The Mermaid and the poet found themselves in the middle of that crystalline lagoon, surrounded by the starlight's reflection in the cyan sky. He was fascinated by the metropolis rising a few kilometers away. Skyscrapers towered like sharpened pencils, half submerged in the water and the other half above the surface, with an architectural design so different from what he knew that he had no idea what kind of methods must have been used for their construction. In the distance, tall mountains, snowy peaks, and solid ice rocks could be seen.

"Let's go," whispered the Mermaid, taking him by the hand towards the shore. When they stepped onto the grass, her tail transformed painlessly into human legs, probably due to the atmospheric conditions or some compound in the water, making the process as natural as a soft blink.

The Mermaid led him along a lantern-lit watercolor path. Despite the gentle drizzle, the weather was temperate, and the air was imbued with a mist that dissipated and reformed.

As they walked, a couple of men dressed in green and armed with rifle-like devices passed by them. "They are soldiers," the Mermaid explained. A bit further ahead, a couple of people dressed in white robes walked along another path. "Scientists," she said again.

"I've been here before," the poet recalled, trying to jog his memory.

"It's possible; some people arrive by train." She pointed upward.

The poet looked at the sky and could perceive, in the stratosphere, an immense space train station in full hustle and bustle, from which a long pathway descended to the surface, a sort of boulevard down which people in exotic attire descended.

"Dreamers," she specified. "When they wake up, they vanish. Maybe you were here in a dream."

Together they arrived at a river through which dry clothing flowed instead of water. She pulled one out, and it came out complete with hanger. It was an outfit consisting of a blue wool sweater and black pants.

"This old sweater, for you," she said, handing it to him.

The poet examined it and tried it on over his clothes.

"It's not old," he responded, pointing out the exaggeration.

"Now one for me." She plucked one at random and showed it to him with that unique electric enthusiasm. It was a white dress with a collar, decorated with small blue stars scattered all over the outfit. They dressed in the dry clothes and continued walking through the park.

Rolled scrolls hung from the branches of a tree, and the Mermaid climbed up to one of them.

"What are these?" the poet asked from the ground.

"They make predictions about the future, but they never get it right." She plucked one of them with a slight tug as if it were a fruit. She returned holding onto the branches and, with a jump, reached the grass. However, her dress caught on the spout of a large decorative teapot next to the tree's root and began to unravel as she approached the poet. The Mermaid opened the scroll and read it aloud: "I climbed down from the tree, and since the cup was close to the ground, it grazed my dress, unraveling it." She looked back at the poet. "See?"

"But it got it right," he replied, pointing to the loose thread that connected her to the teapot.

The Mermaid turned around, and upon realizing it, she grabbed the unraveled part of her dress and tore it in a single strip. She tied it around her forehead before continuing to read with the intention of making the scroll fail.

"I usually always tear my clothes or what I'm wearing so they have a different color." The poet smiled because that was exactly what she had just done, but the Mermaid, with the palm of her hand, told him to wait. "I always used to wear white..." She stopped and frowned. "Don't you notice?" She said with disappointment. "It's supposed to warn me about the future, but it only has the present and the past written on it. It's useless." The Mermaid dropped the scroll and continued walking angrily through the park.

They arrived at a group of winged letters pecking at the grass, eating wooden crumbs. The Mermaid rushed toward them, scaring them away just as she had done with the pigeons in her world.

Suddenly, a sensual woman dressed in red crossed another path. The poet couldn't help but look at her. When she noticed, the Mermaid returned angrily. The woman entered a place that looked like a flute.

"And that place?" the poet asked.

"It's a brothel. Have you never been to one?"

"I'm not that kind of person."

"Then let's go so you can become a man." She grabbed his arm and tried to take him, but he resisted, and they struggled for a while.

When they got tired of wandering around the park, they sat on a bench shaped like a quill and inkwell.

The poet felt that he had finally found his place in existence. He had tasted eternity and walked alongside it. Every time he looked into her eyes, he knew they would have no end and, above all, that she would never leave his heart. He wanted her to know everything he felt and allowed himself to embrace her. For a moment, the Mermaid let him, perhaps because she felt the same way, but then she recoiled uncomfortably and removed his arms. The poet thought he had gone too far, but then she rested on his shoulder, and with that, she killed the passing of time.

The two musical notes that had fluttered around them landed like butterflies on the tips of brushes that had grown naturally on some bushes in the grass. Meanwhile, two winged letters pecked at the ground like pigeons; a tram shaped like a colored pencil passed by on the street, carrying dreamers; a spaceship shaped like an electric guitar flew across the sky; and a car that resembled a pencil sharpener sped down the cross street.

"Make a wish," the Mermaid said, and the poet began to think. "For instance, a 'rabo de nube'."

Suddenly, strange vapors gathered in the air, and a nebulous form approached on the sidewalk. The Mermaid looked at him, waiting for him to say something.

"Music?" the poet said.

Behind them, a path painted with piano keys led to a majestic tree with canvases. These began to shine, interpreting a tranquil song. The Mermaid led the poet down that path, hand in hand, dreaming amid the flashes of light.

We traveled to the planet of dreams without a spaceship or spacesuit. You showed me how. You showed me Blue, the pure creation, ideas that became reality with just a thought. I thought of you once, and that train led me to you. What a beautiful creation, what a purer creation than you, my Mermaid. You don't know how much I miss being there; you don't know how far I would go to return there.

They sat down on the roots of the canvas tree. The poet once again saw the worried look on the Mermaid's face, which was nothing new.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

She did not respond.

"You keep hiding all the time, taking me down lonely paths. What's going on?" he insisted, determined to know why she was so concerned. This made her uncomfortable. "Is someone else looking for you to avoid being found with me?"

