Tears of a Mermaid

Yaya sits at her coffee table focusing where red blurs of watercolor and blue splatters of the sky meet on a glass bowl and I can tell she’s not quite here, the silence broken by an occasional wave, she begins to speak.

Did you know that sea glass are mermaids' tears that shed when they fall in love with a mortal man that’s someone else's? It's romantic," she says, "Sacrifice means love, and to love means to give oneself up in every manner. That's how you capture a mermaid.”

“To give yourself to a mermaid, the tide must be lower than that peach pit in your stomach. Only then should you walk across the sandbars and find where the tide will swallow you. Let yourself float down as waves crash across your velvet flesh pushing into your bones. Breathe, breathe, letting the salt water stain you. When your vision blanks ears popping from the pressure, you'll see the first tail, then the eyes snake towards you. Rows of scales brush the soles of your feet, and in the dark waves they're watching to see how easily you give up.”

“They'll circle you. Watching. Waiting for Moirai to cut your thread.”

“Only then, when the snip sounds and you thud against the bottom, where Apollo can’t see, the pressure folds you up. Spine ripped out of your back by the nails of the one you loved. Then go your eyes, followed by muscles, lastly sinews become fish feed. Bones, however, are pressed smooth and flat by the pressure –”

I find myself interrupting. "But why is sea glass so smooth, Yaya, and where did Pappou go all those years ago?"

"He's right here, darling," Grandma responds. She reaches above me with a yellow tinged nail and taps on the cloudy red and blue glass bowl that sounds much more hollow than it does glass.