In her 15th year of teaching, the school system fell apart. Before there was any inkling of chaos, Maiwyn sat in a classroom. Exhaling air as if it were stone, she forced herself to turn away from the glittering ocean beckoning outside, and toward the dull-eyed mer-youths arrayed before her in varying degrees of fatigue. She shifted uncomfortably, shaking life into her sleeping legs.
It was her least favorite day in Land Studies. But absolutely required by the syllabus.
“Excellent work on your topographic soil maps! That was your last project of the semester.” Maiwyn tried to swallow and instead choked on her own traitorous spit. Coughing lightly, she continued, “For the rest of the day, I will answer any questions you have about living on land. Starting tomorrow, you are in control of your own schedules. Mx. Elenner and I are available, if you need us, but you may do whatever you need before… well.”
The students sat up straighter as she forced heavy air back through her lungs. “You’re all 15 now. And at age 15 you have to choose.”
Every year, Maiwyn repeated the same words. Every year, the mer-youths asked her the same questions: Will our legs be different, once they lose the ability to transition to flippers? Do you miss the water? Do your gills still work? Do you regret choosing land? She had the whole pattern down pat, mind wandering as her body mechanically answered: Yes; yes; I don’t know; dissemble.
Except this year.
She blinked back into her body. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I said: Why?”
Maiwyn stared at the blue-haired teen tensely grasping a pen in their fist. Lindmar took every assignment seriously and dug into the details. Training kicked in before the teacher could resist, and she found herself parroting talking points at her best student. “The ocean requires us to choose: land or water. After 15 you lose your ability to transition, and your body solidifies into its final form—”
“Yes, but why? Why do we lose the ability to transition?” Eyes no longer glazed, they leaned forward hungrily, pinning fervent hopes on Maiwyn. Still, they hesitated before putting their thought into words. “Do we, actually? Is it possible our bodies lose the ability because we choose? No one’s ever explained why this happens to us. What if it doesn’t have to?”
Silence held the whole classroom in a tight grip. Maiwyn rode possible answers like currents in her mind, following where each might lead. In the end, she chose the response she could not predict: “I don’t know.”
§
At 15, Maiwyn’s hair fell thick and sticky, anemone green and just as dense. She couldn’t imagine an existence without wind caressing her head, nor one without waves embracing her body. Hours she spent in the shallows and tide pools, frantically attempting to understand the creatures who lived in the in-between, activate their lessons before it was too late.
When the day came, she had no decision to announce.
But she knew that avoiding the ceremony was not the same as avoiding the choice.
And so she stood, one foot in the water and one in the sand, and tossed an abalone in the air. “If you’re the one who makes us choose,” she shouted bitterly at the crashing waves, “then I’ll abide by your choice. Because I refuse to make one.”
The shell skittered across the sand, and for just a moment Maiwyn wondered if it might stay perched upright. For a glittering second her mind brightened with the opening of an unfettered future.
Then the shell fell. Iridescent blue lay buried in the sand, leaving only the white casing visible. Land.
Maiwyn lost a piece of her soul that day. She would have, either way. At least this way it was the ocean’s choice which piece of her soul she lost. Not hers. Never hers.
§
At the end of her 15th year teaching, at the end of schooling as they knew it, Maiwyn sat on the beach and cried. Tears of regret, release, renewal. In the end, her most important lesson was the one the students taught.
One would have been punished. Forced into a decision of someone else’s making in the name of the ocean. Two would have made a scene. Three a scandal. But all of them together? That made something new.
All of the 15-year-old mer-youths banded together and refused to choose. They called for new curriculum, to replace the artificial separation of land and water. Pledging themselves to scientific study, they determined to find ways to maintain the ability to move between worlds, even if their own bodies betrayed their desires. They denied the ocean’s choice.
A small voice in Maiwyn’s mind whispered, “Maybe the abalone fell so that you could help these kids. Maybe the ocean’s choice had a purpose.”
Bitter laughter burst from her treacherous body. It was still the ocean’s choice, not hers. She fingered a shell in one hand, feeling the places where it had worn through. If only she had realized she could exist as the holes that laced between the iridescent chrysalis and its rocky fortress. If only someone had told her. Her other hand clenched the sand next to her until a hidden shard pierced her skin. Holding it aloft, Maiwyn tracked the blood and sand as it coagulated and slowly moved down her palm. Her self-pity sunk with the mixture.
If only she had told others.
After wiping her tacky blood over the hole in the shell, she hurled the abalone far into the sea.
§
This time, she decided for herself. Waves cresting overhead, she kicked deeper. Her lungs burned. She felt lighter than she should, her ballooning heart meeting the wall of water above in a contest of wills. Unable to breathe for joy or simply unable to breathe, she was not sure. And it didn’t matter. She had made her choice. There in the shimmering world below, she laughed, welcoming the ocean’s response.
Jenna Hanchey
has been called a “badass fairy” and she attempts to live up to the
title. A professor of critical/cultural studies at Arizona State
University, her research looks at how speculative fiction can imagine
decolonization and bring it into being. Her own writing tries to support
this project of creating better futures for us all. Her stories have
appeared in Nature, Daily Science Fiction, Little Blue Marble, and of course, Stupefying Stories, among other venues. You can follow her adventures on Twitter @jennahanchey or at www.jennahanchey.com.
“The Ocean’s Choice” was first published in the Shacklebound Books collection, Maelstroms: 23 Tales of Dark Fantasy and the High Seas!
1 comments:
Interesting take on merfolx. Enjoyed it.
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