It wasn’t Ariel who bewitched her. From the confines of the tank, Astra danced when Ursula filled the screen, tentacles splayed and spinning, singing, Poor unfortunate souls. Astra’s hair swirled above her like a storm cloud. Her tail had grown five inches. Her scales flushed from black to a deep aubergine, like Ursula’s soft, vulnerable underbelly. Her voice had changed too. From the fluty cries of a choirboy, she sang in Ursula’s sultry tenor, though her voice would crack and squeak on occasion, pantomiming, Poor unfortunate fools, in pain, in need . . .
We were witness to an unprecedented phenomenon. Within fourteen days Astra had transformed from a black immature merling into an alpha mermaid, violet as a sea witch, skipping the silver stage of beta males entirely. We realized, this is it. She was going to be our Queen Victoria, the Grandmother of the Ocean. Her children would go on to breed with clans across the globe. She would revive not only the eastern black merrows in the Pacific but the gray-finned pods back home, the white merrows near Iceland.
Years later we watched one of her tapes. Someone, maybe Linda, pointed something out. Astra, our prodigy, had botched the lyrics, singing on the behalf of fools, a word we’d never taught. Some of us thought it was intentional. Maybe she didn’t have a need of a soul. Maybe she had a soft spot for fools.
Long-Term Recording of Gastric Ulcers in Merrows Stranded on the Jeju (S Korea) Coast
MARLA S. ROWLAND
Institute of Marine Biology, University of Hawaii, Kailua, Hawaii 96734
ABSTRACT: Long-term (2001–2011) results of recording gastric ulcers in the eastern black merrows (Nereida niger) are presented for the South Korean Pacific coast. The occurrence of merrow carcasses with gastric ulcers are also discussed. Ulcerations were detected in 17.2% of the animals examined, with 25% for eastern black merrows. A positive relation was noted between ulcer counts and length and maturity. Clusters of the nematode Anisakis simplex could be seen embedded in the gastric ulcers of 3 eastern black merrows. It can be concluded that gastric ulcers are nonfatal lesions in merrows stranded in South Korea.
KEY WORDS: Gastric ulcers • Nereida niger • Merrow carcasses • South Korea
According to Astra’s 2011 health reports, she exhibited unusually high GCC levels, which is often a sign of gastric ulcers.9 Upon detecting occult blood in her stool, we prescribed Maalox, which we’d covertly slip into the gills of her favorite mackerel. Stress, we surmised, had to be the reason why Astra had failed to conceive for four years, though we were also concerned with Triton’s low sperm count.
After the post-scratchathon checkup, we gave Astra a shot of Clomid, the fertility drug, which had proven successful with gray mermaids and lowland gorillas. Astra let us circle the vein in the crook of her arm with a ballpoint pen. She didn’t flinch as the needle pricked her. She giggled, as if nervous. “Will I lay the egg?”
Of course, we told her.
Astra’s smile seemed tentative. She yearned to be a mother. Every year she let us approach her eggs in her anemone nest to check for fertility. We’d scan the eggs for the telltale blastoderm, a particular spot on fertilized eggs. Every year the eggs were pristine and spotless.
Marla, slipping the pen behind her ear, tried to cheer her up.
“Remember tentacle porn?” Marla said.
Between December 2001 and March 2002, Astra had begun exhibiting secondary female characteristics, so we’d banned male volunteers from approaching her. Within days we’d caught a volunteer named Brett, a surfer who swore that a mermaid had once saved him by headbutting a tiger shark, with his pants down. He scrambled for his trunks, crying out, “She asked for it!” which raised a few eyebrows. Later we checked the cameras. They backed his story. In fact, Astra hadn’t asked for his penis but demanded it. Merrows have a caninelike intuition for social hierarchy. Even at her tender age, Astra could ascertain where Brett the surfer stood.
Brett tried to withdraw his penis, but Astra seized it, eliciting a pained squeal of shock. None of us moved. But again, we believed it was curiosity. With her grip, Astra could have crushed it into a pulp. Astra unwrapped her long spindly fingers and weighed his member with a chilling fascination. Her conclusion?
“Too soft.”
