The Aging Process of a Mermaid | Lindsey Henderson

The Aging Process of a Mermaid

Ever since humans first discovered mermaids they have worshipped them for their beauty. They’re known for their long shiny hair, their flawless skin, and their strong powerful tails. Very few, however, know the legend of how these creatures obtain their beauty. If you’ve never seen a newborn mermaid, be grateful. It’s not a pretty sight. They kind of look like human newborns: bald with alien looking eyes. Except newborn mermaids are slimmer and covered in scales, with a tail instead of legs. Newborn mermaids are hideous and if you saw one you’d think: “How do these things grow into the beautiful creature we’re used to seeing?” The answer is their mother. Childbirth for a mermaid is painful enough, but it only gets worse as their child grows up. From the moment they’re born, a mermaid slowly begins to gain beauty. They do this by sucking it from the mother. It’s a magical connection between a mermaid and her daughter, and a natural process for them. The older the daughter gets the more beauty she sucks from her mother. As the daughter’s hair grows long, and her skin starts to glow, the mother loses her hair and gains wrinkles. The mermaid’s body begins to shrivel up until there’s almost nothing left. When a mermaid reaches the prime of their beauty which is on her twentieth birthday, the daughter will eat her mother and gain whatever resources are left. A ceremony is held, of course, so everyone can gather around and witness the mother’s last minutes alive. The last thing a mermaid sees as she looks into her daughter’s eyes is her daughter’s fangs growing and becoming visible, before a bloody feeding frenzy erupts and the water becomes red. It’s a cruel way to die, but it’s a mermaid’s natural way of life and the order of how things work. For Katalina her own expiration date was fast approaching, and she was terrified. In her youth Katalina had been gorgeous. She had long curly brown hair and eyes as blue as the ocean her people swam in. She was admired by everyone, and chased by multiple mermen. When she found a mate and became pregnant she knew what she was signing up for. Part of her wanted to fight him off to avoid it all, but it’s a mermaid’s instinct to reproduce, so Katalina gave into her natural desires and signed her death sentence. As soon as she gave birth and looked at her daughter, Katalina knew all she’d feel from now on was pain. Her daughter already possessed the deep blue eyes her mother had, and was already growing hair before she was one year old. Katalina named her daughter Luna and loved her with all her heart, even though she knew what was coming. Twenty years was still far away though; she had plenty of time to enjoy her life. Sadly her life would be filled with anything

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but joy. Luna was even prettier than her mother had been, and before she even reached five years old, Katalina felt her beauty being sucked out of her. It started out slow, she’d find gray hair here and there, a chin whisker would appear that she’d have to pluck. As soon as Luna turned ten however, the process sped up rapidly. Katalina began to lose her teeth, then her hair. Her skin began to wrinkle and not a day went by when she wasn’t in pain. Luna was sucking the beauty from her mother so fast that Katalina sometimes thought she’d die before they even had the ceremony. By the time Luna turned nineteen Katalina was bald, toothless, and close to being blind. Her once beautiful blue eyes had clouded over to where all she saw were shapes and blurs. Meanwhile Luna had grown radiant with beauty. Her hair was black as coal, her eyes the same deep blue shade her mother used to have, and her skin and tail glowed with perfect health. Her smile was filled with warmth, but when she looked at her mother it quickly turned to a look of scorn. She saw her mother as weak and disgusting. She didn’t remember her mother as beautiful, just this old sack of bones that had been holding her back her whole life. She was days away from her twentieth birthday and she couldn’t wait. Katalina, even though she was in deep pain, still loved her daughter, and tried to hold onto her. Even though her sight was slipping away she could see her daughter’s beauty and it reminded her of her own youth. She reached out a hand to touch Luna’s face. “You’ve grown into such a beautiful woman, just like I once was. You are my whole life, and even though I’m dying, it fills me with joy that I was able to give you such beauty.” Luna pulled away from her mother’s touch and sneered at her. “You were never beautiful, you are nothing. You think you gave me this gift that I should be grateful for. I took what is rightfully mine and there’s nothing you can do about it you old hag!” Luna swam away, and Katalina sat filled with hurt and shock. She had given her whole life and soul to her daughter, how could she talk to her with such hate? As nighttime came and Katalina laid awake, her feelings of pain and sadness turned to feelings of resentment and anger. Why should she sacrifice her life for her daughter? She wasn’t even grateful! It was her daughter’s fault she had become this withered, despicable creature and she didn’t even appreciate it! The next morning Luna turned twenty, and the ceremony took place. The colony gathered around the stone platform as Katalina and Luna were escorted down the aisle. Katalina had grown so weak she could barely swim. Luna had drained almost all the beauty and life from her, and now she was about to suck everything away. Katalina’s heart was filled with fear and a deep rage that had been buried so deep she didn’t know she possessed it until this moment. She didn’t want to die; she wanted to be young and beautiful again. Luna didn’t deserve to take her life. In that moment Katalina did something no mermaid had ever dared to do. Defying the natural order Katalina turned on her daughter and attempted to

strangle her. But she had grown so weak that she was only able to choke her for a few seconds before the mermen guards easily pulled her off and forced her to lay on the stone platform where they chained her down. Luna didn’t even have time to react to her mother’s outburst before it was handled, but once the realization hit her that her mother had tried to kill her, any guilt she had perhaps felt about this ceremony vanished. She swam over to Katalina and hovered over her. Her mother’s eyes were filled with panic now, and as Luna approached she made one last attempt to plead for her life. “Please Luna, don’t do this! I’m your mother!” Luna looked at her mother with cold, emotionless eyes and in their reflection Katalina saw herself and remembered her own ceremony. She too had eaten away at her mother’s flesh heartlessly without even batting an eye. She had been cruel to her mother, and now her time had come for the same thing to happen to her. She realized she was trapped in a repeating cycle of nature, and no matter how hard she might have tried, it was always going to end like this. Luna continued to look at her mother as she opened her mouth and showed her fangs. Katalina stared into her daughter’s eyes as she felt her child’s fangs rip into her throat and tear at her flesh. The pain didn’t last as long as she feared it would, and in moments her cloudy eyes faded into darkness as the ocean turned red with blood once again.

“The Aging Process of a Mermaid” is a folktale that tells what happens to a mermaid when it reaches old age. This story serves as a metaphor for how society and the economy treat our elderly.

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