Psychopomp Magazine Summer 2015 | Page 32

32 | Psychopomp Magazine

The only thing about you that remotely recalls your heritage is your ability to weep. A sobbing mermaid echoes the cries of a ship full of sailors about to capsize and drown. Your moans were a whale song. A tortured, seaside funeral hymn.

Your palms were splayed open in your lap collecting tears, when suddenly, your bravest sister, the one so disgusted by humans, sprang up from the black depths of the water. Her fin glinted silver and her bald head shone wetly in the moonlight. She stroked your face, stared into your eyes. And for a moment, she pressed a kiss to your cheek. And then to your lips, which had remained untouched for so long. So shocked were you by the gesture, so overwhelmed by its familiarity and tenderness, you barely noticed the saving gift she had placed in your hands.

You clench the knife handle harder. Your body quakes with fear and anticipation.

Oh Erol, sleeping Erol, who speaks and thinks only of himself, because you can never answer. Erol, who married you, clothed you, fed you, used you, and yet failed to ever truly love you. To share with you that eternal soul that would steal your pain and help you ascend to Heaven above.

This is what you want to tell him, what you need to tell him. But the knife will have to speak for you. It will have to say every word that, in your tonguelessness, you have been denied.

You throw all your weight forward, to drive the knife directly into the pulpy flesh of his Adam’s apple.

Erol’s blue eyes burst open, bulging and terrified.

He reaches for his neck.

You meet some resistance, but you prepared for that.

You draw the blade out and simply, yet sharply, jam it back in.

Erol chokes.

Blood sprays upward in a thin arch.

His arms shoot out. He grabs at your hair, tries to pull you back and away, but you plant your knees down on his chest, pinning him to the bed.