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Once upon a time, a lonely fisherman caught a beautiful mermaid in his net. The fisherman did not believe in mermaids so to him the sight was a miracle. He pulled up the net and opened it on the bow of his boat. He wasn’t sure what to do, so he tried to cover her with a blanket to preserve her modesty.

The mermaid tensed up and lashed at him with her magical tail. The fisherman jumped back and calmly set the blanket down. She relaxed and her body glistened in the sun as the sea water dripped off her pale skin.

The fisherman couldn’t believe that the heavens had brought him such a beautiful creature. He didn’t know what to do, so he just gazed at her in stillness and listened to her thoughts.

The fisherman knew exactly what the mermaid was communicating because she had the ability to paint vivid pictures in his mind. He came to understand that she was caught in his net by her own will.

“Why did you let me catch you?” He asked out loud because he could not relate in her native tongue.
“You need to do something for me” she said, but this time she spoke with words. “My gift to you is my presence and that will always be my gift but you must now throw me back into the sea.”
“What do you mean?” said the fisherman. “How can I have your presence if I throw you back into the sea?”

The fisherman pleaded but he knew that he must throw her back, there was no other way. So he scooped her up in his arms and moved toward the edge of the boat to drop her back into the ocean.

Before he could let go, she kissed him. The experience was like a rush of white light entering his soul, surrounding and embracing him. He could never let her go, never! But she told him that he must and so he did. He dropped her and she vanished into the ocean.

Every day since the mermaid first appeared to the fisherman, he hoped he would see her in his daily catch but she was never caught. Every day he hoped he would see her swimming by his boat but he never saw her. He longed to see her and felt even more lonely at the thought of her absence.

“Why didn’t I just keep her against her will?” he thought. “Surely her telepathy would have driven me mad, but it wouldn’t be as bad as the madness I suffer now.”

Weeks of tormenting thoughts passed before the fisherman realized how foolish a man he actually was. He remembered how it was to catch her and how her body looked in the shining sun. He remembered how it was when she had kissed him and the true miracle that was brought forth with her presence.

It was at that moment the white light returned and he felt the mermaid’s presence again. He was no longer sad when she didn’t show up in his catch or wasn’t seen off the side of his boat. He knew that he could invoke her anytime he thought about her and he held true to this knowing.

And with that knowing, the fisherman was no longer a foolish man. He was a man who would forever have a telepathic channel of communication open; between himself and the mermaid of the sea.