Pipe Dream

The newspapers arrived this morning when I had just made my morning coffee. I almost made two. One for me and the other for Martin but he was still sat in his chair, eyes closed and leaned back in his study chamber.

The museum attorneys will be here soon to redeem his assets and his body for the family funeral service. The body is still wet, hair pasted to the forehead, and very much bloated from how long he was submerged in the tanks of his own menagerie.

As his faithful housekeeper and lover, I’ve done my best to preserve my late master’s legacy.

They could ransack this house and Martin’s menagerie leaving the place looking close to a graveyard. All that he conquered and preserved in his lifetime exploited, as if it means nothing to them.

Unlike other collectors in the district, Martin lived his life collecting living things. Some he kept alive, but most of them were “beautifully dead”, as per his words.

He would spend nights tending to his collection, studying them and their behaviours, jotting down the smallest details in his journal. Those entries were a testament to his life’s work, and his obsession for the strange and the odd.

One of the most unusual creatures in Martin’s collection was a nameless, winged creature. The closes species that resembled it was a butterfly, I supposed. But Martin was adamant that it was, most definitely not, a butterfly. What would I know about these specimens? He caught it from a swamp, somewhere along the Straits.

He called it the Phantom Wing, for its wings were not quite there but under certain lighting conditions, one would be able to catch its glass-like flutters. In Martin’s bizarre imaginations, the Phantom Wing had a close resemblance to a human face. In the end, he spread its wings and put it on display for the museum and got paid handsomely for it.

My favourite among his collection has got to be a plant. Just a leafy plant, so vivid and blue, with dark, stark veins that were almost black. Its colours are maddening and vibrant that every time I look at it, I fight the urge to eat its leaves.

I may have ingested it once or twice and have prepared it for Martin too. He loved it and especially requested for them during sleepless nights.

The plant was a gift to me. A token of appreciation for how well I took care of him in bed, and of his house. Martin had no name for it, he merely thought I should have it, and so I have called it the ‘Blue Whisper’ ever since.

Martin was many things. Some thought he was a genius, they paid him well. Most avoided him for a freak. But favourite thing about him is his obsession and passion for the things he loved dearly.

Things could have been so different if he had made wise decisions. And that’s why I had to keep some of his more valuable assets. Like his journal entries from that night. The night that changed everything.

6^th Sun of Summer

The museum associates are revising their patron list, and they want something beyond comprehension if I wish to keep my sponsorship from the committee. 

Everything I’ve brought in for exhibition have been beyond comprehension to them. I’m running out of ideas. To find something even more bizarre is absurd. They mean to fail me and cancel my sponsorship.

I should go home and figure this out in solitude. I must figure it out. I simply cannot lose their sponsorship when I’ve done a lot and set foot into too many unspeakable situations to acquire all that I have sitting in my study chamber now.

When I went home, Anne was there. I did not want to speak to anyone, but she has a way of making me open up to her when I don’t want to. I don’t know how she does it.  

She convinced I shouldn’t head to my study right away, and that the bedroom could offer some thinking space. She was right.

When I finished, the worries came right back, rushing into my head. I could tell Anne about it, but what would a seventeen-year-old housekeeper would understand about my problems. She absentmindedly looked out the window at the waves crashing by the cliff.

That’s when it occurred to me. There’s nothing as beyond comprehension to humans, as the unchartered waters of Peninsula.

There must a reason why no one’s allowed to sail across. It’s because someone’s done it and they must have not liked what they saw.

I’m not like everyone else.

I told Anne to pack my tools and some portable empty jars. But I needed to smoke her homemade tobacco before I make the important call. I need to be charming if I’m going to be doing something illegal.

I took one long inhale and rang up the Deep Voyagers & Co. I needed to book myself a passage if I’m digging the dirt in the deep sea of the Peninsula.

They disagreed, naturally, but there really isn’t much that my father’s name can’t do in the business world. I am to arrive before dawn at the wharf to board to avoid questions. Cargo ships are not common in the wharf.

7^th Sun of Summer

I arrived at the Bloomsmead Pier. The sound of the waves lapping against the pier dock is almost too peaceful to be doing something illegal, but the ship was waiting.

The captain was strict about signing the disclaimer forms. His terms clearly exempting the company from any accusations or compensations for what may incur during the passage.

The captain also said that they are anticipating a thunderstorm tonight. Not in a manner of speaking about the weather, but as caution. He did not look like he appreciates my art.

But I really appreciate this little cabin that he’s given me. Not much in here. Just a desk, and that’s it. And yes, a chair too.

The ship set sail as soon as I boarded, and we are now in the open sea. The reserved open water of the Peninsula.

-

I’m awoken by the thunder rumbling. It’s fascinating how accurate the captain was with his predictions.

However, I hear the thunderclaps booming around, but there is also a faint, almost imperceptible hum. Like a breathy whisper, yet a symphony.

Maybe, I leave the cabin and try to discern the source of the sound.

Not the wisest thing to do, but it is what I came here to do, and this trip is too expensive to return empty-handed.

The thunderstorm is now in full rage and the captain instructs me to stay in the cabin. But I am going out to find out this persisting hum.

