'Another Little Mermaid' by Caroline Gonda

Flat light glancing off the taut grey sheen of the estuary; the biscuity smell of gorse by the railway tracks. A thin wind from the north, with a scatter of rain in it. 

You do realize you’ll probably have to fake it, the witch said. I shrugged. Wouldn’t be the first time. My problem is I know only too well how to be nice to men, how to sit rapt and appreciative, listening, listening. A woman may take her share in the conversation without uttering a syllable. 

The roofs glinted like knives far off. Round my ankles the tide curled and tugged. By the water’s edge in the early morning, redshank and oystercatchers, curlews and eider ducks picked their way among stones and shale.  

It’s a world of men out there, my sisters warned me, but I was desperate to go. It’s harder than I thought, being so far south, so far inland. Living by the water is something you don’t give up easily.

On summer evenings now when the light stays late there are seals on My Lord’s Bank. The first time my friend Christine saw the sea-cottage by the Manse at Anstruther there was one sitting on the doorstep, cool as you please. And now the sea has swallowed up doorstep, cottage and all, the garden wall of the Manse and the sitooterie where she used to write. 

I like to think that I’m in my element here, in this shining city I dreamed about. I’d like to think we can all live happily ever after. I try to keep the edge of fear from my throat at the thought of a rival, tell myself my heart wouldn’t break. My voice is a little rusty, I expect, but I don’t think I’ve forgotten how to sing.

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Caroline Gonda’s work has appeared in Reflex, Lunate, Ellipsis, Janus Literary, Bluesdoodles, Pastel Pastoral, Second Chance Lit, Tipping The Scales, NFFD FlashFlood, The Propelling Pencil, Paragraph Planet, Tomorrow’s World/Le Monde de Demain and Legerdemain: The National Flash Fiction Day Anthology 2021. She teaches and writes on literature, gender and sexuality.