Therianthropy
By Leah Mullen
You never see the peeled skins. Stones and cairns of the storm dark beach conceal them perfectly. While at first this one lists and staggers, in the strobe flash of the tempest his awkward gait tilts into something approaching appropriate.
Past the roadworks on the high street, the shut banks, the blank shelves of an abandoned Greggs. Forward. He is drawn by something you emanate. He is sea-dragged, bedraggled, melancholy, tossed and wracked, when he arrives at your door at a black 6pm. But he looks like a man.
Flickers in energy pulse through your cottage. You lose your Teams connection. Your partner drops a cup which cracks loudly in the sink. Where is your goddamned portable charger, you wonder.
Honey, where is my goddamned - oh what’s that
In the ruins of a fine spring evening he stands on your step, shaded, liminal and sopping. Those cheekbones…you could sink ships on them.
You have already grabbed your imitation Canada Goose coat and bag. Your partner pokes his head round the notched up lintel and calls Off out are you love, see you in a bit then –
The selkie has hidden his skin well. He’ll always return to the sea. And he’ll never return a DM.
But what of your skin? Its holographic moonlight sheen? The way it pixelates into scales? What about the choking lungfuls of noxious air inside that skin, and what about the roar, the welcome, the dashing rocks, the salt and green promise of the sea?
THE END
Author Bio: Leah Mullen is an American who’s been living in the UK since 2003. She’s a secondary school English teacher and advocate for the arts and humanities subjects who has always written in her spare time.