The Mermaid and the Prince (Continued from Page 4) Necile dived into the water, head foremost. Her tail flicked the surface, catching the sunlight. Abibdul was dazzled at the display of color. "Beautiful!" he said. "What an amazing creature!" Necile came to the surface again. "How lovely you are," Abibdul told her. "You are quite the fairest person I have ever seen." "And you are so handsome," the mermaid said. Then she told him how she had first seen him, how she had come every day to watch him walk upon the sands, and how empty her day had seemed when he did not come. "I did not know until then, my prince, that I loved you." "Dear creature," he said, "you are a strange one, with a girl's body and a fish's tail; yet you do have a heart. I wonder if I could come to love it ?" "You would love me," Necile told him, "if only I could go with you. If only I could come to you for just a little while, your arms around me and your lips against mine would tell you that love is near." The prince, enraptured, stepped into the water. "If you cannot come to me, then let me dwell in the water with you." "Oh, no," she said. "The sea is for those who are born to it. You could never become like me; and we have ways of living here to which you would not become accustomed. You do not have a tail, and you could not live on raw fish and seaweed. It is I who must come to you. There is only one way I can do that." "And that is" the prince interrupted. "I must go the Queen of the Ocean Depths, and there have my tail split so that I can walk about like you. I will do that, and it will give me pleasure because I will be doing it for you." "Your tail split? But that would cause you a great deal of pain." "Not when I would be doing it for you, dear prince. Yes, that I shall do. Will you go now, my prince, and let me swim to my queen? She can help me I know, for she has strength and power, and is very wise. Will you come for me here tomorrow? I shall wait here for you; and in the afternoon when the sun is setting you will come and take me with you. Until tomorrow, then . . ." "Until tomorrow, strange mermaid! You have my heart; use it for your comfort in your pain. Goodbye." Necile dived into the blue-green water; and the prince did not see her again that day, though he stood a long time looking at the sea. The Queen of the Ocean Depths sat regally on her pearl throne as she listened to Necile pour out her story of her love for Abibdul. The Queen heard of Necile's silent, unseen worship; of her growing devotion ; and finally of that day's event, the first meeting and immediate love between the mermaid and the prince. With sympathy she heard Necile's interpolation that she have her tail split, to be able to go with the prince to his palace. The Queen loved Necile, and would readily have granted her request; but it was the one thing beyond her power. As Necile finished her narrative and looked to the Queen for help, the Queen could only sadly shake her head. "No, Necile my child," she said, "you do not know how great a thing you ask. You ask it not of me, but of yourself. I could split your tail into two such legs as the land inhabitants have; that would be easily enough done. But I could not relieve the unbearable pain you would feel, nor could I bear it for you. That is why I would not cut your tail. I love you too much to allow you to suffer. You may see your prince from your home here in the water, and that I recommend; but you could go to him only in pain." Necile's face was drawn in anguish as she again implored the Queen to grant her desire. "When I came to you," she pleaded, "I realized what my request meant. I knew that I was asking for great pain. But I will bear that; it will not be greater than the pain I must feel if I cannot go to my prince. I do not think I can live if I cannot go with him. Tomorrow when the sun sets I am to be ready. I beg you now, cut my tail and let my torture begin; for I must suffer now so I can smile tomorrow." "Very well," the Queen agreed with great sadness. "You do not know what you ask, but since you are determined, I will split your tail so you can go to your prince's kingdom. Only remember, I too will feel your pain in my heart; I hope your love will be strong enough to withstand it. And this too, remember, Necile; I must tell you of a provision you do not know. You must not kiss the prince; a mermaid's kiss is death. You and he are of separate elements, he of land and you of the water. Your kiss would destroy him as well as yourself." Necile could not revoke this decree, and so retired from the presence of the Queen of the Ocean Depths to prepare for the operation that would make legs of her tail. The Queen left too, and went to her own cavern to get the knife to split Necile's tail. The mermaid soon returned ready for the operation. The Queen kissed her, wished her well, then began the incision. Mercifully, Necile fainted from the agony the biting knife caused. The Queen finished the operation, then lay the unconscious mermaid in a pool of healing water to regain her senses. Necile was waiting the next afternoon when Abibdul came. She stood on the beach smiling, her new legs covered by a gossamer gown of spun seaweed. As Abibdul approached and saw her, he broke into a run, swooped upon her, and gathered her in his arms. "Dear mermaid!" he exclaimed, "you did come!" "Yes, my prince, now I am ready to go with you." "Your new legs how do they feel ? Do they hurt ?" "They are wonderful. I can soon use them well. They are going to be much better than my tail was, and it was no pain at all to get them." But as she spoke Necile bit her lip to repress screams of agony. Her pain was constant, wracking, intense. The healing waters of her sea home were hers for the taking; yet love would not let her leave the prince. "Take me with you now," she said, "away from the water. Now that I am going, I do not want to be where I can see it. Not now, anyway. Tomorrow we will come back and think how fortunate we are to love each other. Tomorrow . . ." Abibdul carried her away across the sands, in the direction of his palace gardens. Necile was torn that night between her pain and the rapture of love. The throbbing ache where her tail had been split increased rather than lessened; so great did it become that she could not refrain from moaning softly when she