Once in a Blue Moon

Once in a Blue Moon

A short story by Daniel Harder

Journal Entry, November 18, from James Thompson: This has been going on too long now. Maybe my friends are right, and I should just move on; try to forget this ever happened. Get back out there and make an attempt at a ‘normal life.’

But just how does one “move on” back to regular dates or meeting up with other desperate strangers at bars, after seven magical nights with an incredible woman who seemed to strike the perfect and delicate balance between fun, spontaneity, and being serious about the things that really matter in life: love, truth, passion, trust, creativity, art, sharing your emotions, dreams, and goals for the future.

Before I met her, I lost track of how many nights I wasted basically living as a hermit, isolating myself in this house by the sea. I mean, I feel kind of guilty about complaining. As far as houses by the sea go, you couldn’t ask for more of a beautiful locale – on the Isle of Tiree in Scotland. Many people in other parts of the world would kill to live here and wake up to this scenery each day. Some of my fondest memories are a collage of the moments I spent gazing across the Scottish sea by my father’s side and later when I shared this view with my wife, Katrina.

But when you’re lonely and alone even the most stunning scenes can appear bland and dark. It had been a rough few years when she first came into my life so unexpectedly, that most memorable day of November 19, 2016. My father had passed in May of that year, leaving me the inheritance of this gorgeous but empty house by the sea. My wife of 15 years had passed in January the year prior. Mom’s been gone now 7 years.

November 19 is my birthday. The year was 1979 when my mother brought forth this 8 lb, 5 oz. little monster into the world. The evening in 2016 was a cold and windy one. It was about 1:30 in the morning and I was sitting next to the fireplace, reading some boring book while some boring show I’d seen a hundred times played in the background on my TV I wasn’t paying attention to. Suddenly three very loud knocks in quick succession startled me and aroused my curiosity. Who the hell would be way out here at this house by the sea at night, wanting to visit me, of all people, and in the middle of the night? I stood up out of the old wooden rocking chair and moseyed over to the front door to see what kind of person was out there knocking, thinking to myself, “This had better not be another one of those Jehovah’s Witnesses after I made the last one cry, -- nah that would be too strange for them to be out past their curfew.” Then I joked with myself, “Probably just somebody here to talk to me about my boat’s extended warranty.”

To my total surprise, it was a buck-naked redheaded woman, who, after seeing me open the door, proceeded to say “Oh, okay, I guess,” then gave me a wink before slumping down unconscious. I reacted without even thinking, reaching my arms out with just enough time to catch her before she hit the ground. I very gently placed her onto my sofa in the living room and quickly retrieved my vintage Star Wars blanket from my closet down the hall and carefully covered her with it.

The next morning, just after dawn, I was in the next room over when I learned she was awake, from the humming in a beautiful voice – I didn’t know how or why, but this strange woman on my couch was humming my favorite song, “Hotel California.” I kind of brushed that off, reasoning that this was a very popular song so it’s only logical for many others to also have that as one of their favorites.

Her first decipherable words upon waking were “Hungry.” There was a lot of mumbling and grunting sounds before that, and I don’t think she was even trying to speak English. So, I ran down to the little bakery and grabbed a few bagels for us that would suffice for breakfast. She took one bite of the Jalapeno one and spit it all over my couch. “Gross shit!” was the exact phrase I believe she used. She was a much bigger fan of the Strawberry cream cheese bagel I offered her before grabbing a paper towel to clean up her spewed-out mess before it stained my couch.

After scarfing down the bagel in record time (I’m not exaggerating, I seriously believe she had to beat all the bagel-eating times in the Guinness Book, if they have a category for that), she started coughing and pointing to her throat and then pointing to the empty glass on the coffee table next to the couch. I was able to figure out she needed some water to drink pretty fast, so I took the glass and dashed to the kitchen and filled it with tap water. She took a gulp of it, then proceeded to spew that out, this time all over the coffee table. “What the hell? Don’t you have a Brita filter? This tastes like ass! Ass covered in chemicals. I can’t go unfiltered tap water!”

At least now I knew she could speak in complete sentences, even if she was a bit rude and demanding, considering I’m a total stranger who welcomed her into my home and kept her safe when she was helpless. Taking a cue from Han Solo, I retorted, “Sorry, your highness, this 5-star hotel doesn’t feature Brita right now.”

