Full Circle

We all have souls, after all...

May 31, 2025

Gibberish: Flash Fiction Friday - Feeling Sunny

May 30, 2025

Scoot’s Assignment: Write about a sunny day, including dismal celebrations, a character with a twin, and the sentence, “Just a matter of perspective.”

a cemetery with a small island in the background — Photo by Benjamin Elliott on Unsplash

Full Circle

Dramatis Personae:

I know, I know, listing out the characters of a such a short story seems kind of silly, but this tale has grown way beyond what I thought would be a one-and-done microfiction, and I was beginning to have trouble keeping everybody straight! Scoot kept coming up with merfolk prompts in honor of MerMay (which I just realized was a ‘thing’ yesterday), and so the stories kept coming. Anyway, here is what will probably be the last of the Merbaby series. Links to the previous stories are listed below.

Ariel/Merbaby - Sirena’s daughter, John’s adoptive daughter, granddaughter to Oceana, wife to Zachery, mother of Caspian. Half merfolk, half landfolk. Can swim as well as other merfolk, despite having legs instead of a tail. Appears in “Merbaby,” “Believe,” and “Full Circle.”
Caspian - Young son of Ariel and Zachery. Born with a tail, he takes after Ariel’s side of the family. Appears in “Full Circle.”
Doc Hopkins - Open minded landfolk physician, who supervised Caspian’s birth and attends to the needs of the all members of the New Pod, merfolk and landfolk alike. Appears in “Believe” and “Full Circle.”
John - Kind hearted fisherman who adopted Ariel and raised her as his own (giving her the “Merbaby” nickname), later falling in love with and marrying Merbaby’s mother, Sirena. Appears in “Merbaby,” “Believe,” and “Full Circle.”
Oceana - Sirena’s mother, who mourned the separation from her exiled daughter for 25 years before leaving the safety and traditions of the Elder Pod to seek out her daughter’s family, where she is accepted with open arms. Appears in a Microfiction story (“80 mg of a Mermaid”) and “Full Circle.”
Sirena - Merbaby’s mother. After she found herself impregnated by a faithless, wankerous landman, who then left her to deal with her predicament alone, she left the Elder Pod, knowing that they would kill her hybrid child (because the Elder Pod is very big on rules and kind of racist about unions between merfolk and what they dismissively refer to as “two-leggers” - and even more racist about the “tainted” results of such unions). Sirena entrusts her newborn Merbaby to John, who not only turns out to be a wonderful foster father, but later becomes her faithful, loving husband. Appears in “Merbaby,” “Believe,” and “Full Circle.”
Zachery - Young man rescued from a sinking ship by Ariel and her family. He later falls in love with her, but has trouble believing that she is truly a mermaid. He is forced to reassess his beliefs when their firstborn son is born with a fishtail. Appears in “Believe” and “Full Circle.”

John sat quietly on deck, digesting Doc Hoplins’s news: He had two, maybe three months left. It could be worse, he mused. At least his brain should function properly until the end. He would have time to say goodbye.

He looked over the railing, where his family played among the waves, entertaining his young grandson, Caspian, who was happily swimming back and forth between his grandmother, Sirena, and his great-grandmother, Oceana. John knew that merfolk aged slowly, but he was always amazed by the similarity of the two mermaids - they could pass as twins! Only a quiet, dignified sense of experience marked Oceana apart from her daughter.

He remembered when Oceana first swam up to the side of the ship, calling for Sirena. It was a joyous occasion, the reunion of the mother with her child and introductions of all the new additions to her extended family. Oceana was afraid she’d made a bad choice in defying the Elder Pod, but once she met her new baby grandson, all regrets evaporated.

Ariel and Zachery sat nearby on a raft, chatting with the other members of the New Pod. Within weeks of when Oceana had plucked up enough courage to leave the Elder Pod, several young merfolk, who’d become dissatisfied with kowtowing to the old, outdated ways of the Elders, followed. A few young landfolk later joined the impromptu community, living in a ragtag collection of houseboats just off shore. So much had changed since the day he’d first untangled his Merbaby from his fishing nets, all of it good.

Grinning ruefully, John headed down the custom-built walkway to the floating hut that he’d built so he and Sirena could spend more time together. He’d also built a deck-top tank for her, but she was most comfortable in the sea.

Ariel saw her parents talking and her mother bursting into tears. After comforting his wife, John called the rest of his family around him, and made his announcement. John was dying.

🧞‍♀️🧞‍♀️🧞‍♀️🧞‍♀️🧞‍♀️🧞‍♀️🧞‍♀️🧞‍♀️🧞‍♀️🧞‍♀️🧞‍♀️🧞‍♀️🧞‍♀️🧞‍♀️🧞‍♀️🧞‍♀️🧞‍♀️

John was dead. A sunny day bloomed merrily for the funeral, but it was a dismal celebration. Ariel desperately missed the man who’d named her Merbaby, who’d raised her as his own daughter. He would not get to see Caspian grow up. He was gone.

As the service progressed, John’s family discovered that he’d written his own eulogy. With tears in his eyes, Doc Hopkins stood up to read John’s final message to his family and friends:

“Please don’t be sad, I’m still here, within your souls. Sirena, remember this: No matter what the landfolk religions or the Elder Pod may say, we all have souls: The landfolk, the merfolk, the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the mammals who walk the earth; even the reptiles, amphibians, mollusks, insects, and plants. Anything that lives has a soul, and when we die, our souls are free. Death is just a matter of perspective. I love all of you, so I plan to stick around for a while. If you ever need me, you will know where to find me.”

Merbaby listened carefully within herself and could feel her father’s love, as his words echoed within her head, filling her soul with contentment.