was alone. But as her pain increased, so did her love; she was more than ever sure of the greatness and goodness of Abibdul. The next afternoon she was in Abibdul's garden when the prince came to her ready for the walk to the seashore. Necile leaned heavily on him as they went; every time she touched the ground seeming to be like stepping on a carpet of needle points. They walked in silence, Abibdul happy and Necile swept with pain and love. They came to the oceans edge just at sunset, as the blue hued waves were capped with gold. The water lapped the beach and murmured soft and strange (Continued on Page 22) page sixteen An Idea for an Essay or Something by Floyd Seager THE other day I thought of an idea for an essay, or a story, or an article, or something. If I had written it, it would have come as rather a shock to a lot of half-baked radio programs and their sponsors, because I intended to tell them that as far as I am concerned, Doctor Trent, Doctor Suzzy, Doctor Kate, Brenda Martin, and all their ilk whose names begin with Doctor or Brenda can go to Hell. And with them can go all the Crunchy Wunchy Corn Flakes, Sudsie Wuddsie Soap Chips, and Smoothie Woothie Face Cream that are exploited by them. My former quiet attitude toward things in general has been whipped into a state of agitation all because I must worry about whether or not the gun shot at the end of yesterdays program was to result in the death of Pretty Kitty Kellsie or the foreign spy who had been following her for months trying to find out where she had hidden the plans to the government's new airplane which her brother had designed. I was going to say that I was developing an acute case of bags under my eyes from wondering whether or not Little Elsie would be able to see after Doctor Trent (the one who's always being told to call surgery) took the bandages off her eyes. I believe that Little Elsie had just been hit by a truck driven by a gangster. Come to think of it, though, it was she who had to do without her milk because she lived on the wrong side of the tracks in a town where the milk supply was controlled by a racketeer against whom Doctor Trent was trying to get evidence. At any rate, she was certainly in a pretty mess going blind and all that sort of thing until Doctor Trent came along and performed, free of charge, the most delicate eye operation in the history of medicine. As a result of it all, Brenda decided to make up with Doctor Trent again, and that was a big load off my mind. I was going to tell them that I was sick and tired of having the networks plagued hour after hour and day after day with myriads of "human, down-to-earth, real-life dramas" that reek of sentiment and drip with emotion; and that it was damned confusing to try to keep all the marriages, doctors, and "Little Elsie's" in the right play; and that, not only were these things irritating, but they were habit forming, like opium. They get to haunt you. You swear never to listen to them again, but then you start wondering whether or not Brenda will see the man crawling through her bedroom window in time to scream for Doctor Trent, and you dash to the radio and turn it on, just in time to find out that it was only Brenda's brother who has been framed again and is being trailed by the nasty, misunderstanding police. It would be all right if it ended there, but it does not. Always at the end we hear a gunshot in the hall or a piercing scream from the direction of the library, and we know that we are trapped for tomorrow. It is about now that we hear the gloating announcer make an asinine remark like, "What will happen to Brenda now? Listen to the true-to-life story of Brenda Martin tomorrow and find out. In the mean time, kiddies, gorge yourselves with Crunchy Wunchy Corn Flakes until they stick out of your ears, for it is your loyalty to our product that makes these programs possible." Why, it's getting to a point where I'm even glad to listen to Aunt Mattie recite one of her nauseous "kitchen-tested" recipes. And a transcribed musical interlude is something to be looked forward to. Then, there is always the possibility that if I continue to listen to these nerve-cracking things, my heretofore contest-resistance will wither before the daily batterings it receives from rich-voiced announcers who offer me all sorts of nice things, even long automobiles, if I will put twenty-five words or less on the end of some sentence telling why I like Suddsie Wuddsie Soap Chips even better than I do my own mother. I might even begin to believe that Suddsie Wuddsie Soap Chips are the panacea for the hardships of the world. I might, (horror of horrors) even send away for a Little Elsie Club pin or a Junior G-Man badge. God help my reputation if I appear one day sporting a Junior G-Man badge on my lapel; it's so easy to get one. and the announcer makes it sound like so much fun. All one has to do is save Crunchy Wunchy box tops for two years, and send them, together with one hundred and seventy-five stamps (to cover costs of mailing and handling) to somebody, in care of the station to which I am listening, and they will send my club pin and my secret hand-book. The latter gives me the dubious privilege of deciphering the secret code messages which appear copiously all over the Crunchy Wunchy boxes. It was yesterday, when Doctor Trent went off the air with the sound of the police battering on the front door, that I decided to start a campaign against him and all the rest of his falsetto-voiced ilk. I decided to write them a withering rebuke which would inform them that from now on I didn't care whether or not that oriental spy filled Mother Perkins so full of holes that she looked like last month's commutation ticket; that I didn't care if Little Elsie couldn't even find a drink of water, much less milk; that I wouldn't lose another wink of sleep even if Brenda did marry the phoney count. Then I was going to command them to get off the air before Monday, and have all their problems settled, or I would tear some of the integral parts out of my radio, and tear up all the box tops I had been saving. This would signify the beginning of my campaign against them. This is what I would have told them. If I ever get time, I may write it. I wonder if Brenda will elope with the wrong man before Doctor Trent can expose him? page seventeen