Chapter One
Coincidently, I was on land when it happened. It was late in the evening, past Maria's bed time. Chiara, Andrea's wife, was reading a magazine, while he was zapping through the channels. I was on Andrea's laptop, reading one of his recent research papers about the effect of global warming on the sea. In the Pacific Ocean, the coral reefs were dying. Andrea stopped zapping, and said sarcastically: "Look, another mermaid discovery!" Of course, that was another of those cheap hoaxes for the stupid. I looked up from the computer screen, just to confirm the grainy image of a shape under water, when I saw indeed a mermaid on the screen.
She was sitting in a tub and screaming, and then her tail popped out.
I looked at Andrea, who looked at me. Chiara didn't look up from her magazine, but Andrea turned up the volume. The headline read: "New species discovered". A local TV station in Seattle at the Pacific coast had the footage of that mermaid in the tub. I went to Google and did a quick search. Yes, she was all over the internet already.
There was a reporter in a small town named Bristol Cove, where the mermaid was last seen. Obviously, the American military was looking for her.
"What a load of crap!" Andrea said, when he noticed his wife watching the newscast. I didn't say anything. I somehow felt hot and cold at the same time, and somehow I had the urge to run out of the room, into the ocean. But I resisted that instinct.
"That's not real," Chiara stated.
"Of course not," replied Andrea, switching off the TV.
Later, when Chiara had already gone to bed, I was outside. Andrea came out.
"What do you think?" he asked.
"She is real."
"You think? Everything is fakeable today."
"Yes, but if it's a fake, they got all the details right. Her eyes, her tail. Even if this is a fake, the one who did it must know," I told him.
"I don't know. I hope it's over and forgotten until tomorrow."