Brett deflated. We were relieved to see Astra’s encouraging, almost pitying smile. Some of us worried our star pupil might turn deviant like Fabio. We couldn’t Fabio this.
Her preference for merman penis was understandable,10 but for weeks Brett moaned “cocktease,” and we assigned our intern Tina, a budding woman in her own right, to stand guard. She usually sat in front of the tank and read her Japanese comic books.
One day Astra asked, “What is that?”
“Tentacle porn,” Tina said.
Astra reared up. “Octopus? Squid?”
“Wanna see?”
Astra preferred movies over books. While she could read signs, she didn’t find the written word as compelling as the spoken. Tina scooched her chair closer so Astra could peer over her shoulder and read the comic book through the layer of glass. As Tina turned the pages, Astra asked, “Does octopus have sex with human?” “Why is octopus so large?” “Where can I find large octopus?”
At the end of the comic, Astra sighed, as if satisfied. She told Tina the octopus was a female.
“How can you tell?” Tina said.
“Females are large. They have sex with male octopus and kill him.”
Octopus sex remains a paradox. They’re deeply antisocial, and yet their bodies have evolved in a way where they can only mate with the utmost intimacy. A male octopus, brave and desperate, must penetrate the female with one of his tentacles. He’d slip it directly into her bulbous head and inject a stream of sperm, and sometimes a warning alarm went off, and he’d sacrifice his arm and flee.
Sometimes he wouldn’t. Sometimes he’d stay or come back, and slip his arm into her ear, as if to caress her brain, and sometimes she’d wrap him in her arms and hold him until she strangled him, then she’d drag him home and eat him with a slow, careful regret.
Type in mermaid sex and more than 455,000 results will register on YouTube, though many will be of music videos or animated simulations. Merrows rarely have sex near the surface. Only seven recordings of the eastern black’s mating rituals exist on record, which makes the following video footage, recorded on June 5, 2011, all the more valuable.
The morning after the scratchathon, Triton was swimming in circles when we returned Astra. She leaped into his arms, but before Triton could hug her, Astra slipped out of his embrace and looped once around him, playful. Her claws softly raked his face as she hissed in his ear. Her voice, no matter how whispery, rang in the salty air.
In front of us, Astra began sexual contact, first through mouthing, then licking.11 Triton’s confusion bloomed into pleasure when Astra tongued the spiraled ridges of his ear. She slipped the tip, black and glistening, into his hole, like an octopus’s arm, reaching deep inside the head until it hit the crinkled folds of the brain, so she could stroke the brain, so the brain would tingle because the brain is the most sensitive of organs, and it’s shaped like a maze, like the inner workings of a mermaid.
Astra pushed Triton’s hand down her waist, toward her genital slit, as her finger peeled the lip of her slit open. Triton’s tail blushed a deep red. The blue flecks faded in the force of his arousal. His fins fanned out, flickering orange. He expanded his chest and gave a quick, sonic boom, a mating call.
As Astra looped her tail around Triton’s, she eyed Alto, who remained chin-deep in the water. Her unblinking gaze was clearly provocative. Alto’s fins flared, a sign of either anger or arousal, a far cry from the dehydrated merman we’d found stretched on the sand, resisting rescue.
Astra extended her webbed hand. She drew Alto into their embrace. Triton made a noise like a growl, but Astra chittered. His growl melted into a whine, helpless. Astra and Triton rubbed belly to belly while Alto swam by them. He dipped under the water and supported Astra from below, his chest pressed against her spine, as
Triton rolled on top of her. As they entwined, strangling, choking, loving, we realized the positions had switched and now Alto was on the bottom, with Astra above and Triton in between.
Alto melded against Triton’s back. He closed his luminous eyes and rubbed against the navy dorsal fin, as if they were kissing pals again, just two merlings bonding for life.
On the Fourth of July, Astra laid a spotted egg, our first fertile egg since 2006. We emailed Jared, who sent out a mass email of congratulations to the entire merrow protection network with a picture of five-year-old Astra, grinning at her regurgitated fish. Our volunteers wanted to celebrate with fireworks, but we couldn’t risk it. Merrows were exquisitely sensitive to sound. We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs and drank beer on the dock and toasted Marla for giving up her career as an astronomer and joining us in the fight to rescue all merrows, and Rodney for thinking of using Clomid, and Eddie for being our translator, and we thanked everyone, including all our volunteers.
