Transformation

by Michael Ocheskey

  Thomas spoke before the king’s building anger could escape. “Perhaps time runs differently in that dimension and this one. Besides, the rest of the conversation between me and the Sapphire is a secret. I’ve been told that I am not allowed to tell anyone else and I won’t break that vow for anything. Besides, I can tell you with the utmost sincerity, you don’t want to know. The information is something you wouldn’t believe and it could possibly start some serious conflicts or even wars. It is best that the conversation remains a secret…at least for now.”

  King Aquarius opened his mouth to retaliate when Alana spoke up. “Father, please calm down. You’ve said yourself that you admire Thomas’ nobility and bravery. You shouldn’t be surprised or angry just because that nobility has been directed against you. I find it very honorable that he would keep his word to the Sapphire. Please, just let him touch the Sapphire again in six months. It is ridiculous to fight with Thomas out of petty jealousy.”

  King Aquarius’ face twitched at the word jealousy, but he didn’t deny it. By the time Alana finished speaking, he had begun to calm down.

  “Alright,” he acceded and quickly changed the topic. “If you wish to touch the Sapphire again, then I will permit it. Thomas, since you cannot leave this city for the next six months, please feel free to make it your home. You are free to travel anywhere inside the city. This palace will be your quarters. I will have Alana show you to your new room.”

  “Thank you, Your Highness.”

  “Please don’t call me that Thomas. While outside the castle or in the presence of others, refer to me as King Aquarius. When we are alone you can just call me Aqua. The only person who called me by that name was my late wife. It was the nickname she gave me when we first met and is reserved for people I consider family.”

  “Thank you, Aqua. It is a privilege and an honor. Oh, there is one more thing. I was hoping to speak with you more about the Seven Cities. The Sapphire spoke a lot about the past and some about this city, but nothing about the other cities.”

  “Of course, Thomas, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. It is getting late. Now, goodnight. Goodnight, Alana. Goodnight, Dr. Algie.”

  “Goodnight, Father.”

  “Goodnight, Aqua.”

  “Goodnight, King Aquarius.” All three responded in kind as the king left the throne room.

  Alana escorted Thomas to the room next door to hers and entered. She held her hands out like a tour guide.

  “These are your new quarters. I hope you enjoy them. The palace staff all live on the second floor and the guards live on the third floor so they can protect the Sapphire. If you have any questions or need anything, I am right next door. Goodnight.”

  Thomas was left alone in his room to wallow in his amazement. His room was very much like Alana’s, only void of personal belongings. Thomas was astounded by the sheer size of the room and the beautiful bed; a large, opened clam. Upon closer inspection, the clam was actually made of pearl.

  It looked like many pearls had been melded together and shaped into a clam design. The mattress for the bed was a water bed, yet the material was different than anything he had seen before. It looked as though it was made of rubbery seaweed.

  After sitting on his bed, Thomas noticed a door in the corner. Curiosity got the better of him and he pulled himself up from his slushy bed and crossed to the door. Inside was the most gorgeous bathroom he’d ever seen. The bathtub itself seemed more like a miniature pool. It was not very elegant in design compared to the rest of the room, just a huge, rectangular hole in the ground with faucets. Thomas was certain that the size of the tub was due to the merfolk's desire to swim while they bathed.

  Looking at the toilet, he noticed that there was plumbing very similar to a surface dweller's. He felt like an adventurer in an epic novel or an investigator in a mystery novel attempting to discover the answers to the unknown puzzle that had become his life.

  Thomas whined when he saw the holder next to the toilet. The toilet paper was made of seaweed. That was really going to take some getting used to. The sink was shaped like a large seashell with a faucet shaped like a dolphin and the hot and cold water knobs shaped like starfish.

  After examining his bathroom, Thomas decided it was time to get some sleep and headed to bed. Tomorrow would be a whole new adventure and Thomas couldn't wait for the day to begin.

  The following morning was like a dream, or possibly a nightmare….