"It's not that."

"Then what? Is someone also chasing after you?"

She remained silent, turned to check if she could trust him, gathered her strength, and decided to tell him.

 

Past

 

In the library, the silence was more profound than usual. Rain fell steadily outside the window. Christopher and the woman in the crimson beanie sat on the floor, leaning against the bookshelves, like the Mermaid and the poet in Neptune.

"When I was a child," she began, "my family rented a small apartment in a troubled neighborhood. My father was hardly ever home, and whenever they met, they argued. My mother divorced him, and we were left alone with my brother, who was just a baby. We had nowhere else to go and owed rent for a few months. One day, the landlord came home furious, and, like on other occasions, he hit my mother. I watched from behind my room's door while comforting my brother, and that day... he raped her."

Christopher looked at her, trying to decipher how she felt, but she had her gaze fixed ahead, on the books, with no trace of pain. Sometimes she lightly closed her eyelids as she remembered, but what was happening was so strange that it seemed feigned. The way she told it so casually made it seem as if she was making it up.

"In school, I met one of my uncles who came from afar," she continued. "He was my father's brother, and I had never heard of him until those days. Since I met him, he would come close and put his hand on my leg. One afternoon, after I had returned from school, he came to visit. My father wasn't home, of course, but that was just an excuse. That day, he raped me."

Christopher was at a loss for words and actions. She turned to look at him calmly.

"Did you tell anyone?"

"Yes, but they didn't believe me. Imagine, they defended him. He did it several times afterward. Until my mother realized, and we moved to a new house without telling anyone. I saw several psychologists after that. It was when I found Bécquer; reading his poems helped me a lot."

The Mermaid got up and walked toward the cosmic surface pond; her eyes dreamt of stars and moons.

"Sometimes, Blue opens an abyss in this pond, caused by the vibrations of the winds and the tide. No one knows where it leads, so when they discover it, they place guardians to watch over the entrance until it disappears. They believe crossing it could be dangerous, as dangerous as being stranded in the middle of the universe. But they hide that some of us have crossed in ancient times; many reached their world. When I crossed, I had to fight relentlessly against the sea until the depths turned into the surface. I wanted to know what lay on the other side, to explore, to see beyond what I knew. I got used to the risk of crossing it, and since I always ended up in the same place, I tried to live there. It was on one of those days that I saw you sinking in the storm, and I helped you.

"I... I can't live here; I can't feel the magic that everyone says it has."

"I was a fool to bring you back," the poet grumbled, approaching her.

"It's not your fault."

"How long has it been open?"

"A long time, but nobody knows."

"If we cross back, will we return to Earth?"

"It seems so.."

"Come with me. If we go back, we can go to other country and get away from the sea. We have a sailboat. Let's load up with things from the island and escape."

The Mermaid smiled as she looked at him with a nostalgic expression. Then they changed into dry clothes and together plunged into the pond again, traveling back through the abyss.

When they reached the other side, the Mermaid took him swiftly to the surface and they emerged again a few meters away from Las Islas Encantadas. A moment of happiness came over them and they began to swim towards the shore.

But when they were close, they spotted a group of figures standing on the sand. The Mermaid made a quick turn and stopped the poet, placing her hand on his chest.

"Don't say anything," she pleaded with horror, her eyes wide and nervous, he had never seen her like this. "Go to the boat and wait for me."

The poet nodded and moved in the new direction. He noticed that she looked sad, as if she didn't know what to do.

As he approached the shore, the poet observed that on the sand, there was a woman around forty years old, along with a tall, slender boy of about fourteen. Both wore extravagant clothing, presumably the casual attire of Neptune. The woman was covered in a loose dress with medium sleeves and a high collar that flowed like a cone, decorated with gray geometric figures, like scarce cubism lines. The boy, also in gray, wore a knee-length coat with crisscrossed openings, loose-fitting trousers, and high, snug-fitting boots. But something with a certain dread troubled him: two beings standing next to them. Creatures about three meters tall, with a sturdy build, clad in shiny bluish-black armor with heads resembling that of a shark.

The poet reached the boat and stood looking from a distance. He observed that the Mermaid completed her transformation on the shore with pain, under the displeased eyes of the woman who let her writhe as if it were a punishment. Once the Mermaid finished her transformation, she approached them cautiously.

"Wait for me here," the woman in the crimson beanie had told him, placing her palm on his chest, and with a frightened look before she went to the reception area where her mother and brother were looking for her. The boy identified her when she was still halfway there and went to meet her.

"What are you doing?" he scolded when he stood in front of her.

The woman in the crimson beanie remained silent, uninterested in responding. Her brother looked toward the back of the library, where Christopher was waiting on his feet.

"He's older than you," he said, trying to think about how his sister could handle the situation. "I don't think they'll like it," he warned.

"And what does that matter?" she defended herself.

"And he's your height. If you wear heels, he'll look very short. They'll probably tell you to wait for the German. Why don't you find someone taller and your age? Not a stoner."

"But I don't want any of that," she replied.

From a distance, the poet saw that the Mermaid and the boy exchanged a few words in a low voice before approaching the woman. That lady began to speak vehemently against the Mermaid, scolding her forcefully.

When it seemed to calm down, and the Mermaid had her head lowered, the woman suddenly looked up at the poet, and upon seeing him, made a disdainful gesture. The poet shuddered inwardly, but before he could look away, he realized that the woman was giving an order with her arm to one of the beings.

He aimed a luminous weapon at him.

"No!" he heard the broken cry of the Mermaid, and a blinding light threw him into a cold night.