The Law Concerning Mermaids

There was once a law concerning mermaids. My friend thinks it a wondrous thing - that the British Empire was so thorough it had invented a law for everything. And in this law it was decreed: were any to be found in their usual spots, showing off like dolphins, sunbathing on rocks - they would no longer belong to themselves. And maybe this is the problem with empires: how they have forced us to live in a world lacking in mermaids - mermaids who understood that they simply were, and did not need permission to exist or to be beautiful. The law concerning mermaids only cause mermaids to pass a law concerning man: that they would never again cross our boundaries of sand; never again lift their torsos up from the surf; never again wave at sailors, salt dripping from their curls; would never again enter our dry and stifling world.

by Kei MILLER, in "A LIGHT SONG OF LIGHT", 2010

(photo taken from Internet; edited by Armando TABORDA)

(1st edition, 2014; 2nd edition, 2017; 3rd edition, 2018)