Pretty Fish

Writober 2025: Day Twenty Mermaids>Response Post

🔗Links in the Table of Contents are Jump links to my responses to each of the challenges
🐦‍⬛This is original work created by Maria L. Berg and this post counts as copyright. All rights reserved.

🎃OctPoWriMo 🦇Writober Flash Fiction 👻Halloween Photography Challenge

Today’s Theme: Mer-creatures

These are my responses to the prompt post for Day 20 of Writober: Part Man Part Fish

OctPoWriMo

Saltwater Blessings

May the moonlight remind us 
the tide has both ebb and flow
that the height of high tide 
is the moment the pull
of low tide begins

May the salt not sting
your eyes, dry your skin
or split your lips, but hold
you floating, feeling at one
with the rise and fall.

May the wind carry the sirens’
song far from your ears
and let every desire
be free of danger.

May you delight in the crest 
of every wave
and ride it until it dissipates 
on warm sands.

Writober Flash Fiction Challenge

The Lady on the Train

I only meant to rest my eyes for a minute. There was something about the rocking of the train when it went through the tunnels that made my eyes heavy. When I woke up, I didn’t see anyone else in the car. It was disorienting. It appeared I had missed my stop. I had missed all the stops to the end of the line at the beach, and now the train was headed back. 

The overhead lights flickered. I smelled salt-air and wet fabric. Then I saw her at the back of the car. She was hard to miss in a poofy pink chiffon full-length dress and a turquoise blue face. Her whole face was bright blue. The lights flickered again and she was four rows closer. She had perfectly painted make-up, sparkly gold eyelids, perfect curls in her deep black hair that glowed blue in the light, but she was dripping water from her dress. A tiny stream came toward me along the aisle. Since we were the only ones in the car, and I was most likely staring, I tried to be friendly and smiled. She did not respond. 

The lights flickered and somehow she was sitting across from me on my left. The whole horizontal bench across from me had a sheen as if it had been wiped with a wet sponge. I got a glimpse of a large fish tail before she tucked it under her dress. She pulled a spray bottle from her bag and sprayed her neck and face. She shook like a wet dog, then squealed like a dolphin. 

Then she began to sing. She locked eyes with me and I felt like I was in an undertow, pulled under and drowning in her eyes, but wanting to stay swirling in her song. The lights flickered and she was right next to me, dripping on me, smiling with the pointed teeth of a lantern fish. I don’t think she was being friendly.

Halloween Photography Challenge

Continuing this sightings series, I followed yesterday’s process, cut a paper filter of a mermaid’s head and tail fin then added a plastic filter with green and yellow coloring to add color and texture.