250 Words: The Merlion (Part Five)

Finding the Merlion newly shorn and positive, the boy packed a waterproof bag with a few essentials for the journey such as fresh water and dried fish to eat, as well as the changes of clothes his father insisted on. 

The Merlion was then fitted with the saddle he occasionally wore to give people rides around Singapore and to Johor Baru on special days of the year.  The boy boarded his steed as navigator and they set off, waving goodbye to the assembled and hopeful masses.

Now, while the Merlion had laid down in despair and the boy had started to sort his problems out, pirates had taken over the waters around Singapore, controlling the traffic between the island and the surrounding countries for a large share of the goods transported.  

And so the journey to the Island of the Merlions began slowly and carefully as the Merlion sought to avoid being seen by the pirate’s lookouts.  The pair therefore travelled under the surface of the water, the boy using a snorkel to breathe, ready to dive deeper should the shape of the Merlion be spotted.

At one point, as the pair were passing a pirate ship, the Merlion forgot about the boy for a moment and dipped down enough for water to enter the boy’s snorkel and choke him.  The boy urgently patted the Merlion’s back and he surfaced, the boy coughing and spluttering on his back.

As he stopped a call came from above: “Halt! Who goes there?”

250 Words: The Merlion (Part Four)

At the zoo the boy found the keeper, now semi-retired and training his successor.  Since hearing of the Merlion’s condition he had begun searching through his belongings for what he hoped would be the key to ending it.  For, like the boy, he believed it was time to find another Merlion.

He had come to call the affair, “Singapore’s Shame“, though the sin, he ultimately felt, was his.  Even though he’d not been the only one to know, that he’d been encouraged to keep quiet because, “The Merlion was their miracle, a blessing for Singapore.”

Many years before, the keeper had led an expedition to find animals to bolster the zoo’s collection.  All around South East Asia they had travelled capturing specimens to take back home.  During the voyage they had sought refuge from a storm in a sheltered natural harbour on an unchartered isle.  Inland, in a sort of secret sea water pool, they discovered a pack of Merlions. 

The keeper snuck up on them in the dead of night and took a Merlion cub for the collection (only one did he dare, not wanting to disturb these fearsome looking creatures) and they left the island soon after before the cub’s family could do anything.

As he and the Merlion grew, as the Merlion began to talk, grew up and left for the seas, the keeper began to regret his decisions and his lies.  And so now he gave the boy a map charting the Island of the Merlions.

250 Words: The Merlion (Part Three)

“You’re lonely, aren’t you, Mr Merlion?  You need a friend to patrol our waters with.  And, I think, a girl Merlion.”

“Yes, young one, you are most correct.  I have grown so lonely out in the sea.  I really enjoy my work, my role here, but it… it’s not enough anymore when once it was.”

“I see.  But what can we do to help?  We learned in school that you are the only one.”

“That’s what they say.  I was raised here by the zoo keeper.  A most kind father to me.  Once I got too big I went out to sea and started to patrol.  He always told that I‘m the only one, that I am Singapore’s miracle creature.  

“But I’ve always suspected otherwise.  I have the dimmest, most vague memories of being with others.  More like dreams than memories, really.  Those dreams.. or memories… are so vivid.  And the keeper always flinched a little when I spoke of other Merlions, you know, and he has gotten more awkward in my presence recently.”

“Alright.  He sounds like a good place to start.  I’ll go find some people to come and cut this bedraggled mess away.  Have hope, Mr Merlion, and keep your locks from growing back while I go to see the zoo keeper.”

“Thank you, boy, thank you.  I shall try.”

So the small boy organised the Merlion’s haircut, hopefully the last of such magnitude, and went to talk to the man who knew of the Merlion’s beginnings. 

≤140 Characters, or Tweet Repeat: 13

Splodge was a feisty troll who could never stay still- some called him a restless soul. Really it was just that he had very itchy pants.

250 Words: The Merlion (Part Two)

One day, not long after the pirates were first seen off the coast of Singapore, a small boy approached the pool where the Merlion lay.  He had often enjoyed watching out for the Guardian of Singapore from the hill where he and his family lived and was saddened by news of the Merlion’s plight.  Moved also by the sighting of pirates, he had walked across the island to see if he could help.

He was a very intuitive young man, this boy.  All his life he’d had a way with knowing how animals felt from their facial expressions alone.  Where most people used veterinary science to explain symptoms, the boy could often tell from one look at their face or, sometimes, demeanour.

And so it was possible that he might just be the best hope for Singapore and the Merlion.

Upon arrival the boy found a great mass of hair rising out of what had once clearly been a pool; and it took several minutes of digging through to find the Merlion’s face rising just above the waterline.  A face down turned with big, sad watery eyes.  

Now many others had seen this face already and not been able to put two and two together because they thought only of the Merlion as a beast of unfailing duty; a robot if you will. The boy, however, recognised the face of his father, a widower for some four years, and the boy knew instinctively that they needed to find a Merlioness.

250 Words: The Merlion (Part One) - That's right it's Merlion March! A new part each day (two parts in one go at one point) until it's done.

“Roar!  Roar!” Spash, splash! went the Merlion, the creature that lived in the waters around Singapore, helping ships into the harbour and keeping pirates away.  He was a proud Merlion who enjoyed his job very much.  He was very proud indeed, in fact.  Too proud to admit he had grown lonely, wishing every day for company in the waters around Singapore.

As time went by he grew more lonely and, as he did, so his mane grew longer and longer until it ravelled around his tail, meaning the Merlion could no longer swim and was washed up on a Singaporean beach much to the surprise of the island’s people.

They duly cut his hair and returned the Merlion to the water only for it to happen again as the Merlion’s sadness continued and, because the Merlion saw happy couples when on land and from the sea, his mane began to grow back faster and faster until he was washing up every day and the shipping lanes were in disarray.

The people despaired.  Without the Merlion they were not safe anymore.  Every time the Merlion washed up onshore they tried hard to find out why his mane kept growing when it had not before but no answer would he give.  He only spoke to ask to be cut free.

And so it continued until the Merlion’s mane started to grow back instantly and the islanders were forced to leave him in a pool of water until they could find a solution.

250 Words: Tales from the City: Delphi the oracle

“I know exactly how I must sound.”  I can remember her saying that to me when she explained how she believed that she dreamed the future.  How she was certain, absolutely certain, that her dreams, or some of them, eventually came to be.  That, for her, deja vu was more than just a creepy feeling, it was something she’d seen before- everything from sights and sounds to the thoughts in her head and a feeling of doom had been experienced already in a dream. 

She’d thought this even before they made the news.  They made it worse.  Poor girl was determined to be more like them.  Knew she couldn’t prove anything but that she couldn’t really be proved wrong either.  Only dismissed.  Because science doesn’t really touch that sort of thing: the inner workings of the mind are a mystery.  And maybe, like them, this was evolution in action. 

So she started writing down everything she dreamed in a notebook hoping desperately that something written down would happen.  Anything.  No matter how mundane.  But nothing did.

Then the recurring nightmares started.  Scenes of her and others like her all kept asleep and wired up to screens displaying all they dreamed and uniformed people recording it all in notebooks laid out similar to hers.

These sent her over the edge and beyond our help into a paranoid world where we could no longer reach, until we didn’t know what to do anymore, until the day they came and took her away.