The Little Mermaid

Abstract: A modernized retelling of Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale, The Little Mermaid follows the story of fifteen year old Rin in modern day Tokyo. Living alone while paying the debts her deceased father owed the Yakuza, Rin tries to survive and make ends meet. Day and night, the young woman dreams of the day she can be free from the vicious cycle of an impoverished and indebted life. Things finally turn out for the better when, on her 16th birthday, she meets the man who could end it all.

Chapter 1: A Dream

"You, poor little mermaid, have tried with your whole heart to do this too. Your suffering and your loyalty have raised you up into the realm of airy spirits, and now in the course of three hundred years you may earn by your good deeds a soul that will never die."

Excerpt from The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen

Unlike most people, Rin knew that fairy tales are not happy. They are not perfect. They began as a very grim tradition, one to honor the mourning widows and orphaned children. It was a tradition meant to bring fear in the most blissful of hearts, and redemption to the most pitiful of souls. They tell of suffering when there was none to be had, and of grief so tragic, that not even tears could bring warmth to the cold, lamenting soul. But like most people, Rin was unaware. For how could she not be? How could she have known that these tragedies, these melancholic pangs which gnaw in the bravest of hearts, could begin with the wild innocence of blissful dreams? Indeed. In most fairy tales, sadness begins with just one dream.

Tokyo, Japan. December 2011

The neon sign of the noodle house flickered on and off. Its bright orange arrow pointed to a ramshackle eatery smoking with the steam of newly cooked broth. Every now and again, the fluorescent arrow would buzz as it vaporized incoming snowflakes, making the dilapidated noodle house even more conspicuously ugly among the array of tiny restaurants and dim sum carts.

The street was crowded with parked cars and bicycles locked to telephone booths and street lamps. Rin always thought it amusing that the street still had telephone booths, one every several yards apart. Unlike most wards in Tokyo, the neighborhood remained impoverished, frozen in the time of its potential growth. The affordable standard of living allowed an influx of minimum waged workers and otherwise noted members Tokyo's less privileged residents. Yet with all the cramped coziness of this slummy street, the neighborhood remained bare of people. The only visible forms of life were Rin, taking a seat in the noodle house, and the sleep-deprived chef, who is mechanically boiling noodles for his lonesome customer.

"Arigato," she chirped as the chef placed the bowls in front of her. Rin mixed nonchalantly toyed with her food as her mind wandered into her worries and regret.

The landlord would want the rent soon… She eyed the noodle chef's tip jar, adjacent to the cash register on the far end of his booth. Rin wasn't tempted to steal, but the presence of money brought creases on her forehead, and she morosely wondered whether this would be her last meal or not.

Her hands wandered to her lower left coat pocket, where she felt the bulge of her old flip phone. Back before she dropped out of school, her friends always teased her for having a laughably primordial cell phone, but it's all she had, and all she needed. Her cell phone had been off for a while now. Its incessant ringing had bothered her, and she didn't have the courage to answer the calls.

"Better to eat your noodles warm than cold."

Rin woke suddenly from her bitter daydreams and turned to the man next to her.

He was a suspicious character, dressed in a worn out trench coat. His naked chin bore the stubs of a freshly shaved beard, and his long nose was crooked and misshapen. The man wore a fedora stooping down to his coat's collar, and everything about him was covered. Rin also noticed that the odd man wore sun glasses.

It's 11:30 at night…

She eyed him apprehensively, unsure how to react to his disquieting appearance.

"It's a pretty cold winter. Wouldn't you rather be warm with food in your belly, and a bundle of clothes?" The man smiled, his lips unveiling his crooked, yellow teeth. It wasn't until the chef appeared with his noodles did Rin finally realize that he was still talking to her, while she remained a muted dolt with forgotten manners.

"Yes, you're right. I should take your advice." Rin lowered her head, gazing only into her noodles. She felt ashamed at how rude she had just bin.

The cloaked man laughed heartily at her response. Turning back to his meal, he groped the bowl with his gloved hands and slurped down his noodles. When he finished, he wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve and turned his attention back to the absent minded girl.

"Better to savor strength, young lady. Warmth is a rare and precious thing, transient against the cold. Winter is coming."

Rin gave him a puzzled look, and with that, the man got up and left. His figure disappeared with the shadows, away from the iridescent neon sign of the noodle house. Glancing at the time, Rin realized too that she should make her leave. Hurriedly, she slurped her noodles as well and left the money on the table. It was time to go home.

Rin stopped before she entered the corridor. Her meager apartment was all the way across the hall, but she didn't dare move. In front of her door stood the silhouette of a stalwart man, waiting vigilantly for the young woman's return. His dark suit melded into the dimness of the hallway, with the bright light shining against the buckle of his belt, and a pistol sticking out of its holster.

He smiled when he heard the click of her boots and immediately pulled out a cell phone from his suit. "Boss, she's here."

The young woman slowly approached with trepidation. Her perspiring hands hid within her pockets, shaking violently in her clothes. "I…" she stammered, "I… paid… l-…"

The man marched quickly towards her and raised his hand. Before Rin could cower underneath him, his arm swiftly moved and backhanded her, leaving her face red and swollen. "This is your last warning."

