A beautiful ocean, isn’t it?!
You can see it from anywhere in this village, but just between you and me, the view is the best from right here.
Surfing and swimming in the summer, fishing in the winter. We get a lot of visitors for a sleepy place like this.
That’s why we’ve got all these tourist shops now.
Bit by bit, little by little, we keep growing, and every time we build something new, we space the houses out a little bit more.
People from the nearby villages say it’s a waste of land, but with all this space, what else is there to do but waste it?!
The petty ones say it looks unsightly, like an old person’s mouth missing half its teeth, but we get all the customers, so you can hardly blame them for being jealous.
Yes, exactly, you get it. You’ve got to space out the buildings to see the ocean in between.
In the morning and evening, when the light is the brightest, the waves all sparkle like scales on a fish.
You’ve noticed, I bet. How many of the shops and inns along our bit of coast display pictures of a mermaid?
That’s right. Long ago, before this area was bustling, before the breakwaters and tidal walls, you could see this wide, beautiful stretch where the ocean met the shore. And people said it looked like a mermaid’s tail, like pale skin adorned with scales.
The sandy beach was the skin of the belly, and the ocean was the sparkling scales. And where that hill pokes out right over there was where the waist constricts. The trees hanging down from that cliff were the hair, of course, and farther along… Ah, it’s foggy now, so you probably can’t see it. What a shame. There should be a mountain there with two nice lumps, not too big. You know what those are; they’re her… Oh, listen to me go on! No shame! You know what they say about us old fishwives.
Here, see, our shop has something referencing the tale, too. Our fish platter. We call it the Mermaid Broil! Don’t worry, it’s not real mermaid. Just your standard dried mackerel, butterfish, whatever’s around. But the legend goes that a mermaid lives in this village, so anything caught in that sea must come from the mermaid’s blessing.
Have you heard such stories before? About how eating the flesh of a mermaid grants immortality? It’s a common tale. There’s different versions of it all over the place, but our version is the real one.
You see, long ago, there was a fisherman who lived in the area, and his wife passed away before him. One day, he was walking along the beach, alone and sad, when he came across a woman who had washed ashore. When he went to wake her up and help her, though, he saw that she had a huge tail, like a silver carp, instead of legs.
Well, I guess he was lonely, because the fisherman decided to save the mermaid, bringing her home with him and nursing her back to health. Who knows? Maybe she resembled his wife.
Listen, not to be too graphic, but when people get lost in that sea, they usually come out in bad shape when they finally wash ashore. From bashing up against the rocks, I suppose. The mermaid was all banged up, too, so it took a long, long time for her to get better.
All that time, the fisherman went fishing in the morning and returned to nurse the mermaid at night. It wasn’t long, however, before the people of the village caught on. But they were such good people that they decided to look after the mermaid together and started bringing medicine and food. This place has always been full of good people. I guess it’s something in the water.
However, one night, the mermaid suddenly told the people that she wouldn’t last much longer. She thanked everyone and told them to consume her flesh after she had died. Because then they would become immortal.
And so the mermaid died, and everyone ate her.
Everyone, that is, except for the fisherman who had discovered the mermaid in the first place. He set sail the next dawn, never to return.
That’s right; it’s a fairy tale. But if you lived in this village, I think you’d know. That the mermaid’s blessing is real.
Lots of cars pass through here. Back when I was a girl, I once saw a child almost get hit by a speeding car. It was going so fast. But something must have warned the boy, because he dived out of the way lickety-split, like he knew somehow. Not even a scratch on him.
Maybe when you get older, you start wanting to believe in this sort of thing, I don’t know. But once they reach a certain age, all the old-timers around here insist they dream of the mermaid. None of them have turned immortal, of course, but they still seem to believe. The dream gives them peace. They tell us that the end won’t come. That the mermaid will stave it off.
And they keep saying that right up until their final moments, when they pass with smiles of happiness on their faces. It’s not just old people, either. It’s the young ones as well. Everyone who passes away in this village. I wonder if I’ll start dreaming soon, too.
It’s true. In this village, we all pass away with a smile on our faces, even those who die in the most terrible ways.