It’s strange how the crew aren’t bothered even in the slightest.

Maybe I should smoke something before doing something reckless. I’ll write any progress when I’m back. If I’m back.  

-

I have it. I have the one that is going to save my career. Oh, this is going to do more than save my career.

The storm died down so suddenly, and a crewman announced something afloat by the starboard side of the ship. I had to know so I ventured out into the deck.

At first glance, I assumed it was a woman. It was a woman. However, not a mundane one.

Her upper body bare, and her skin was pale against the dark water. I approached it despite the protests from the captain, ready to take responsibility for my actions. They refused to lend me one of their boats, and of course I had to cut a fiscal deal with him.

I rowed in the open water, and up close she looked like what I know a woman would look like, but below her waist it was much different. No legs save for long, sinuous tail, covered in scales. Scales that were dim, like that of a floating dead fish.

I was ready to lose my hands when I touched her cold, clammy flesh but I did not anticipate her to catch my hands so quickly.

In the silence of the after storm, she gasped. Each word a stuttering of long hum that I had to lean in to listen. “Save . . . my . . . child . . .”

I would not have noticed it. The swollen stomach that was almost see through and translucent. The little flesh of life that the mer had been harbouring in her.

But it dawned on me a little too late after she breathed her last breath.

If I cannot bring in a mer creature dead, I’ll bring one that might grow to become one. Give the museum, not an exhibition, but a whole show.

I waited no longer than a moment and plunged my hands into the dead mother’s belly and earned my prize.

The lump of wet flesh, writhed in my hands. It already shows faint traces of hands, and maybe even something like a tail. I have it safe in one of the jars that Anne had so diligently packed for me.

I did not expect my work would be done so quickly, now I must make another deal for the captain to turn the ship around. There is much paperwork that needs to be done.

7^th Moon of Summer

Anne was surprised. She was mortified to say the least. It’s safe to say she’s not very keen, but prepared my study and my pipe and tobacco so I could get to work. She’s an understanding woman.

Now, I must prepare a space for it to grow. I cannot present the foetus to the museum as it is.

7^th Sun of Summer

I can’t go on without my special smoke, it keeps me going. I must say this newfound responsibility is beginning to take a toll on my sleep schedule since there’s been a significant growth to the foetus. The hands and the tail are looking more pronounced than last night.

The growth rate of a mer foetus cannot be subjected to that of a human. As per the field guides, aquatic mammals tend to have different life cycles. Of course, there isn’t one to explain mercreatures, so this is the best reference I have so far.

But I need to wait it out before I notify the museum. They will have to wait.

-

I find myself having strange dreams and lucidity when I find what little time to take quick naps.

Always the same dream of a woman, with a swell belly, walking toward me. Nothing daunting about it, except she has accusation in her eyes.

I have nothing to account for when I am not the one to forsake the mother. In fact, I have saved her offspring.

7^th Moon of Summer

My study reeks of smoke. I must take a break from it once this is all over. Perhaps even get some sleep too.

Weeks have passed and the foetus now looks nothing like the lump of flesh that I found in the Peninsula waters. The slits it had for eyes is now large and resembles that of a fish. Its mouth now has faint traces of razor-sharp teeth in its mouth. But the most prominent part of its growth spurt is the formation of scales.

Fascinating, unlike any water specimens I’ve ever seen.

However, the previous glass jar won’t be a good fit anymore, so I had Anne prepare the largest tank and fill it with water and some seawater solution to let the baby acclimate.

7^th Sun of Summer

It’s conscious I can tell. It’s no longer merely floating in the water. Its eyes can see.

As I’m writing my entry, it is looking at me. Surreal.

So much awareness and realisation in its eyes. But nothing about it is domestic.

I can tell it’s trying to break free from the glass.

-

A moment ago, it slapped the tank wall with its tail. Marvellous. The power it can conjure with its tail at such a young stage in its life cycle is the kind of strength that’s beyond human comprehension. Those tanks are one of the strongest builds.

 If its mother had been well and alive, I could have very well died in the ocean.

7^th Moon of Summer

I woke up to the same humming melody. It’s calling me. She’s calling me. “It’s a girl,” Anne had told me early on before it showed any signs of growth. But now it was the size of a human child and there she was

looking into my eyes.

An unusual feeling surge in me. I think new fathers may have felt something close to this.

The way one would want to hold their child for the first time. I’m anxious but I can’t shy away from her when she’s all I’ve ever known.

Martin died believing himself to be a hero. A saviour. A father to something that existed nowhere but in his head. A sea creature of his own imagination.

But death had come to him from within. From the pipe that he smoked so diligently. From the same plant that he gifted me when I announced I was with child. His child. Our child. The child that he had outright denied.

The Blue Whisper being a hallucinogenic was an accidental discovery from when I had smoked it myself.

Believe me, I did not think it would send Martin into such a vivid delirium. When I raised the dosage for his smoke, I only meant to give him a quick death before I inherit his assets for my daughter.

No matter, the whole night he spent jotting down these journal entries, when he conjured his adventure on the bed, he spent his last hours with me and his unborn child.

I had to do some writing, too. One that I would want Martin’s family attorney to see.