Rain poured from luridly underlit, leaden clouds in silvery streaks that glittered in the lights of passing traffic.  The droplets that gathered in the creases of the girl’s gabardine coat drew her eyes as she dialled a number on her cellphone, shielding it from the foul weather.  Like pearls, she thought as she waited for an answer.

At last a faint voice answered with bumptious cheer.  The girl grimaced.  The pavement was wet and although it didn’t bother her, it was somewhat embarrassing to be sat in the middle of it, blocking the shelter at the bus stop. 

Rain always brought these collapses on.  Normally she was adept at avoiding trouble but she had ignored the signs of an impending sudden downpour.  The thick air, the metallic taste of it, had not flagged up their usual warning signs when she had rushed to catch a bus to take her into town to her date with Paul.

She looked down at her legs and cursed them for the traitorous appendages that they were.  Her skirt was ruined.  She was certain that when she had collapsed she had not just fallen into a rather greasy puddle, but one that contained an improbably large lump of discarded gum. Annoying as that was, she was more concerned about the forthcoming conversation.  

“Paul, it’s me,” she said.

“Hi!   Where are you?  I thought we said eight.” 

“I’m at the bus stop.  Look, I’m really, really sorry but I’m not going to be able to make it.  Not tonight.”

There was a momentary silence that was pregnant with disappointment.  A bus rumbled past, shaking the ground beneath the girl.  Distracted by her phone and her discomfort, she barely noticed.  Her entire being seemed intent on the plastic tablet clutched in her hand.

“What?  But I’ve got a table at the seafood place that you really like.”

She winced.  Paul really did have an annoying habit of whining at the smallest reverse.  He thought it charming and when they were together he would lay his head in her lap, look up at her with those puppy dog eyes, then ruin the effect by whinging a sing song demand that he thought endearing.  Paul wants a kiss!  Paul needs a kiss!  Well, she would rather kiss a clam when he put that act on.  But those eyes!  Those, dark, languid eyes!  How they would gaze at her, their lids half closed, drawing her in irresistibly.  The girl shivered with repressed desire.  Now was not the time for this.  Not while she was sat in a puddle in the street, unable to walk.

“I’m sorry, Paul.   It sounds great but something has come up.  I would come if I could but I just can’t.”   Something caught her eye and she sighed.  In the gutter, water gurgled happily as it streamed around her discarded red leather stilettos.  She watched as the hide darkened to a shade closer to blood.   Christ on a bike! Those were a hundred and fifty pounds!  Ruined!

“Is it work?  If you have to stay late, we could just grab a quick bite.  I really need to see you!” Paul pleaded.

“No, I can’t do that.”   

A passerby stopped and asked if she was all right.  She was a small and mousey woman with a beanie pulled tight over her head and anxious eyes that peered at the girl through rain spattered spectacles.

The girl, distracted from her phone call, snarled up at her with crystalline, needle sharp teeth, “Look, just bugger off!  I don’t need any help!” 

Face pale, the woman stumbled back, tripping over her shopping bag, her eyes flickering alternately between the girl’s teeth and then her legs.

“What?”  Paul protested.  “What did you say?”

“Sorry, Paul,” the girl said hurriedly, realising how that might have sounded.  “It was just someone,” she raised her voice at this point - as she spotted the passerby talking to a lone police officer, who had been making his way slowly up the street, intermittently ducking under shop-fronts to stay dry - and continued, “sticking their noses where they weren’t wanted!”

The woman’s face flicked in her direction.

“But…look…this isn’t getting us anywhere.  You don’t sound OK.  Why don’t I get a cab and I’ll come and pick you up?”

This was becoming a really crappy night.  The girl could feel the conversation slipping away from her.  Why did Paul have to be so bloody dense?  Sitting on the pavement was wet, cold and seriously uncomfortable.  She was becoming all too aware how much attention she was starting to draw. 

“I’m not really feeling myself tonight,” she said, desperate to end the call.  “I wouldn’t be very good company.  Can’t we just give it a miss and we’ll do something this weekend?  We could go to the aquarium; the weather’s supposed to be lovely.”  Tears of frustration prickled the corners of her eyes. What was wrong with the man?  Couldn’t he take a hint?  Tonight was not a good night!

“I can’t wait till the weekend!”

“For goodness sake, Paul!” she exploded.  “Just because something has come up, please don’t make it all about you!  Other things go on in the world without you being involved, you know!  This really isn’t a good time!  I have to go!” 

Her predicament had drawn a crowd of onlookers, which in turn had hurried the policeman on his way toward her.  Matters had become more fraught after a bus had deposited a load of passengers almost at her…feet. 

“Will you look at that?”  a spiteful voice sneered.

“It ain’t normal!”  another agreed.

Shaken but desperate to end the phone call sensibly, the girl tried to ignore the loud and tactless muttering of the aimless and the feckless who were slowly gathering around her.

“Wait!   Look!  If I can’t see you then I’ll just have to tell you now.  I can’t wait any longer, it wouldn’t be fair,” Paul said.

“What?  What wouldn’t be fair?”  Distracted by her audience, the girl had not realised that the conversation had taken on a different, more sinister tone.

“It’s just that…I’ve…met…someone,” Paul said carefully.

“You’ve what?” 

 At this the muttering in the crowd died down.  A few feet shuffled, scraping against the wet paving.  There was an embarrassed cough, a few sniggers and the irritating flash of some idiot recording her predicament for Instagram.