Astra’s nest was located near Seki Isle, a tiny islet with some of the wildest currents, which is why it was rigged underwater with a stout web of ropes designed to tether and guide divers through the wretched waters. Diving with cumbersome equipment could be a challenge, but on Day 4 we set up the underwater cameras. On Day 7 we made plans to retrieve the egg.
We convinced ourselves it was vital to care for the egg during this sensitive time. Many fertilized eggs had suffered needless deaths from neglectful mothers, opportunistic predators, or oceanic whims. After the decimation of the T pod, the eastern black merrow population teetered at only thirty-seven merrows, with eight breeding females left. Artificial incubation would boost those numbers. Since 1996 rescuers had hand-raised nineteen merlings and returned them safely to the wild, with a survival rate of 81 percent.
The triad alternated between hunting and watching over the egg, nestled in a lavender anemone among the soft corals. Triton, as the father, was too dangerous. His shockwave tail could smash our innards. We wanted to avoid Astra. Deep down, we feared she’d be unwilling to give up the egg. We told ourselves she’d understand.
July 23, 2011 (Day 19): We anchored the boat by Seki Isle before sunrise and waited an hour in the stinging wind to time the egg’s retrieval. Red buoys bobbed nearby, a sign of local divers. The craggy shoreline shone like onyx. Legend was merrows had pitch-black tails because they were sloughed from Jeju’s porous black rocks.
We waited to retrieve the egg during Alto’s watch. As a beta male, we suspected he would be less confrontational. He confirmed our suspicions by fleeing upon spotting us. He retreated ten feet away from the corals, and hidden behind pink mossy rocks, he watched us with his luminous deep-sea eyes. Alto could have lunged at our divers or released a distress signal. The fact that he made no attempt to summon Astra or Triton disappointed us.
A mermaid egg is sometimes called a mermaid’s purse. It looks like a blood donation bag but is far more delicate, more precious. We bundled the egg into our transport bag, which two divers needed to carry, as we kicked toward the surface. Alto followed. His gills flared once before his head broke the surface. His dark, tangled hair curtained his face, shielding his eyes from the sun.
From the boat, one of our volunteers pointed over the railing. The silvery blue of Alto’s scales was darker than usual. He was changing color. His eyes remained pale and opaque, watching us as we drove the boat away.
Alpha Mermaid Brutally Attacks Challenger Mermaid / AMAZING MERMAID ATTACK
1.2M views
Bale TV
Published on September 8, 2009
An ALPHA mermaid has been filmed for the first time killing a CHALLENGER mermaid. The footage, which is believed to be a world first, was captured off the coast of South Korea by underwater photographer Carol Jackson. It shows an older mermaid challenging the alpha matriarch of a mermaid pod. The matriarch wears down the older mermaid with opportunistic bites at her fins. She moves in to deliver the death blow.
For more compelling footage of the amazing side of life: Like Bale TV
3,525 Comments
Josh Giles 1 year ago
Tremendously strategic in biting off its fins. Amazing.
phantom lover 2 years ago (edited)
CAT FIGHT!!!
Double Agent 139 1 year ago
Rest in pieces
The Jeju locals grew aware, if not appreciative, of our efforts to save the eastern black merrow species. After years of trying to raise awareness, we were now giving talks four times a week at schools, diving schools, fishing clubs, yacht clubs, lifeguards, anyone that was willing to listen. We would get calls from mothers collecting shells with their children. Teachers on field trips. Tourists on boats to Udo Island. Ferry captains. Fishermen. Even the coastal guard.
We raised Astra’s egg in a tank, warmed at seventy-eight degrees Fahrenheit, under a fiberoptic bulb to see through the translucent sack, and recorded fetal growth, one millimeter at a time. Hand-rearing of merrow eggs was an exhaustive procedure that required at least five people on staff to remain in constant supervision.
