Connundrum

I've been torn all week between two equally important, but vastly different questions –

What do mermaids eat?, and

What happens to mermaids when they die?

These I hope to answer sufficiently well by next week, perhaps after consultation of Captain Ortega's logbook for corroborative Snork evidence.

If in the meantime evidence from a third party comes forth concerning either of these matters, I will be sure to include them in the final report.

Ciao – Johnny Fishtail

Snorks

Nadie le creyo, pero hay algo acerca de la historia del Capitán Ortega que me hace pensar que es verdad...

Mermaids hate Snorks. They hate Snorks because for some reason the introduction is no longer the one where you hear the awesome story of Captain Ortega's ship sinking after a pirate attack, and instead you have to listen to the archly vexing "Come Along with the Snorks" lyric over and over and over again.

Mermaids probably get along fine with actual Snorks, even if Snorks are ugly ovoid-headed polyp creatures that wish they were Smurfs. Yeah, Snorks are probably some sort of undersea fungus – the difference between male and female Snorks is essentially one of choice. Theirs is a very open-minded society in which Snorks all respect the personal gender choices that their otherwise asexual people elect.

Snorks actually reproduce by budding.

All told, this makes Snorks pretty uninteresting to Mermaids. Snorks lack a certain rye sense of humor that Mermaids take for granted in a well-rounded individual, and so come off as naive in the world of the ocean.

Typical of Captain Ortega's log on that ten-day excursion to Snorkland are entries much like the following:

19 Febrero – Comí algas de nuevo. Toqué harmónica subaquatica diminutiva. ¿Como es que puedo respirar?*

Ortega clearly got really bored of all this, and so decided to escape Snorkland; I assume with the help of sympathetic seventeenth-century mermaids. Ortega probably didn't write about the mermaids either because he was a gentleman and he wouldn't betray a lady's reputation (half-fish or no), or because there was no profit in adding to the already massive catalog of mermaid tales when he had this crazy story about inch-tall fungal polyp creatures with plastic drinking straws on their heads.

In fact, Captain Ortega invented plastic shortly after his return from Snorkland, but the recipe was stolen by English privateers who didn't fully understand the importance of the discovery. Ortega lived out the rest of his life cursing Francis Drake and the bastard's mother, too,† but when drinking straws were finally introduced to the consumer market he took begrudging solace in knowing that his tribute Snork Bend‡ was preserved in the design.

Budding Snorks are really terrifying. One emerges out of the other gradually, over the course of a week, and both bodies suffer severe pain and mental dislocation throughout the entire process. That's why you never see it on the show – it's too fundamentally unsettling for a TV G rating.

That's also why Snorks all wear clothes – in theory clothing hadn't occurred to them until Captain Ortega arrived fully dressed to their lagoon, but you can see from the introduction that they're already wearing clothes as they approach Ortega's sinking ship. It's not that you'd see little naughty Snork parts, it's just that Snork anatomy is so alien that to show it would corrupt the minds of children everywhere. In fact, Ortega invented a bunch of lies to Snorks about the necessity of clothing just so he wouldn't have to look at the nipple-less, belly-button-less bodies all the time.

It's not entirely accurate to say that Snorks don't have belly buttons. They have a similar physical byproduct of their budding, but it looks more like horrible bodily scarring. So in addition to looking like bizarre bald creatures, they have irregular masses of scar tissue all over their bodies from where their identical bud-progeny split off. These wounds never heal fully, due to the corrosive action of their salt water environment.

So, unclothed Snorks are really horrible little things to look at. Captain Ortega's log also gave some indication of the trauma from which he he would never recover upon his escape out of Snorkland – he played that harmonica to keep from going insane.


* February 19th - Ate kelp again. Played tiny underwater harmonica. How am I breathing?
† loose translation
‡ Curva Snorkel

Selkies

Whenever I'm looking for folktales (this happens fairly often), I usually go to Ashliman at the University of Pittsburg.

It's a great resource – look a thing up any number of ways and you'll get a series of variations that's pretty diverse in writing and content, but all revolving around the same theme. A couple months ago I was reading Petronius' Satyricon, for example, and someone tells a ghost story halfway through having to do with werewolves that I'd found before on Ashliman's page. Roman werewolves? I'd say that's comprehensive in its treatment of the subject.

(reading the book, incidentally, makes me want to take another look at Fellini's movie).

So, case in point, and to the point: the section entitled Mermaid Wife has no stories about what we would call mermaids. Fishy-tail mermaids, see. It's more or less entirely about Selkies – were-seals I guess you could say. hehe. The Lady of Gollerus is as close as it gets (although there's also a Welsh story protagonized by an ambiguous mer-creature wife). Instead you want to check out the section on Melusina, just a knock or two up on the alphabetical index for all the tales. Those are about a fishy-tailed German merwife. (or French or Albanian or wherever the tale's coming from; and i guess sometimes it's a snake tail, but whatever).

Folktales don't interest me in that way that you wonder what the story is attempting to explain. Conjecture about Down syndrome and folktales about changeling children, for example – not what I'm reading up on.

I like folktales specifically for the variations that exist between them. If you take the time to read some of these stories about jackals, say, from the index, it's also interesting how little variation exists between some of them – try Ingratitude is the World's Reward, and listen to Blood Money while you're at it.

Speaking of which, I'm pretty sure Mermaids listen to Debby Harry. Maybe the Go-go's, too.

