Mermaid Examination
The water was calm, clear, and unusually warm this evening. Rays of light shined through the transparent skin of the surface, penetrating it to dance on the blank and expressionless features of the sandy floor many feet below. At the bottom, an abundance of bright and colorful coral decorated the otherwise vacant ocean plain, for there was not a sign of life to be found anywhere. There were no fish, nor krill, or any other form of aquatic life around;no, it was just the mermaid.
She floated mere inches above the coral, her graceful, silvery-blue tail swaying gently, back and forth in a soothing motion. Her long, blue hair flowed through the sea without restraint, a thing that wouldn’t be too bad, if only she didn’t have to constantly brush it behind her fin-like ears to see ahead. Her eyes, a gentle blue in hue, gazed around upon a face both young in sculpt, and mature in tone. A primitive bra, consisting of seaweed rope and pink sea shells, covered her fully-developed bosoms. The same materials, only consisting of more seaweed and larger shells, covered her waist; for despite the nature of her being, she was just as womanly there as any other human female would be. She scanned her surroundings carefully in the hopes of finding something, an instinct that, lying without focus at the sandy bed of her own subconscious, she had repeated countless times before. Her course of thought was soon postponed, for what she sought all along was now within her gaze, just beyond the surface of the water. A figure appeared, and no sooner had it done so, shattered the skin of the surface, and made its’ way towards the mermaid-girl. A man, immersed in a sleek and geared diving-suit, focused its’ reflective-goggled gaze at the beautiful mermaid. She looked at the oncoming diver, and without a hint of fear or dread, she smiled warmly at him.
When he finally got to her, he took the opportunity to suck in oxygen from his mouth piece, an action that caused the girl a few feet in front of him to cock her head with curiosity. Now finished, the man took out a clipboard and pen and began to take down notes. The mermaid put a hand to her own chin, her face blushed red as the stranger (but somehow not a stranger) looked over her figure with near-intensity. The diver rolled his right-wrist around, beckoning her to spin around for him. She did so with joy, her blue-hair and seaweed skirt swirling around with her, all the while the man continued to dance his pen upon the surface of his clipboard.
As she stopped her spinning and re-adjusted her hair, for it had covered her face to continue the dance on its’ own, she looked with intrigue at the man who, for some reason was now getting closer to her. And before she even knew it, his face was only mere inches away from hers. Putting his notes away, he proceeded to gaze into the bluish eyes of the half-woman in front of him, who waited almost without breath for his next course of action. The wait was soon over, for without warning, he gently reached his left arm around her waist, and slowly pulled her towards him.
She was stunned, for they were so close that her breasts squeezed tightly to his chest, and close enough that she could see past the reflective glare of the goggles, and see a pair of calm and unthreatening brown eyes looking back at her. Her tension had eased now, for she now felt warm and soft in the kind embrace of the man, the young and kind man. As he gave his free hand to brush her hair behind her left ear, she tilted her head to his touch, and gave him a welcoming and loving smile. She felt him poke at a spot behind her ear, and just like that, all of her life and energy seemed to drain instantly. She looked at the man one last time; his expression not leaving nor changing, before her sight and mind fell into darkness.
The man, breached the surface and, with mermaid in tow, made his swim towards the edge of the water tank. He took the mermaid off his shoulders, and gently set her limp form onto the white-tiled floor of the water-testing lab. He climbed the metal ladder out of the tank, and as he removed and set aside his diving gear, he took a long breath of fresh air. He looked back on his clipboard, and after checking if everything was in order, he went over to check on the mermaid.
He kneeled down for a better look at the girl, her blank eyes gazing without life at the white-glow of the ceiling lights. He took his right thumb, pressed it lightly into her belly button, and gave it a third clockwise twist. The mermaid wouldn’t complain of this action, nor the action of the man pressing his palms at the sides of her tail, until a metallic click was heard. Seeing the thin, near-invisible seam going along the mermaids’ tail, he pressed down with one hand onto the tail-fin, while the other grabbed onto the silvery-blue scales above it. He peeled the scale-covered skin upwards, now revealing the inner-mechanics of the liquid-hydraulic tail. He looked inside, and after a couple of minutes of careful examination, he came to the conclusion that no water had leaked past the skin, and that all wires and systems were fully accounted for. He went for his clipboard and wrote down the following: “Water-Seal Test #16 on Exotiq Andronics Model Mermaid-C, Version 4 complete. No signs of liquid entry/interference in M.-C V.4 tail, w/ LH fully functional in submerged environments.” With that done, he patched the mermaid back in one piece, stored away his diving gear, and set the girls’ limp form onto a carrying cart before rolling her away into storage.
Interesting history to this story actually. It was the first of a little mini-series I wrote on a different site a few years ago, yet because the basis of my story was different from the site it was on, it never really caught on with the crowd there; at least, as much as I hoped.
This was supposed to be the first of a collection of stories revolving around an amusement resort world populated by robots modeled after various fantasy and mythological beings. Think Westworld with the populace of a fantasy RPG. Due to some complications at the time, I had little time to directly work on the stories, and with the help of a fellow writer, the story was able to be both refined and continued...........for some time. The writer had some of his own matters to deal with, and as consequence, he too, was unable to continue work on the stories.And for years, it just sat.
Now that I'm back into writing, I plan on reviving the series again, only this time on a site far more suited to the themes and genre.
If there are any comments, I will be glad to hear them; the feedback is greatly welcomed. More will be shown in the future everyone.