Selkie swayed to speak hidden truths

Jim Banholzer

I was privy as to certain information regarding the Mermaid of the Bigwood. She was captured in an underwater cell video, tranquilly sipping liquid from a simmering coconut shell she discovered floating downstream. Within the tempting coconut slices was sprinkled an elderberry mead concoction, which persuaded the tastee to speak the truth three times consecutive. The trick was in the form of the question, for if the questioner were not careful he could still come away deceived. In addition, one man’s truth might not match that of another’s.

One renewing millennium as I ducked under the river’s edge for a simple splish-splash, the mermaid’s nemesis Mr. Mossinghoff, heralded this super-secret into my ear. He had recently come undone, from being ensnared spellbound in her Venus flytrap garden. I came away with a surprisingly cleaner covenant than what was expected from the foamy spring. Wanting to know and deeply believing she would speak truth, I asked the mermaid, what was the most exhilarating day of her life?

Standing beside the river, I reflected how we each have our best moments. Every fish in the sea experiences its brightest flashbulb instant. Sometimes these singular seconds illuminate all day, or imbed in head for life. Like two good sports hitting it off for the first time as fine friends, watching a younger sibling catch her first immaculate cutthroat from the Bigwood. Or for cliff rock-divers, attaining that ideal ten from their acrobatic acts into that twelve-foot opening. Maybe an X-streamed sportsperson unwinding half-piped troubles via impeccable pitch. Or a perfect called third strike to end the World Series in a game to transform people’s lives. Perhaps one Giant leaper for humankind agilely exceeding a tip-top bar, by several inches on that important jump, which for a cool second levitates gravity laws –outdoors naturally.

The mermaid must have read my mind, because she said that her favorite day was when she learned to chant alarming siren songs concerning nature. Then she backpedaled stroking upstream, tugging behind a leaky barrel of the singular serum, further defying natural order. Mr. Moss looked a bit bewildered.

My second question struck as a bolt from the blue while jogging along shore leaves. I asked the Mermaid to thrust her mischievous redhead into the grandpa-elder hollow to ask the former towering tree, what its sunniest day was. After a glistening spell, she pulled her head from the wound’s twisted vortex, with three replies scribed on woodchip endings: Through the mermaid, the elder-tree communed; that there was a day that broke open like so many others. The elder had been weeping for loss of its willowfriend over a bridge. Then a plump robin redbreast laid her eggs in its lower branches. Sensitivity nestled back in the tingling wind. Soon the elder grasped bird-by-bird songs sufficiently striking as to startle lumberjacks in tracks. Chainsaw strings pulled loose from mechanisms like useless nooses. The aura of elderberry enchantment even deflected lightning off and over to smoldering Trail Creek boulders.

With polished question number three, I pointedly asked this babe of inland sea, why were reporters were not conducting more man on the street interview questions like this across town traffic: What was your shiniest moment sir? What is the secret talent of your children? In what arenas do you foresee glimmers of hope after the slow crash, we are inside the bubble of?

The mermaid flipped me out a third time, by singing, “it is because in this realm most media outlets –including many ‘alternatives’ are controlled by vast underworld networks, where power frequently pollutes spirit. To herald some shining news without being too sappy, courageous captains will have to continue dipping into a sea of metaphor and fairy tale to convey veiled messages of valor.”

Then, she continued her watery whisper, spouting these prime Tolkien words, “There are truths that are beyond us, transcendental truths about beauty, truth, honour, etc. There are truths that man knows exist, but they cannot be seen, they are immaterial but no less real to us. It is only through the language of myth that we can speak of these truths. We have come from God and only through myth, through story telling, can we aspire to the life we were made for with God.”

This was enough hearkening for one day. Last, I heard the Mossman took a cue from an Amish nymph and adorned a plaque, speckled with moss that certifies his historical forgiveness of the Mermaid. He now chases a Lorelei on the north side of trees out Warm Springs where sometimes they both can be seen swinging from the same vines.

http://www.woodriverjournal.com/articles/2007/05/08/features/sockdolagers/sockdolagers.txt