Retrospections of a Myth by Alana Curran (best ereader for comics .txt) 📕

Swimming always calmed me down. Especially in Vinewood Lake. I suppose it didn’t matter that above water the entire world was crumbling around me. I usually only changed when life got unbearable and I needed time to myself, that seemed to be happening a lot lately.

A hot bath or time out in my room with my headphones on and Spider crooning at my eardrums was never enough. I was still on dry land and at any moment, I could have been disturbed. If I was feeling particularly alone, I’d go to the old nook where most of my kind met up. Some of them lived perfectly happy lives in the water, others were like me and had mortal families to worry about.

Today I wasn’t in a particularly sociable mood. I just needed me and my thoughts. It was a shame I couldn’t use my earphones underwater. Listening to Enya in my misty, blue surroundings would have made the entire event even more magical. I was frustrated, though, because I knew Vladimir was following me and I wasn’t in the mood for his wisdom.

“Please leave me alone,” I sighed.

I felt the pressure of the water hit against me as his pace hastened and he joined my side. “How did you know I was there?”

I glanced at him, despite the fact he was centuries older than her, he was quite attractive. The kind of stud with cheekbones so beautiful they overpowered the grey in his hair and the bags under his eyes. He always seemed somehow a little more illuminated in the water, though.

“Are you trying to tell me you just happened to stomp out of the shack after me, after what happened with Chelsea?”

He threw me a one shouldered shrug, but kept his arms outstretched so not to lose momentum. “You didn’t need to react the way you did,” he insisted.

“Says you,” I laughed half-heartedly, “You’re old and everyone likes you; you have no idea what it’s like to be the person people love to make suffer.”

“Maybe they’re just jealous.”

I burst out into sarcastic hysterics, pretending to wipe a tear (that would never have been visible underwater) from my eye. “Honestly, you sound like my mother.”

“She’s a wise woman,” he smiled, I looked dead ahead at the cloudy abyss beyond me, avoiding his charmingly compromising grin. “I’m old, Eddy, very old; I’ve learned a thing or two about women in my time.”

I rolled my eyes unwillingly. It was apparently an irritating habit of mine, so my sister says anyway. “Humour me,” I eventually agreed.

“Women are threatened easily by other women, this could be due to physical traits or even aspects of one’s personality,” he began. I glanced at him, he was looking at me and his gaze dripped with sympathy for the inconvenience of my being a female. “Even being more outspoken can threaten them, so they resort to cattiness.”

“They don’t even like Jordan,” I complained, “Why would they be threatened by my being with a guy they don’t even like?”

“There are also some women who like to compete for a boy’s attention, regardless of whether or not they are physically attracted to them.”

“Fuck, I hate girls,” I grunted.

“I wish I could tell you that they get better with age, but they don’t,” he laughed.

“Well, I guess I’ll just live here forever,” I muttered.

I didn’t think he could hear me, but I forgot he had the hearing of a dog. “You’ve got quite a few years before that, darling.”

I couldn’t wait until I could permanently live in the lake, life was so much better there. However, I also felt extremely guilty when I thought about it, because looking forward to my lifetime under the water, meant looking forward to the death of my family.

We came to a nook in the rockery and stuck our heads out of the surface, floating as though we were nothing but friends in a swimming pool. As I glanced down at the warped reflection of my coral fins flapping about under the surface, I was quickly reminded of the situation.

I always admired Vladimir’s tail. It was silver the light glinted off it beautifully, especially the moonlight reflecting off his scales iridescently on a quiet night in an empty beach. “Y’know it still baffles me, when I think about your mother. I don’t understand how someone can forget the trauma of mermen fertilisation,” he sighed, “You’re mother was a screamer.”

I grimaced at the thought. My mum was a frail, little woman who got backaches from lifting pillows. I hated seeing her in pain and I especially hated the thought of my conception. I had been to a few fertilisations myself, in fact I was due to attend one at the upcoming weekend. Desmond had already chose his prey and I was to lure her to the shore when she fell asleep. Then the painful process of fertilisation was to begin.

Apparently,  my mother believed me to be the daughter of a one night stand with Kurt Cobain, the year he killed himself. I found numerous holes in this theory, the most popular being the fact that he was married to Courtney Love. I couldn’t point it out to her, though. I was under oath.

“So, is she everything we needed?”

The light peering through holes in the rockery shone onto his face and I could just about see him nodding. “Perfect bait,” he replied. “Pure, weak, drifty.”

“I look forward to getting to know the child,” I smiled.

“They all do.”

I hadn’t realised how he had phrased it until it was too late. Looking back on it now, I wish I’d asked. I wish I’d noticed. Maybe I could have talked him out of it. I often spend days like this wondering whether there was something I could do to stop him, but it made me feel guilty, it made me feel bad. Vladimir wouldn't have wanted that.

Publication Date: 11-12-2013

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