Mermaids

"Rusalka":  – Our narrator is an unnamed young man who, escaping an abusive father after his mother dies, goes to her native Poland to seek out the maternal side of his family. In a small village on Midsummer's Eve, he sees a beautiful flaxen-haired girl and instantly falls in love.

The Mermaid of the Concrete Ocean: This wistful vignette beautifully conveys the intrigue and longing inherent in allowing oneself to immerse in fantasy. The narrator, a freelance art journalist, has sought out to interview the model who posed for a series of mermaid paintings from an artist now long dead. The wheelchair-bound, now a 94-year-old woman has retreated into her 12th story Manhattanefficiency for a long time. It serves as a capsule for a bygone era. Above the chaise is the previously unknown final painting from the mermaid series: a half-submerged [assumed] mermaid looks longingly back toward the land and a lighthouse.

The elderly woman refuses to speculate on the artist’s choice of her, a life-long paraplegic as the model. But she does relate a 70-year-old secret in the form of a tale told to her by the artist. Allegedly, a couple of years before their collaboration, in the summer of 1937, the artist found the upper torso of a woman washed up on the Atlantic City boardwalk by the high tide . . .

And it occurs to me then that possibly none of what I’m hearing is the truth, that she’s spinning a fanciful yarn so I won’t be disappointed, lying for my benefit, or because her days are so filled with monotony and she is determined this unusual guest will be entertained. I push the thoughts away.

The careful parallelisms between the characters and skirting of fantasy make this a beautiful piece, wrapped in mystery.

I welcome you back to yet another tale in the company of Mermaids, with me your hostess Ana Karennina:

A wish to be normal and a life that becomes everything but. A Mermaid’s Wish.

Welcome back to another episode of Mermaids, on this beautiful Tuesday with me your hostess Ana Karennina.

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“The Drowned Mermaid”, which originally appeared in the magazine, Realms of Fantasy. This story is one of the few that take place in southern California, where he lived for a short stint in the late 90s. Christopher Barzak wrote it after walking along a strip of beach one night, down below a short cliff where these amazingly beautiful houses were perched above with these decks that came out from the cliffside almost like small piers themselves. Down below the decks, though, he noticed groups of people huddle in sleeping bags along the breaker rocks, and asked the friend he was walking with who would be sleeping under a deck in sleeping bags like that. “They’re homeless,” was my friend's answer, and he realized he had had trouble placing what should have been easily perceived because he found himself in a different landscape from the one he was used to back in Ohio. He started to think about the people in the amazingly beautiful houses above the decks, and the people sleeping below those decks, in their torn-up sleeping bags, and thought he saw a large tail flip out in the moon-spangled ocean, which altogether was the elements that led to the creation of this story.

A sexy, sleek-tailed monster.

A woman looking for a reason to live.

But as dangers encroach from every side, Zantu must choose; keep his new mate at his side or keep her safe.

Either way, he's sure he'll end up with a broken heart.

Content Warning: Explicit love scenes, dangerous mermaids, and sexy merman secrets. Guaranteed HEA with no cliffhangers. Intended for mature audiences.

A sexy, sleek-tailed monster.

A woman looking for a reason to live.

But as dangers encroach from every side, Zantu must choose; keep his new mate at his side or keep her safe.

Either way, he's sure he'll end up with a broken heart.

Content Warning: Explicit love scenes, dangerous mermaids, and sexy merman secrets. Guaranteed HEA with no cliffhangers. Intended for mature audiences.

A sexy, sleek-tailed monster.

A woman looking for a reason to live.

But as dangers encroach from every side, Zantu must choose; keep his new mate at his side or keep her safe.

Either way, he's sure he'll end up with a broken heart.

Content Warning: Explicit love scenes, dangerous mermaids, and sexy merman secrets. Guaranteed HEA with no cliffhangers. Intended for mature audiences.

Good day, and welcome back to Mermaids, with me, your hostess Ana Karennina.

Today I want to just have a chat and allow you to enjoy a journey where I share some secrets of the deep. After I will carve up two delicious stories as a Bonus For this episode.

I welcome you back to Mermaids, I am your hostess Ana Karennina.  Kindly allow me to pass my apologies for being absent from Mermaids. Because of my condition, I couldn’t place any broadcast. I understand I have lots of pending pieces, and will work hard to make up for being absent by posting twice a week. But, With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts. I guess “The fact that we are living does not mean we don’t get sick.” For the following story, Rake Up, we can learn that in our daily life, we encounter people who are angry, deceitful, intent only on satisfying their own needs. There is so much anger, distrust, greed, and pettiness that we are losing our capacity to work well together. Greed is a bottomless pit that exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction. Enjoy.

A shipwreck leads to the thing mermaids most fear… Mari has joined the ranks of the soulless mer, cursed to disappear when they die and not live on in the spirit world. There's only one way to stop it but that involves something no one has ever managed before. With the aid of her shape-shifting pet seal, a rescued sailor, and the spirit of a man she can't even see, Mari ventures onto land for the first time in her life, determined to save the souls of her people. But the land of men comes with many dangers, and not all her allies can be trusted. Can she restore what's been stolen and right the balance between land and sea once more? Or will she doom herself for eternity…:

A standalone story inspired by The Little Mermaid.