Unfortunately I couldn't even begin to imagine what Selkies listen to. When you think about it, though, if they're really just a slight variation on the Mermaid Wife story, maybe they also like Debby Harry.

Mermaids of the Future

The question we really need to ask is,

What are mermaids doing to prepare for the future? What are merchildren learning in schools to help make them competitive in the job market? Is the next generation of mermaids and merlads being trained to face the challenges of a changing mersociety?

It's hard enough trying to conduct chemistry labs underwater – merstudents haven't had as much exposure to hydrochloric acid as you or me, let me tell you. On the other hand, they probably have a good foundation in hydrodynamics. Motivated biologist mers have stations at coral reefs for sure, and I bet they can extend their knowledge of physics down in deep-sea thermal vents (even if the mermaids you find there are really weird).

Can you imagine how weird a deep-sea mermaid is? I don't need to imagine – they're really weird. They hang out with octopuses, first of all. Some of them are really hairy, to deal with the extreme cold and low oxygen levels (they trap oxygen in their hairs – THEY'RE SO WEIRD). Other are completely bald, all over their bodies. I think that's more an environmental effect than a genetic one – extreme temperatures must have singed off their hairs.

Can things singe underwater? Maybe the hairs just withered off.

Deep-sea mermaids aren't the creepiest mermaids, though. They're at least recognizably mermaid-like. The craziest mermaids are beyond the imagination of even other mermaids. The scariest mermaids are the ones that live in the midst of the lightless water column – they have humongous eyes and creepy bioluminescent appendages. They're probably also really tiny – the size of a grapefruit – due to high pressure and physiological demands. By that logic, the deepest deep sea mermaids are also probably supposed to be really small, but the fact is that they're mermaid giants of the deep. This doesn't mean they're actually bigger than regular mermaids, it just means that they're colossal by the standards of their region.

The middle regions of the water column are more or less the Medieval Black Wood of the mermaid imagination – it's an amorphous, threatening expanse between the recognizable regions of the known mer-world.

The known mer-world, it must be pointed out, is pretty scarce. The oceans of our planet, aside from being tremendous, are three-dimensionally inhabitable. Here, read about Pelagic Zones. Mermaids are scared of pretty much ninety-per-cent of that, even if they have little grapefruit-sized pixie mermaid cousins to hold their hand in the dark.

When that much of your environment exists as persistently unknowable, it's no surprise that you're prone to superstition. That's not all mermaids, of course – most are carefree, we're talking about the tiny fraction of the mermaid population that isn't. That small group is either devotedly superstitious, making signs against the evil eye and swallowing poisonous fish concoctions; or very scientific.

The latter group study either physics or biology, as we've already established.

Geography Class

Mermaids live in great big mermaid cities, generally – there's safety in numbers in the dangerous deep. Everything is more dangerous in the water, see:

Sea Snakes – much more dangerous than regular snakes. They're extra venemous, travel in herds, and, if we are to define overland movement as two-dimensional in its forward-and-backwardness, then sea snakes move in not just two dimensions, but THREE (thanks to underwater movement's additional upward-and-downwardness).

The scientific name of the Polar Bear, largest and most fearsome of all bears, refers not to his latitude (such might be Ursus septentrionalis), but rather to his aquatic predilections (thus, Ursus maritimus).

Sharks! Clearly more dangerous in the water.

I require no further evidence besides these three cases, especially as that of sharks applies to most all aquatic life (amphibians perhaps being the insidious exception).

So mermaids live in underwater megalopolises; under the leadership of despotic Merkings, of course. But let's not forget they are generally benevolent despots, since mermaids are at heart playful by nature. Merkings are actually pretty surly, though, since they want to lead sailors astray or whatever but it's really they're job to tell other mermaids not to do that sort of thing, since they're kings and that's what kings do. But then I guess other Merkings act on their whims, which is also what kings do, so maybe they're pro-astraying.

Personally, I don't know, because I didn't have the fortune of being born into a noble family, (a noble mer-family, no less), and so I don't know any kings of any variety.

But I've known a lot of exchange students, and in the currents of the deep sea, lo there are many exchange students. They must mostly be mammals, since we're clearly the most superior creatures on the planet – our ilk is that of many of the world's charismatic megafauna. Being an exchange student can warp your charismatic megafauna powers in one of two ways –

you'll either be loved, or hated. Probably both at once. It's just the way things are. You will polarize your friends, and not stopping there, your very mind. This is the eye-opening experience of the exchange student.

Mermaids have to deal with a lot of exchange students. Because of their dense level of undersea urbanization (dense even by a human standard, mind you; we're not holding it against the pretty-near total non-urbanization of the sea floor), they've got the best schools. Merkings don't necessarily put a high priority on education, since they're mostly consumed (either in denial or embrace) with the confusion of sailors; but they do make a point of putting together a pretty good Board of Undersea Ed for all interested parties. And in cities where the Merkings are particularly frustrated by their responsibilities, they obviously make sure EVERYBODY goes to school, rather than harassing sailors.

Everyone wants to harass sailors, Tommy Tunahead, it's not just you. Now sit back down, and tell me where the Mariana Trench is.

In the end, though, I'll bet the ones that have it hardest at Merschool are the octopuses. They're so smart, but so weird-looking. And they can't help but show their feelings, they're totally unable to dissimulate what's going on because the chromatophores in their skin betray emotion. They're the biggest nerds of the ocean; they're that kid you see at lunch and say, "He's either going to be your boss, or your executioner."

Watch out for octopuses; and be nice to them.