Mermaid

Her name was Kadha. Kadha did not have any friends, but she yearned to be with people. Others knew her as an introvert, but she was an extrovert inside her own self. Her thoughts and fantasies never had any boundaries. 

Kadha was not beautiful, but she wanted to be beautiful. She wanted others to talk about her beauty. She always imagined that she was a mermaid, caught up in human world and thought that her real beauty is hence hidden in the human form.

Kadha had a secret. She had kept it hidden in her study room. It was a beautiful peacock feather. She had picked it up one day on her way back from school.

She imagined that the peacock feather held all the secrets about her mermaid life. She tried to communicate to it every night .She touched it, caressed it and kept it inside her personal diary. In her dreams, she saw lights emanating from  the  treasured feather and low whispering from the diary. She saw the well-lit night sky and the moon light falling on her.She felt being lifted up by an unknown force and found herself in a river,her feet transforming in to a fish tail.Her body was silverish white and it sparkled in moon light.

She had this dream almost every day, but whenever she consciously tried to communicate with the feather, she failed.

Years passed and she grew up to be an ordinary girl. Her dreams never materialized and no one around her called her beautiful. She had suppressed her yearning desire to be accepted and approved by others around her in her childhood itself. She was sure that she will eventually lead a boring emotional life.

Once, she sat contemplating on her life and she happily found that she has many things which others do not have. She completed her studies and grabbed a good job without much difficulty and effort. She was now an extrovert and had many friends. Yet, none said that she was beautiful and her life moved on.

Then, on one day she met him on a train journey. His name was Chintha and was very handsome. Though she was attracted to him, she restricted herself due to her poor self-esteem regarding her appearance. He ignored her reluctance and started talking to her. They talked about the moon and the night sky, birds and nature and finally his dreams.

He told her that he used to have a dream in his childhood. He used to dream about a beautiful mermaid holding a peacock feather sitting by the side of a river on a moon-lit night. The mermaid had, beautiful dusky hair like her.

Then Chintha held the hands of Kadha and told, “Dear beautiful, you are my mermaid .Let’s swim and enjoy the cool waves together.”

And Kadha took out the peacock feather from her diary & kissed it.

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