The White Bird

"Long and short haul cruises, fishing trips, weekend trips, and floating parties" So said the sign at the end of his gang-plank. It had been a slow summer and the melancholy balm of autumn tinged the air.

So when the charismatic woman stepped aboard "The Sea Bird" smelling of perfume and money he was overjoyed. She skewered him with her cat-like eyes, and chartered him and his boat for a long cruise. The destination was not her concern, he could choose. He looked at her standing on his deck without even an overnight bag, wrestled his curiosity to the floor, and accepted the deal with discretion. But inside his mind he was reeling with a marvellous feeling of mystery and delight. What had he done to deserve such an intriguing and provoking travelling companion.?

They weighed anchor the next day and set sail through mysterious seas, around rocky islands, through storms and gales. Eventually arriving in the calm southern seas, where the sun glinted off the ocean, and silence engulfed the small white boat as it cut though the water. He watched her leaning on the rail and gazing into the endless water with mystery behind her eyes. She watched him as he bent low over his chart and scored a line that marked their past and future course. Slowly but inevitably they drew closer together until the path of their hearts crossed, and they fell in love.

They put into port in the Mediterranean and lay calm and quiet on the gentle rise and fall of the tide. He gave her a small white bird on a pin which he had carved out of bone as a token of his love for her.

A year or so passed, and they were still aboard. But in a lonely sea the wind weakened and waned, until they came to a complete stop. Not even a current to drive them forward. They were becalmed.

One night as he leaned alone on the rail. looking into the dark blue water he saw a shape as slick as silver glisten beneath the water. Biting down his fear and surprise he watched as the head of a mermaid with lovely blue-green eyes emerged from the water. Her lips were red as lust, and her teeth were white. Her barely visible breasts tantalised him.

Then she sang. Quietly, almost a whisper. A song so alluring and so strange that he was instantly lost to it. Mermaids can find the weakness in any heart with their enchanting beauty and soothing voices. The mermaid does not have any evil intention. It is simply the nature of the mermaid to beguile. The primitive haul of a mermaid on a sailor's mind is without malice.

He looked into the a mermaids eyes . . . and was hypnotised as she sang her slow luscious song.

He had already forgotten about his fellow traveller and lover, who slept below. Without a thought as if he was in a dream he climbed over the rail and lowered himself slowly into the dark still water, and closing his eyes and his mind he fell into the magical sensual embrace of the mermaid. Only his hat floating on the surface was left as a reminder that he had ever been there, as he drifted down into the into the salty mysterious cavern of the mermaid. He should have fought but he didn't, he simply surrendered. For years he laboured over the mermaid, fulfilling her wishes, bringing her pearls and coral, fish and treasure. His travelling companion waited for him for a time, but her bitter tears of anger and betrayal welled up and burned her cheeks. She hoisted every sail into the windless air, and inched away from the spot where he had vanished. Little by little she sailed over the horizon never to be seen again.

Many years later the sailor came to his senses, and he escaped from the mermaid's prison. After an exhausting swim he struggled ashore to a new land. And there he made a new life. But every day he would walk along the beach, looking out to sea in search of a white sail, and the familiar shape of his boat; but it never came. He become an old man walking the beach - straw hat to cover his balding head, stick to support his shaky frame. carrying his shoes and paddling along the waters edge, remembering his years at sea. Then one clean crisp morning he was pricked by something sharp and painful cutting into the sole of his foot. He looked down and there . . .

Yes! It was the same one. There was only one. It was the white bird carved from bone that he had made all those years before. As he turned it in his shaking old hands the sea washed over his feet, the salt seeped into the wound and made him cry.