The Maidmer
Claire was having a nightmare in which she was drowning, at least she hoped it was a nightmare. If she wasn’t dreaming than this easily qualified as the worst day of her life, even worse that the day fifteen years ago she was thrown naked out of the girls changing room at school or the day five years ago that she drove her first car into the back of her dad’s new blue Mercedes. She decided to own up immediately and when he finally calmed down he gave her money to have it towed away and crushed. She had survived many nightmares and so far had a 100% survival rate. This time she wasn’t so confident. For one thing It was not normal to be aware in a nightmare that there were any other states of consciousness.
The feeling of helplessness she was currently suffering was common to dreams, the same feeling in waking life usually had a practical way out, she could call someone for help or browse the net and something could be done about it. Claire formulated an idea, she would reason out her situation and by the time she had finished everything would be back to normal, whatever that was.
She started simply so as to creep up on the problem without it suspecting she was approaching.
“A brick stays a brick, it doesn’t suddenly rearrange its molecular structure into a, well a fish now does it?” Clare desperately needed some rational thinking, something scientific to base a theory on, something that would prove beyond doubt that she could not possibly be drowning in air. She wanted to cry but couldn’t and the reason was simple, Claire’s whole upper body was a fish and she didn’t want to be half fish and half woman. It was like somebody who couldn’t make up their mind what they wanted to be. Claire admitted to herself that her biggest problem in life was deciding what she wanted to be. Some people seem fitted for one definite role in the world since they only possessed a skill set for one type of job. Claire was not one of those, she could be anything she wanted to be and that left the choice up to her. She had been an air hostess, a model, a singer, an actress, a business woman – a very successful one as well until the dotcom crash torpedoed her boat hire business.
Clare walked into the sea and kicking her legs and guiding herself with her fins propelled herself forward. As she swam a new idea came to mind. She should recreate the past 24 hours and work out how she arrived on the beach.
Last night she was out, no clues there, she was out every night, drinking a lot of course. She was seeing Toby, her manager at her work, she know he was married even if he didn’t. They had been out to a party till early in the morning. They went back to his house and had a fumble on the bed which was so funny that she burst into uncontrollable fits of laughter. She was still laughing when his wife rushed into the room and pushed her shiny black stiletto heel close to her face and screamed out a threat to blind her. No wonder she was having a nightmare, thought Claire. Tony pulled his wife off his girlfriend and received a a blow on his forehead with the shoe and he went down with a river of blood gushing down his nose. Claire realised she would have to fend for herself and grabbing the almost empty wine bottle she smashed the neck off on the metal framed bed and held the jagged end between her and her assailant.
The woman seemed unconcerned and looked strangely at her with her pupils seeming larger, more like those of a cat. There was a low soft purring and a quietly spoken liturgy repeating over and over again. Black fur covered her skin followed by whiskers that sprung out of her cheeks. Her mouth opened wide in a yawn to reveal sharp little white teeth and a long pink tongue.
Claire wanted to shut out the impossible transformation taking place before her but she couldn’t. She tried to force her eyes shut but it seemed like there were matchsticks jammed between the lids. She tried turning her head away and it was as if her head and shoulders were fused into one solid statue.
Now Claire’s body was also changing, her face stretched and her eyes were now on the side of her head, her nose compressed into her head as her mouth stretched the width of her face. She wanted to reach up and feel her face but instead a flipper at her side reacted to her control instead. A chill went through her, she was a fish out of water and a meal for a cat.
Claire flicked her head and poked it out of the water, in the distance something was alternately fading and becoming focused again. It looked like a man’s face. She puzzled over who it might be until he called her name over and over, like a old echoing story with a forgotten ending.
She recognised Tony, a blood soaked handkerchief pressed tightly to his forehead and swam towards his voice. She felt his arms around her and gripped him tightly, she had her arms back and a glance in the mirror confirmed she was human again. She felt the softness of the bed beneath her and cried in his arms in deep gasping sobs.
She noticed Tony’s wife tied to a pink cushioned white chair in front of the dressing table, a black blindfold covering her eyes.
“I’ll make sure she is struck off for good this time”
“You mean that she’s a doctor?”
“No, a hypnotherapist!”