On Day 17 of the egg’s incubation, we received a tip from local divers, who had spotted the A pod12 near Sup Isle. We rushed out, grabbing just our wetsuits and a small dive boat. We hadn’t seen Astra in weeks, not since we’d taken away her egg for protection, despite our efforts to reach out to her. The extended silence was concerning, but we reasoned that merrows spend 90 percent of their lives under the surface. They couldn’t always be found.
As the sun dipped behind a pinnacle of shaven rock, we drove past a black-sand beach. The beach, once a tourist hot spot, was closed. Garbage speckled the shoreline in tumorous piles. Convenience-store bags, laid flat by paperweight rocks, looked like dried jellyfish. Plastic cups with melted peanut butter ice cream, soda bottles, makgeolli bottles, cigarette butts, chopstick sleeves, straw wrappers, a punctured tire, a smashed surfboard. Once, on a different beach, we’d uncovered a rare find. A half-gallon bottle filled with uncooked rice, a first-aid kit, a USB stick, and a single U.S. dollar bill, folded with a note that said, “God loves you.” It was a care package, flung by South Korean activists and missionaries in the hopes it would reach the shores of North Korea one day.
Elderly women divers13 peeled sea urchins with thick starched gloves. An old woman tucked her dyed-brown frizz into the black hood of her wetsuit. She picked up her green-netted Styrofoam buoy and waddled on stubby flippers toward the ocean.
We asked the divers where they’d spotted a pod of merrows. We nudged our Korean American intern to translate for us. After some back-and-forth, the divers burst out laughing. Our intern said the divers didn’t see the pod but one or two merrows, headed for the estuary. He said one of the divers had recognized Astra. They called her “psycho,” which caused some of us to bristle.
“Why did they laugh?” Rodney said.
Our intern had tried to explain that her name was Astra and her importance. One of the divers had replied, Why hang her in the sky when she belongs to the sea?
We drove toward Soesokkak Estuary, the mouth of a stream where salt meets fresh, some of us skeptical. The estuary wasn’t deep enough for merrows who were open-water swimmers.14 But as the divers had claimed, we spotted a dorsal fin speeding across the estuary, the water so shallow the fin stood at least half a meter. We counted two more shapes, three in total. One of the merrows was chasing something, but water visibility remained at zero from the stirred sediment. We couldn’t see who the merrows were or what they were hunting.
One of the merrows leaped from the waters. The torso disappeared underwater before we could see the face, but a pair of dark purple flukes slapped the surface.
Marla wobbled over to the bow. “Astra!”
Astra chased after a silhouetted shape that slipped under our boat. We spotted the third merrow, Triton, recognized by his blue dorsal fin, as he tried to wedge himself between Astra and the fleeing merrow. Astra swerved and rammed into the other merrow from the side.
“Astra,” Marla screamed.
Astra’s head rose once more. For a moment her gaze swiveled in our direction. We couldn’t recognize her. Her eyes had sunk deep into her sockets, from either grief or fury. But she recognized us. Her merrow smile seemed to falter. In her hesitation we saw confusion, and in her confusion we saw her head droop, like a heartbroken child, before she dove under the water.
The waves rippled over, but the air remained sticky with salt and blood. Then the boat lurched. Marla crashed against the railing. A merrow had headbutted us. We scanned the waters for a blue dorsal fin, signs of Triton. But it was Alto, with his deep-diver eyes and mopey smile. A gruesome flap of skin dangled from his nose. Astra had almost raked his face clean off.
Alto bared his teeth at us. “What is he doing? Why is he attacking?” Marla shouted, but none of us could answer. He smashed into our boat again and screamed. His gills splayed pink. He shrieked nonsensical words. Shaken, we turned the boat. We had to chase after Astra, following her wispy trail of blood before it faded. Some of us remembered Kara, who’d once challenged a thirteen-year-old Astra for leadership of the pod, who’d died from her injuries, entangled in a cage net. Alto’s screams echoed, chasing after us.
We searched for Astra, but she’d left the range of her VHF tag. We recruited volunteers from the Korean Oceanic Rescue Service, divers from the local school, and even a crew from an aquaculture site. Volunteers scanned the islets, from Beom Isle to Moon Isle, for hours.
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019 Page 8