“It’s okay, I’ll survive. Sorry if I sounded rude. It’s just that I’ve never been so hungry or thirsty in my life, and my taste buds are extremely sensitive. I think am a “supertaster” or have “hypersensitive tastebud syndrome” or something. Ever since I was a kid I couldn’t stand certain tastes that all the other kids had no problem eating. Like lime, spicy peppers, or chlorine in water. Makes me want to vomit. My name is Tally, by the way.” I responded, “I’m James.” She shot back, “Can I call you Jim? You look like a Jim. I bet your close friends call you Jimmy, don’t they?” I answered, “Jim is okay. Please do not call me Jimmy.”

Shortly after that weird introduction, I suggested she might be more comfortable (and we both might feel less awkward) if she went into my bedroom and got one of my sweatshirts and a pair of my jogging pants out of my dresser before we continued our conversation. Returning clothed, I now felt better asking her some questions, like “Why did you show up at my house way out here naked as the day you were born?” Her response just perplexed me even more: “Just out for a stroll. It was a nice night out. Thought I would make someone’s night.”

I didn’t get the feeling she was being straight with me about anything. Just one vague answer after another, but she was so gorgeous she had me mesmerized with every little word coming out of her mouth. I don’t even remember what we were discussing in our small talk when I brought up that it was my birthday. That was when things got really wild. She said she had a birthday present for me, took my hand, and led me over to my bed. We had the most passionate night I can recall.

But once 11:59 pm was approaching that evening, she said she must be on her way, and that she has to get back home right away. “Stop! Wait, I didn’t even get your number, how am I going to contact you?” “I’ll be in touch,” she cooed at me on her way out the door. “God, I hope so,” I thought giddily in my head. As she sauntered up the driveway, she pretended to accidentally drop a folded-up little note on the ground. I picked it up and read it, “See you next Birthday, Jim!” While the idea of waiting a full year to see this amazing woman again greatly disappointed me, it did provide me with a definite sense of anticipation and a strong hope for better days in the future.

And she would keep to her word too, every year on my birthday there would be the familiar three loud knocks on my door. Now at first, I viewed it as an odd coincidence that she first showed up on my birthday, but as the years went by, I began to view it as the Universe giving me a gift to try to make up for the recent shitty years it has thrown at me. As time went on, the days between each visit didn’t seem as agonizingly long.

Each November the 19^th, mystery woman of my dreams, Tally (reminder to myself: get her last name this visit) would show up with a different present or date night idea that involved my favorite sports teams, songs, movies, TV shows, or plays. It should have creeped me out more than it did, but I was caught up in her charismatic charm, humor, and good looks. I was smitten and ignoring all kinds of red flags.

But about 6 days after she left each time, my mind would start firing on all cylinders, going through a laundry list of those potential warning signs I had been paying no attention to: “Is this some kind of elaborate catfishing game?” “She doesn’t look like a Nigerian prince.” “Could this be a competitor trying to entrap me somehow?” “Is she delusional—or am I delusional?” Then, I would start to replay her beautiful voice humming “Hotel California” in my head, and I would once again push all those worries aside, going back to my work as a shipbuilder, or, rather, the leader of a shipbuilding company. My father, the great Alastair Thompson, had founded one of the most successful shipbuilding companies in the area, and he taught me all of his tricks of the trade. When he sadly passed, he left it all in my hands.

Now, here it is, 5 years after our first encounter and I have the full butterflies in the stomach and sweaty palms thing going on. For this time, I am determined to ask her to marry me and move here, from wherever she currently lives (Journal side note: I really do need to learn more about her life). I did remember her favorite flavor of bagel and her go-to wine. I took a shot-in-the-dark on which flowers she would like, so we’ll see how that goes. I have “Moonlight Breeze” scented candles burning throughout the house in preparation for this special night. Now I just have to wait on those lovely three knocks.

Ocean Diary Entry #33: The meeting went as expected and the plan is moving forward at a good pace. Pushing aside the twinge of guilt, I tell myself that the mission comes first, not my feelings, especially not some crush I’ve developed for a surface-dweller. “Get it together, Thalassa, you’ve been preparing for this for 5 years now – don’t go soft on me now!” I tell myself.

It has been a whirlwind five years, since my first assignment for the Society of Underwater Coven Sisters (S.U.C.S. – memo: We need to come up with a better acronym for our group). When we junior water goddesses reach a certain age, we are initiated into the adult division of the coven, but first we have to prove our worthiness by performing one of the ancient rituals. And for this, I needed a male air-breather. The filthy surface-dwellers have always disgusted me, with their raggedy suffocating “clothing” and their smug indifference toward all variety of sea life – dumping their oil and toxic wastes here, ruining our cities and homes, causing mass exodus and refugee crises in several locations around the underwater globe.

