For Keeps

The mermaid watched the human’s ship go down. People screamed for help. Some people swore. The quiet ones cried.

The mermaid was one with the water. She was one with the waves. If anyone looked her way, they would see just the tangled green of her dreadlocks and assume it was nothing but seaweed. They wouldn’t see her cold, fish-like eyes. They wouldn’t see the iridescent scaling on her cheeks.

She stayed away from the sinking boat. If she came too close, it would only cause problems.

The mermaid wasn’t stupid. She had seen the problems such behavior caused.

Yet, she didn’t swim away.

Not even when the screaming and the swearing and the crying slowly died away. She stayed hidden in her waves and waited for the inevitable silence that would fall.

And it fell.

It always fell.

The humans lay unmoving, unswimming in the water.

The mermaid ducked…