Dialogue #11

He spent all his time at the shore
as his mother had before him

and the seal maiden would look out
at him from the cottage

and be afraid that something beyond her
power was going to take him from her.

And something did.

It was on a hot afternoon
and the seal maiden lay asleep.

The boy played on the floor
beside her for a while

and then, growing bored, began to search
under the seal maiden's bed

for some new thing to entertain him.

First, he only found seashells
and an old fishing net.

He played with these for a while,

pretending he was some beautiful fish
trapped in a web at the bottom of the sea.

He wriggled and rolled in the net
right under his mother's bed

until a sack fell out
from the boards of the bed.

Of course he opened it

and found a white skin
of the softest thread and skin.

He wasn't surprised at finding it.
It seemed familiar.

And when he put it on, it fitted perfectly.

And when he looked at himself
in his mother's looking glass,

for the first time he recognised himself.

"So this is who I really am!" the boy said,

smiling at the white seal
who smiled back at him.

And as every creature will
sooner or later obey its nature,

the seal boy obeyed his
and ran for the waves.

The seal maiden woke with a cry on her lips,
saw the empty sack on the bed beside her,

and raced to the shore

just in time to see the
sleek, white neck of her son

dive beneath a high, grey wave.

When Red Brian came in
from the sea that evening,

and the seal maiden told him the boy
had disappeared into the waves,

Red Brian keeled over in a faint.

He woke sobbing three hours later.

The seal maiden tried to comfort him,

told him the boy wasn't lost,
had only discovered his sealskin,

and made away with it
into the wide, cold sea.

Red Brian told her to stop raving.
The boy was lost, drowned.

A seven year old child could
not fight those Atlantic breakers.

They both walked out to the shore,
Red Brian looking for the body of his son,

the seal maiden straining
for a glimpse of wet, white fur.

Neither saw any sign of him.

Things were quiet in
that house for a long time.

Then, something marvelous happened.

It was one of those nights
where the moon has the sky to herself

and she highsteps across it
to some inaudible moon music.