Mermania

I stood at the edge of the dock, pushing my hands further into the warmth of the old jacket I'd stolen from my uncle. A slow exhale, my breath freezing in middair and rising like prayers - the water was slow today, its waves lapping lazily at the wood. I heard footsteps - fast, rushing up behind me, and I turned, giving a tight-lipped smile. "You're late."

"A wizard is never late, nor is he early," sang the mousy kid. He was tall for his age, baby-faced and chubby. A mop of curly red hair sat atop his head. He had one of those faces that expressed every emotion tenfold. When I met him, just a few days ago, he had been sitting just a few feet away from here, staring out across the water with dull eyes. He had a sort of despondancy then - and it carried over still - that was ill-fitting on a 13-year old; a sadness just a little too deep for his age. He was happier now, smiling at me brightly, the corners of black eyes crinkling with the weight of it.

The kid really just needed a friend. Even if he communicated via pop-culture references.

"Thanks for coming, Dan," he said, pushing against my shoulder. I looked back out to the forked river, leaning forward to rest my arms against the ledge.

"No worries." It was freezing. It was only going to get colder once the sun set. "You really think we'll see something out here?"

Jamie nodded emphatically. His pale cheeks were already a bright, splotchy red.

"You know I can't stay long." That was a lie - I had nothing else going on, but I didn't want to take responsibility for any hospital bills relating to hypothermia.

"It's not gonna take long. They come out at night."

I bit my tongue. There was a deep difference between 'they come out at 8 PM sharp' and 'when all the soldiers went home'. "Right, yeah. But didn't all the shit happen already? They're bad omens. Why do we want to see them?"

"Think of it like this," the kid said, rocking a bit on his heels. "It's unlucky to see one because it's like, bad omens. Bad things. But it's also lucky because they're not something you're supposed to see."

Fuck, I need a cigarette.

"So you think it's lucky to see bad omens, because ... you're not supposed to see them?"

"No, like... you don't get it. It's a good thing to have a warning, right? Like when Mothman flew up around the bridge. It's lucky to know something bad is going to happen before it does, so you can prepare."

I kind of got that. 'Mothman' wouldn't have been my first thought, but I saw where his head was at. "Right. Makes sense. It still seems kind of weird to me to look for that, though."

I watched as the kid blinked, glancing out to the water then back to me before he started pacing. He never seemed able to sit still when he was talking. "I guess, but it's cool, right?"

"You doin' this to be cool?" I guffawed. That earned me a less-than-menacing glare. "Shit, kid. You ain't gonna make friends looking for mermaids."

"Not that kind of cool! I mean actually cool."

"Sure," I said, not understanding in the least. "And what's the difference?"

"There's like... 'people' cool and then ACTUALLY cool. The difference is if people made it, I think."

"Like, uh, a social construct."

"Yeah, whatever that is! So you have all the cool things people made, like games and shows and art. And that determines stuff like if you're popular, if girls like you. Like, how well you do with 'people'. So that's people-cool."

"Okay... makes sense."

"Then you have ACTUALLY cool things. The stuff that's cool without people. Stuff that doesn't need people. Like rivers and mermaids and aliens and space."

"Let me see if I got this right. You want to stand out here, looking for mermaids, because it's an 'actually' cool thing, even if seeing one means something bad."

"Yeah, it sounds weird if you say it like THAT." He huffed, "I prefer saying I'm a seeker of truth!"

"Okay. Truth." The Haw and Deep rivers had been cast in a brilliant orange light as the sun sunk behind the trees. "Mermaids are gonna reveal the truth to us."

"If mermaids are real," he explained slowly, like I was a toddler struggling to grasp simple math, "then what else might be real, too? The aliens over Lake Norman? The Beast of Bladenboro? The Moon-Eyed mountain folks? The bombs over Goldsboro?"

"Wait, now, hold on. The nukes over Goldsboro - that was a real thing. Like, that's a real documented thing that almost fucked up the state for time immemorial. You know that, right?"

"The government is lying to us," he sagely intoned, and I fought back a laugh.

"They admitted to it. It's not a secret."

"But! That's the thing!" He jumped up suddenly, eyes all alight. "They didn't admit to it until like, thirty years later!"

"I don't think it was thirty years." I pulled out my phone, the cold biting into my ungloved hand. I typed in and hit search on 'goldsboro bombs' before I registered that would put me on a watchlist. "See? They took accountability the day after. They didn't hide it."

The kid frowned. "That's stupid and fake." Then, after he read the Wikepedia article himself: "So they admitted to that. That doesn't mean they don't lie!"

"I never said they didn't. Just that they didn't lie about this."

"They lied about the Nazis."

"Can we just like - unpack that for a second. Like. Yes, they did, but I don't think we're thinking of the same shit."

"You curse a lot."

"Not really. And it's weird that you're telling me that as a thirteen year old boy. Can we go back a second?"

"Maybe I lied. Maybe I'm not really thirteen."

"And here I thought you were trying to be better than the government."

"Maybe the real government was the mermaids."

"The mermaids we found along the way?"

"Don't be cringe."

Jamie fell into a deep, contemplative silence. I was still trying to figure out what he meant by the Nazi thing when he spoke again, "Do you think this is a waste of time?"

"What?" I looked over to him. His face was doing the thing again, taking the twinge of melancholy in his voice and painting it clear as day across his expression. "I mean. For sure. There's a thousand things both of us could be doing instead of this."

"So it's hopeless? No mermaids? No aliens? It's just this?"

"Okay. You're fuckin'... okay. I see what this is now." I turned, putting my back to the water - the sun was glinting too brightly on the river, hurting my eyes. "Baby's first existential crisis."

"I've had existential crises before!" He frowned, copying my movements, leaning his elbows back against the railing.

"Oh, yeah? When?"

"When I learn about big numbers, or look at the sky too long."

"That's existential, sure. But has a big number ever made you really question your place in the universe like this? Can you truly comprehend the magnitude of space, or is that just grasping at straws?"

"I thought that's what an existential crisis was."

"I'm sure lots of folks do. But this? What you're doing here? You're not just sitting on your ass looking at the clouds, kid. You've got something to prove, and all your sense of meaning is hinging on you proving your idea of existence right." I paused for a second, "You're chasing something you can't prove. Seeking answers for questions that were around before people were. That's what makes it a crisis, I think."

"Can a question be around before people?"

"Now, *there's* a question." I hummed. "I don't know. What do you think?"

And he did think - he thought for a good three minutes straight before answering again. I idly scanned the paths near us - a woman and dog, a man with a stoller, all bundled up in scarves and jackets - and the streetlights flickered on. "Maybe that's the point of us. To ask questions."

"The point of us? Of people, you mean?"

He nodded, and I pondered it. "I dunno, man. What's the point of mermaids?"