  No, it was most likely a combination of both. Thomas hadn’t slept much that night; a mixture of too much sleep over the past two weeks and too many thoughts running rampant through his mind. He thought he heard a gentle thumping noise and resentfully awoke. As his eyes unclouded, he thanked God that his covers were still on him. Standing over his bed was none other than Alana, smiling brightly and waving. She burst out into speech before he could protest.

  “Thomas, wake up. I want you to meet some people. Please come with me? They have been wondering what happened to you since they helped me rescue you.

  “Now. Come. On.” She pulled Thomas out of bed in three heaves. Both of them stood speechless as their faces flushed. “Oh no! I-I-I-I’ll just...I’ll just wait out-outside then. Outside.” Alana rushed out of the room, her eyes covered.

  She made a mental note to get Thomas some pajamas while they were out.

  Torn between not wanting to see Alana’s embarrassed expression for a while and not wanting to keep her waiting, Thomas couldn’t decide whether he wanted to take his time or hurry. In the end, he just washed himself rather quickly with a rag and threw his clothes on.

  Thomas stood at the door, preparing for the encounter that waited on the other side. Taking a deep breath, Thomas turned the nob and stepped through the door.

  “I’m so sorry,” Alana apologized before the door was fully opened. “It didn’t even occur to me that you wouldn’t have any pajamas.”

  “It’s okay. I am not angry.” Thomas had a hard time making eye contact. It felt awkward being apologized to. He felt he should be the one apologizing in this situation.

  “Well, after I introduce you to some people we’ll go shopping. We need to get you some basic necessities since you will be here for a while.” Thomas glanced up sheepishly as Alana spoke and they both blushed. “Shall we go?”

  Thomas felt awestruck as they passed through the front gates of the palace and entered the rest of the city. He twirled in every direction like a child at an amusement park for the first time. He nearly gave himself whiplash as his head bobbed back and forth. His thoughts turned to his archeology background.

  He found himself examining the buildings, searching for similarities between the structure and ancient civilizations on the surface world. He was like a kid at Christmas, anxious to unwrap the present before him and make it his own. He wanted to know everything possible about it.

  Most of the buildings looked identical in design. Thomas was certain these must have been the original buildings. They were made of marble from the surface world. Thomas assumed that these were still standing from before the city had plunged into the sea. Newer buildings were made of pearl.

  Thomas now understood that most of what was made in this city would be pearl since creating them was as easy as peeling an onion. The buildings were mostly one story in height, spreading outward rather than upward. A few small buildings were two stories, but none were larger, making the palace, with its three oversized stories, the largest building in the city. Many had gorgeous entrance-ways with marble overhangs and two large pillars, one at each end, holding the overhang aloft.

  The villagers who noticed Thomas all stared in apprehension as he waved and said hello. The entire village was afraid of Thomas and kept their distance. No one acknowledged Thomas’ attempts to socialize. Many turned their backs and fled like he was a parasite when he got too close.

  Thomas tried to be optimistic that he could still build a relationship with the villagers, but in the depths of his heart he felt it would be impossi
ble. People don’t usually take well to outsiders and he was the worst kind of outsider in their eyes.

  Still trying to take everything in, Thomas didn’t realize that he had come to the edge of the barrier.

  “Here we are,” Alana announced, derailing Thomas’ train of thought. “I want you to meet Tiger. Without his help, I never would have been able to rescue you. Wait here.”

  Alana stepped through the barrier. She was glowing and looked regal as her body transformed. Thomas couldn’t help but stare as her body glowed with a majestic blue and her delicate legs were instantly wrapped in the scales of her fish’s body.

  Thomas noted that her lower body seemed to be a strange combination of fish and dolphin. The scales on her body were clearly visible, but her body gleamed as if it were the smooth, silk-like skin of a dolphin’s body.

  He was sure that if he ran his hand down what was previously her thigh, it would not feel like fish scales at all. It was as if the scales were glazed beneath a glassy surface. The fin on her back glistened in the light of the barrier and reflected into Thomas’ eyes while her dolphin’s tail fin flipped playfully through the water.

  Thomas had trouble taking his eyes off Alana. She was an angel in his sight. Soon, he found himself questioning if he would look that way in six months or if something would go wrong and he would look like a dork fish with a human face.