“I’ve met someone.  We kind of…connect.  It’s not you, it’s me.  I guess I’m just looking for something, someone else.”

It was as if the world had tilted and knocked down.  She felt sick to her stomach.  “How long?” she said quietly.

“What?”

“How long has this been going on?  How long have you been seeing this…someone else?”

“Er…about …well… since we met really.”

“WHAT!”

Her cry silenced the crowd, the traffic and even the humming of the street lights.  It was as if the water had erupted from the pavement and burst out like a wall of spray, drenching everyone in its path.

“Calm down!  It’s not personal.  She’s just different.  We’re good together!”

“But we’re good together!  You told me you loved me!  You can’t just dump me like this!” 

“Oh, the poor…er… girl!”  A female voice in the crowd murmured.

The girl glared across in the direction of her lone supporter.  She returned the sympathy with a stare of cold loathing.

Paul’s chipper little voice cut in, sounding as unconcerned as he would have been cancelling the newspapers, “Yeah, I did say that didn’t I?  I guess…I guess I made a mistake.  Look you’re a beautiful girl.  You’re amazing really, but I think we’re at different places in our lives.  You want something that I can’t give you.”

“Like what?”  she asked with a voice as clear and cold as polar ice.  Rain had soaked through her hair, plastering it to her scalp like a skull cap.  Her skin had taken on a greenish tone and she had begun to shiver, chilled to the bone as she must have been.

“Er…well, if you’re not going to make this easy, I’ll be honest.  I’m not a big fan of fish.  With you it’s fish this, fish that.  Let’s go to the aquarium.  Let’s go to the seafood place.  Let’s catch a season of Jaws movies at the movies.  Too much with the whole fish thing, OK?”  The words tumbled from Paul in a rush.  It was as if a dam had been breached and the flood of resentment that poured forth could never be put back.  He spoke with such finality that the girl knew it to be true.

“But…”  Her hands were strangely mottled.  Tiny discs of silver had appeared on the backs of them.

“I’m sorry, Arial.  It’s over,” Paul stated.  “You can’t give up fish and I can’t stand them.  Please don’t call me.  I think it’s for the best.  Bye and…good luck.”

The line cut out. 

She stared at the phone in her hand, still displaying Paul’s selfie, complete with what she only now realised was a truly gormless grin.

“Bastard!”  

 Someone in the crowd tittered.

Throwing her head back, she turned her face to the sky and screamed.  Her audience scattered, wailing, clutching their ears as blood ran from them.  Shop windows close to her shattered, and fragments of plate glass cascaded across the pavement like a tidal wave of diamonds. 

 A few minutes later the police officer approached her thorough the wreckage. 

“Now then, Miss, are you …er…all right?”  His name badge stated that he was Ted Morgan of the City Police.  

She sighed and looked down.  “I’ve had better days, officer.  Why is it that whenever I get close to someone, they just push me away?” 

“I don’t know, Miss.   Relationships are not something that police officers are very good at.  It’s the job – too much pressure on family life.”  He crouched down next to her companionably.  “Boyfriend trouble is it?” 

“Maybe if I’d been more honest with him from the start?  He always thought I was hiding something from him.”  The girl stared at what was left of her feet, determined not to face Morgan. 

“Well.  Were you?”  

“Well, duh!” 

“Oh!  Those?”  Morgan followed her gaze. 

“Yes!” 

“Ah.” 

“Ah? Is that all you can say?” 

“I can see how that would be something…that…you might want…to be careful about.” 

“What do you mean by that?” 

“Nothing!”  Morgan said hurriedly. 

“Nothing?  It would be totally, like, er…speciesist to take that tone with me, officer.” 

“Speciesist?” 

“I have rights too!” 

“OK, OK!  I’m not being anything.  I’m only trying to see that you’re all right.  Shouldn’t we get you out of the rain?” 

“What do you think?”  The girl cocked her head.  There was definitely an emerald hue to her skin now.  Her wet hair was also turning a vivid green too.  It was almost the colour of seaweed in a tidal rock-pool. 

“Oh.  It’s just that I can’t really have you lying there in the middle of the pavement like that.  It’s upsetting people.”  Morgan nodded at the crowd who had gathered again at some distance.  More photos were being taken. 

“I can’t help that!”  The girl protested.  “Look officer, I’ll be fine.  I’ll just wait for the rain to stop then I’ll move on.  It always happens when I get caught in the rain – I’m used to it.  Don’t mind me.” 

“If you’re sure,” Morgan said. 

“I am.” 

“I’ll just keep an eye on you then, Miss, until the rain’s done.”  He stood up and moved away, keeping himself between the crowd and the girl.  

The rain continued to pour.  Trickles of water streamed down the little mermaid’s face as she lay, clad in her gabardine coat, in the greasy puddle by the bus stop.  

She turned her face away from the onlookers so that they could not see her face.  Only she knew of the tears that mingled with the cold rain.  The salt on her lips tasted of home.   With the force of an electric shock, the taste triggered a memory sunk deep within her; a warning delivered by her father, deep in his coral halls.  Understanding bubbled up, deepening her misery.  The curse of the merpeople had become plain to see. 

She now knew what the ocean was. 

Loss. 

Every drop of brine was wrought from a mermaid’s tears of sorrow.  Inevitably their love for a human man was thrown back into the sea – rejected catch.  Aeons of heartbreak had slowly engulfed the wide basins of the world.  

The immensity of it crushed her.