My father died in the waves. I fear I’m next.

Maybe with a little more background, you can convince me otherwise, but it’s important that I tell you how he met his death at the hands of that seductress.

She called to him, and he confided in me, “I hear her every morning when I wake. She sings songs to me from the rocks out beyond where a man can stand. I see her, draped in seaweed, and with a voice like she was made by the good Lord herself. But I’m afraid that’s not who made her at all. But I must go to her. Not now, but soon.”

One morning, when I awoke from our beach front house, I saw him swimming out towards the moon as it sank below the ocean’s horizon. I called out to him, waving and splashing, pushing through the tides as I tried to reach him, but as the moon dropped out of sight, so did he.

I never saw his mistress draped in seaweed, and I if I did, I’d have tried to capture the creature. A fine beast for the carnival at least, but that’s not why we’re talking about this.

I have been hearing a song first thing in the morning. A voice unlike anything I’ve ever heard, as deep in vocal range as Davy Jones Locker, and as beautiful as a fine piece of art from the Italian renaissance. And I want to find whoever is singing. The voice isn’t coming from the rocks, but from a small isle I see much further in that direction, and it calls to me like the nicotine from when I tried to kick smoking. I know it’s wrong for me. I know I will surely disappear as my father did, but I can’t help myself. The voice, be it man, woman, or some other worldly creature of the deep, promises my childhood dreams of immortality to come true. It tells me that if I come to it, I will receive any sexual desire I wish, and the sound is in sync with the beating of my chest. Be still my heart, it’s the only way to stop me, and now you know there is no convincing me otherwise, for who can deny the enticement of eternal pleasure? Who would turn down the feeling of love and lust that you only feel when you get your first kiss?

And so if I’m gone tomorrow morning, just know I’m fine. I’m with it, whatever it is, and I’m sure everything will be fine… everything will be…