All I had to do was sucker this hapless doofus into falling in love with me over the course of 5 years, to get him ready for the final “date-night” – luring him down here into the sea for the ritual sacrifice to pacify Poseidon, or some such nonsense. I didn’t really pay attention when I was in that appeasing-the-ancient-pissed-off-gods class in my coven training. The one thing that they did drill into my head over-and-over again is that this ritual must take place on the eclipse of November 19, 2021, or else I would be disqualified and have to start all over again.

When I asked them why I needed to play with my victim for 5 years leading up to the sacrifice, the answer given was that it would help “hone your skills of seduction and allow you to refine your siren call voice to flawlessly entrap any surface-dwelling male you would like.”

I went even further, at this point obviously testing my teacher’s patience, and asked “Why would I care about entrapping these air-breathers?” The reply from the teacher was a frustrated “Because this is what we do. We are the ancient and sacred order of the siren – and you are training to become a member of the elite Society of Underwater Coven Sisters. Do not question the ancient traditions.”

I just figured it was kind of like a college sorority hazing or something. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of killing some dude, even if he was just a gross leg-walker. But I figured, whatever, if this is what it takes to get me a high-paying job and a place in high-society underwater, then by Poseidon, this dude is mine.

First, before I ever knocked on the target’s door, I had a few of my lobster and seagull friends do some reconnaissance and I made contact with his “pet” betta fish he kept in captivity in a small bowl inside his house. (What kind of asshole kidnaps and locks up an innocent fish like that?) I took careful notes as they relayed all of his likes and dislikes to me, so I’d be ready to sucker this guy into falling for me, hard and fast. The most important piece of knowledge I gained was his favorite song, which I listened to over and over and over again on Spotify to memorize the tune and lyrics.

The biggest surprise of all, which has made my mission all the more challenging, is me falling for this douchebag, at the same time he was falling for me. Believe-you-me, I never in a million years expected I’d ever fall in love with a weak air-breather, especially not one I’m supposed to be sacrificing to a god to ascend the social ladder and break free from my pathetic poor existence at the bottom of the totem pole, as they say. Shit, what am I going to do, now? I’ve already researched every possible loophole or grey area in the “sacred ancient holy sanctified scrolls of sirenkind.” There is absolutely no way for me to get out of this once I have already made the commitment to Poseidon (surprise, surprise, Poseidon is kind of a dick that way).

Well, I tried. Now I’m just going to have to go ahead and discombobulate the crap out of this guy with my feminine wiles and drag his ass down into the sea. He’ll understand, right – I just can’t go on being a lower-class citizen of the underwater world any longer. I’ve spent 200 years being poor, having my fellows and peers mock me for not making more progress in life. Surely, he won’t mind making this sacrifice for me, it’s not like he’s doing anything with his life anyway. (Oh, I forgot to mention we sirens’ lifespans are between 375-400 years) Here we go… Knock, knock, knock.

Journal Entry, November 20, by James Thompson: Another perfectly good dinner and nice shirt ruined. And now I have to call my housekeeper and have them work overtime on their day off again to clean this room up. “Such a shame. What a waste,” I say as I drag her now lifeless body down the hallway to the “library,” and then I drop her off to join the other “residents” already hanging out in there.

Yeah, I know, I have a problem and I probably should see a therapist or something, or maybe turn myself in to the authorities. But I just don’t think they would have the same appreciation I do for murdering women who turn down my marriage proposals. I admit, it is a little bit out in left field compared to what a “normal” person would do, but nothing else quite gives me the same high as murder in the evening. Granted, a couple weeks from now, when I come down from this high, I’m going to hate myself for ending the lives of all these beautiful women, but then the urge will strike and I’ll just go out and find someone new to hunt.

Emergency Meeting of the Underwater Coven Sisters, November 21: “Tonight we ready ourselves for war. For one of our sisters has been murdered in cold blood by this disgusting air-breather. Who does he think he is? He shall now feel the wrath of the siren sisterhood! Burn down his ‘quiet little house by the sea’ and his boats. See how powerful he feels then. Onward sisters! March onward to take down this bastard!”

Journal Entry, November 21, by James Thompson: Oh shit, I may have gone too far this time. I didn’t know she had sisters, a lot of mean sisters carrying torches. This may be my last journal entry. Goodbye cruel world. May the Force be with me.