The top checkout operator had turned into a mermaid. How had she gotten inside him? Daniel clutched at her tail groping in the surf. Her skin began to wrinkle around the edges, each time he touched her from beneath the water. Salt burrowed into skin stinging his cheeks. He was weak as he clung to her tail which was sticky and humid.
WHO ARE YOU?, at first she had called. And he was Daniel Kendall. And he was ready for her. And he stood so tall. And he had gurgled up from the depths of the ocean through his icy shell. His grey eyes pulped and shuddered in the currents.
YOU CAN LEAVE IF YOU WANT TO. He bubbled around her knees. She shed her tail and began to wade. Was he within the ocean or was the ocean within? She was almost solid. She was almost of The Complex Shopping Complex.
I'LL WAIT. I'LL WAIT FOREVER ON THIS SILENT BEACH. She had turned from green to pink. Daniel was left hugging his own body only as he began to sink - the life-death-force surrounding him.
Mermaid into girl into seaweed into man as the sky turned to water. What were the messages they had told one another? The body rolled over and over in wave crashing fury - as the surf sucked in, then released, then sucked in to the ice cold grip of its inner cavity.
Mermaid into girl into seaweed into body - as the sky turned to sunset to fire the night into the comet of being. Daniel was with them as they connected in flight and he flipped like a sea squid into the tip of its tail. The comet passed over the ocean and into oblivion, as eyeless and formless, a body tossed listlessly, and voiceless it washed out into the sea.