  Lost in thought once more, Thomas didn’t notice that a shark was approaching Alana at an alarming rate. When he finally noticed, it was far too late. There wasn’t time to warn her, but instead of attacking, the shark began playing with her. After spinning around Alana a few times, the shark let Alana pet it. Thomas recalled yesterday’s conversation and realized Alana could speak to animals. This shark must be Tiger.

  “Thomas, I would like you to meet Tiger.” Alana flipped in the water to face the barrier. Her lips were moving and Thomas couldn’t really hear her, but he felt her voice resonating in his mind. It was just like the Sapphire’s had before when he was inside it. This was telepathy. “Tiger is the one who helped me rescue you from the airplane crash.”

  “Well thank you, Tiger.” Thomas bowed respectfully. He looked up at Tiger for a moment, then switched his gaze back to Alana feeling as though he might insult the small-whale sized shark by staring. “Can he understand me when I talk to him?”

  “Oh yes, he can,” Alana confirmed. “It’s just that you can’t understand him, at least not yet. You see, until you become a complete merman you won’t be able to communicate with animals. Merfolk don’t speak to sea creatures with normal speech; we speak through telepathy. You won’t be able to do that until you completely turn into a merman.”

  “Okay, I think I get it. Is Tiger your pet then?”

  “Oh no. Merfolk don’t believe in keeping sea creatures as pets. Tiger is one of my friends. We spend time together when I’m in the ocean and have fun together. He also helps to protect me when I need it because, as you can see, I’m not very strong. Oh, come on! You don’t have to be afraid of him. He won’t bite you. You can pet him if you want.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t.” Thomas flicked his view back and forth between Tiger and Alana awkwardly; his eyes swinging between them like a pendulum. “I am not allowed to leave this barrier, remember? That includes sticking parts of my body through the barrier. I’m sorry, Tiger, but I won’t be able to come over to visit you properly for six months. I am looking forward to getting to know you better, and once I’m a complete merman I’ll step through this barrier and we can play together. Is it a deal?”

  “Tiger says ‘it’s a deal’,” Alana confirmed. “Goodbye, Tiger. Okay, Thomas. Now we have to go see Eri. Eri is the merman who helped me carry you up to the palace after I pulled you through the barrier.”

  While speaking, Alana swam through the barrier and became human again. Thomas was left speechless once more at the sight before him. The transformation process was both elegant and regal, like nothing he had ever seen before. He had the feeling a lot of things in his near future would leave him speechless.

  While they made their way to Eri’s, following the edge of the barrier, Alana explained more thoroughly how she had found Thomas and brought him to Atlantis. Thomas was like a notebook just waiting to be filled. He drank in the information Alana gave him like a man returned from a desert journey.

  A short walk later, Alana knocked on Eri’s door while Thomas remained hidden in the background, remembering how coldly the other Atlantians had looked at him.

  “Oh, hello, m’ la...Miss Alana.” Eri opened the door and gestured for his guests to enter. “And if it isn’t the young lad from earlier. Nice to see ya up and about. Please, come in, come in.”

  “Hello, sir,” Thomas greeted Eri as formally as he could, determined to make a good first impression.

  Thomas stepped through the door cautiously, as he’d been doing all morning, examining his surroundings. He was in a small shop filled with clothing of all shapes and sizes, made of materials he couldn’t identify.

  “I would like to offer my thanks for helping Alana carry me to the palace. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “Is there anything I can do ya for, heh? I don’ think there is...I know! Why don’ ya help me with my store a bit? I’m getting old and my muscles don’ hold out for much heavy lifting these days. Not much, mind ya, but just an hour or two a day. What do ya say, lad?”

  “I would be happy to, sir. My name is Thomas, by the way.” Thomas held out his hand for a handshake.

  Eri, who had never been to the surface world, didn’t know what a handshake was. He simply looked at Thomas’ hand and then copied him by sticking out his own.

  “My name’s Eri, young Thomas. Nice to meet ya.” As Eri spoke, Thomas gripped Eri’s hand and began shaking it. “What’re ya doing, lad?” Eri asked with mingled shock and slight annoyance in his voice.

