
Olivia floats there for another moment, before the need for air starts burning deep, deep inside her being, and by then she’s already breaking the surface with her mouth and eyes wide open, her skirt forming a circle of fabric around her. It only takes a couple of strokes for her feet to touch the rocks again, and from there it’s all automatic reaction until she’s hugging her mother’s legs.
The next day she realizes the mermaid left one her beaded necklaces tied around her ankle.
She doesn’t take it off again.
She spends her days with the sea up to her knees, lifting her skirt with her hands so it won’t get wet. She spends her evenings under the pier, sitting in the big ash-colored rock that marks the limit between dry land and open sea.
She doesn’t see the mermaid again.
She’s not sure whether it provokes her relief or sadness.
In Olivia’s dreams, the song with notes of encapsulated air underwater mixes with the incessant sway of the sea.
Every night for the rest of her life.
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