Stretching out his wings in the dying sun, he leaped off the sea cliff. He sharply pulled up at the last moment to avoid being smashed to pieces on the rocks below. The ocean under him was tinted a rosy orange in the dimming light as he flew over the water, skimming his wings’ feathered tips over the water’s surface, beating his wings powerfully as he glided over the sea.
But he slowed down as he heard an ethereal singing below. Circling over the surface, he watched the figure of a young woman below the water. Her hair billowed in waves as though a strong wing carried it aloft, her sea-green eyes dominating her pale face. She swam through the current as though she were dancing. Soon her emerald eyes came to rest on his.
A hungry look passed through her eyes as she flitted away toward the huge boulder at the horizon line. He beat his wings to follow her as she ducked and weaved between the forests of kelp and the meadows of seaweed. Soon the water surface broke as she rose from the sea depths. The sunlight diffracted into rainbows on the beads of shimmering sea water on her face. She dragged herself up the rock as the winged man landed softly on the jutting pinnacle of stone. They did not speak.
Her hand slowly came up to his face, and the webs between her fingers glided delicately over his sun burned skin. He lifted her toward him, her mermaid tail dragging along the rock and shining in the light. The moment passed as the sun set.
“Please—don’t leave,” he whispered in her hair. Salty tears spilled from her green eyes and trickled down her pale face. She met his desperate gaze with an agonized look. It seemed as though she wanted to say something. But just as she opened her mouth, the last of the sun rays disappeared, and she was torn from his arms against her will. She slipped back in the water with a small cry. He tried to cling on to her, but it was no use. In the end, he watched her swim away until she disappeared from view. Then the winged man flew off back to his cliff.
In another world and time, there was a place where mermaids did not roam the seas and angels did not rule the skies. It was there that the angel and mermaid’s stories replayed. It was also there that the same man without his wings laid a bouquet of lilies on a tombstone overlooking the sea. He knelt in front of the grave for a few moments. Shaking his head, the man left the graveyard to go back to his car. As he drove away from the seaside and back to his home on the cliffs, the image of the same woman was seared in his mind. Her green eyes continued to haunt and comfort him in his dreams. Each night, he’d say to her, “Please, don’t leave.” But each time, no matter what he did to try to cheat fate, she’d still leave him alone on the faraway, lonely cliffs. As he woke each morning, he knew she was forever lost to him in the waves of dark death.