  A chuckle escaped Thomas’ lips before he could suppress it. “It’s called a handshake. It’s what surface dwellers do to say hello. I should probably stop doing that, seeing as I’m not a surface dweller anymore.” Seeing Eri’s puzzled expression tighten, Thomas explained about his merman transformation.

  In the end, Thomas and Alana spent the entire morning at Eri’s house, lost in conversation. While the bottom level was a clothing shop, Eri lived on the second floor. Thomas told them interesting tales of the surface world, Alana told tales of her adventures at sea with Tiger, and Eri told Thomas all about his business.

  If Thomas hadn’t known better, he would have thought Eri was Irish. His manner of speaking reminded Thomas of a southerner, but the accent he spoke with seemed like a mix of Irish and Southern USA.

  Thomas discovered that Eri was a designer who owned his own clothing shop. He hand-crafted clothing for all of the Sapphire merfolk and sold them at discounted prices. Thomas was intrigued to find out that Atlantian money was actually a paper currency made from seaweed. He had expected pearls to be the used form of currency, but realized, after considering how stupid he had been, that there is no point to currency if all you needed to do to acquire it was cry.

  Eri invited his guests to eat lunch with him and afterwards he took them back into his shop on the first floor. It was then that Thomas remembered Alana’s previously announced shopping trip.

  Eri’s shop was filled with lovely and extravagant clothing, but no shoes. Thomas looked down at Alana and Eri’s feet to see that neither of them had shoes on. Of course, he reminded himself, people who spent most of their life in the sea didn’t require shoes. All of the clothing, he noted, was made of the same bluish material as Alana’s.

  Looking closely at the clothing, Thomas discovered that there wasn’t a single piece of clothing that didn’t have at least one sapphire embroidered in it. The cheapest of the clothing only had a couple of sapphires, while the most expensive seemed to have more sapphires than cloth.

  “Eri,” Thomas broke the silence. “What kind of fabric is this? I’ve never seen it b
efore.”

  “This, lad, is a variety of fabrics.” Eri picked up a few different outfits and began to show them to Thomas. “This lovely bikini is the same design as Miss Alana’s and it’s called seasilk. It, like all of the other fabrics I use, is made from special seaweed I grow just outside the city. The seaweed is a hybrid I invented myself by combining different seaweeds together. It is then treated with different chemicals to create the fabrics I use. Seasilk is very high quality and the most expensive fabric I sell.

  “This one,” he picked up a blue fabric shirt with scales on it, “Is sealyester. It’s a fine fabric used mainly for special occasions where ya need to dress up. And this is the only other fabric I use, seacotton.” Eri picked up a pair of blue pants. “This is a comfortable fabric I use for most of me clothing. I grow all my seaweed just outside the city, then collect and treat them once a month to create my fabric.”

  “That’s great, but how do you get all these sapphires to put inside the clothing?” Thomas was staring in awe at all the sapphires in the clothing items Eri was still holding high. He was beaming with pride at his artistic creations.

  “Oh, I make them myself.” Eri looked at Thomas in confusion, as if it were a foolish question, but then he remembered, “I guess ya don’t know about that. Merfolk tear, lad. When merfolk cry outside o’ water they cry pearls, but when they cry inside the water they cry the gem their city is known for; in our case, sapphires. I take a sea onion into the ocean with me an’ I peel it so I cry. Then I gather up the sapphires.”

  “That’s interesting. I knew they cried tears of pearls because I’ve seen it before, but I didn’t know about the sapphires.”

  “Ya’ve seen it now, have ya?” Eri gave Thomas an accusatory stare, then turned to Alana. “He hasn’t been making ya cry has he, m’ la…Miss Alana?”

  “Oh no! Of course he hasn’t.” Alana chimed in, slightly embarrassed. “I’m just an emotional person. I cried when he vanished yesterday, that’s all.”

  “If that’s all, then that’s alright.” Eri gave Thomas an apologetic look, but seemed incapable of voicing his apology.