Tears welled in her eye lids, soaking in her mascara and make up. Gray lines slithered down the bruise of her cheek as she stifled her choking sobs.

The Yakuza grinned, feeding off her pain and fear. "Now, why don't you be a good girl, and do the boss says. You wouldn't want to end up like your father, would you?"

She nodded obediently, groveling on the floor before him. "Please sir, I try my best. I do! My jobs…-"

Slap.

The man backhanded her once more, this time giving her opposite cheek the honor of a fresh and inflamed bruise. Rin didn't notice that his other arm had a Rolex wrist watch, and that his fingers were bedecked with golden rings. Her hand touched her cheek, fresh with burning blood.

He guffawed at her pathetic form. "No excuses. If your jobs don't pay you well…" He crouched down to be closer to her face, and cupped with his firm hands her scarred cheek. "There's always the job Boss offered you. It's been known that he's keen to… fresh meat."

Rin blushed at the suggestion and her lowered her eyes once more to the ground. She sat frozen. I don't want to be a whore…

He chuckled once more at her before rising to make his leave. "You still owe eight million yen. If the Boss doesn't receive the payment in two weeks… hmm, well, Boss is always looking for fresh meat." He laughed at the repeated threat, and even after he left, Rin could hear his maniacal laughter echoing dissonantly in the hallway. Chills went down her spine as she cried and huddled against the hallway's corner.

She dreamt she was far in the ocean, basking in cerulean waves crashing against coarse rocks jutting out of the surface. The water was pristine, clearer than the heavens above, and the clouds languorously hovered near the radiant sun. Rin stayed afloat on the waves, her form naked and glistening with emerald beads of the salty sea. Her hair, ethereal in the water, shimmered with the sun's crystalline glow. Everything was beautiful. She was beautiful.

Her body floated for hours and hours, until finally, she came upon a sandy shore. The beach was white and pure, no rocks or coral littered within the golden dunes. It felt soft against her feet, and smooth like the petals of a summer rose. She crawled away from the water, and further into the alabaster sands. The ocean breeze came and went, entangling itself within her hair. Heaven, she thought. She could lay there forever.

For a while, the breeze hummed a lullaby, and she felt the wind's nocturne singing gently into her ears, but when the song ended, the sun vanished.

The sky never reddened, neither did it darken. Rather, it seemed veiled, with its sapphire color fading into gray. The clouds emanated with a pallid light, so luminous it shone brightly against her eyes. The clouds grew thicker now, more somber, as if ushering a storm.

Rin sat against the sand, which grew frigid with time. She hugged herself, trying to keep her bare body warm. Tears sprang from her eyes, and before long she was calling out for help, but she heard no echo. When the storm seemed to come at least, no rain or wind howled. Instead, snow fell.

The prismatic flakes descended with a lachrymose grace, as if they tears frozen in the heavens. They fell in millions onto the shore, and before the long the whole ocean was covered with a thin blanket of snow. Winter is coming.

"Remember…"

Rin turned around, looking for the source of the voice. She heard a man groaning in pain, somewhere behind her. She had no idea where he was, or who, but she felt his lungs tightened by frozen water, and his body bruised by cruel boulders and unrelenting waves. It was as if she was drowning in his stead.

Searching, she finally found a man buried underneath the snow. His body was ragged, torn and beaten by a storm which never passed. His hair, a pale blue shade was soaked, but not frozen. On his head she saw a crescent fading into his ivory skin. He felt cold, and Rin could sense the fire in his heart waning with his breath.

She didn't know why, but Rin felt heartbroken. Her chest throbbed in anguish, and her eyes welled up once more. Her arms cupped his face, caressing his frigid skin with the warmth she wished to give. After her futile efforts of giving comfort, she embraced him with her nakedness, and placed her ear against his chest to hear for his dying heart. With each slowed beat, she felt disheartened, and her voice cried in mourning. Rin wanted to help him, to save him, but she could do nothing. Her lachrymose eyes gazed into his comatose face once more, and lightly kissed his blue lips. When her tears fell on his chest, she began to sing a song. It was a song lost from her a childhood, a song she thought she had forgotten, but remembered for she loved this man, and she didn't know why.

"Where is the friend
I seek at break of day?
When night falls,
I have not found him.

My burning heart
Shows me his traces
I see his traces whenever flowers bloom
His love is mingled with every air." *

And with those final words, Rin kissed him once more, and his lips came to life.

"Love him you shall," a disembodied voice echoed in her head.

"Love him you shall, and a year you shall have. When on the last day's sunset, he belongs to the heart of another, your love he shall have, and his heart you shall not. Like foam, you will wither into nothingness, a memory so vague in the depths of his mind. You will be the Daughter of Air, a wind howling in grief and unrequited love, eternally forlorn. Eternally alone."

Rin woke to the sound of her alarm, and for a second, she thought she felt a warm kiss bring her back to reality. But in the end, there was nothing but a destitute apartment and a bemired window shunning out the rays of the morning sun. Rin placed her hand on her cheek, stinging with puss and dried blood.

"It was just a dream."

Author's Note: the song Rin sings in her dream is from a poem recited in the film, "Wild Strawberries" by director Ingmar Bergman.