September 10, 2008

theOtherMermaid


After reading Wanna's Chinese version of "The Thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield, I came up with one short story of my own-the result of an inspiration from Vida Winter, a famous author in the novel. Vida Winter wrote a series of twisted fairy tales called "13 tales of Change and Desperation" in the book, and somehow after reading it I decided to try writing a story with a similiar theme.

The story's in Chinese though, I'll try to translate it into English over the weekends. To understand the story better, you may need to read a summary of the original version of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid". Comments please, dear readers!

另一条美人鱼的故事

从前从前,有一个男孩和一个女孩。这个故事里的女孩并不穷困,只是她拥有的财富只限于她的世界。而这个男孩非常富裕,直至他船化成的碎片沉到了几万里的盐水里也会比船原有的价值高。他们的相遇,噢不是相遇-因为只有女孩看到了男孩眼中的微笑-发生在一片海上,和海上的一艘船上。她看见了他的双脚,也看见了自己布满鳞片的尾巴。

巫婆不是仙女教母,所以女孩用了最珍贵的宝贝来换她最深切的憧憬。而这个憧憬的魔力,只持续到她发现失去的宝贝才能让憧憬实现的那一刻。她的姐妹当然清楚这一点;不是她们把巫婆的洞穴指给她的吗?而她们心里也在嘀咕:没有必要剪断自己漂亮的头发来换取一把妹妹应该不会用的刀,光秃秃的头可无法吸引那以前最爱看着妹妹的漂亮小伙子呢。

所以女孩在男孩新婚那夜在甲板上来回徘徊。她的手中拿着的不是可以让她找回尾巴的短刀,而是男孩教她削苹果皮的小刀,也是正插在她心坎深处正滴血的刀。男孩就只在一扇与他第一次被拥在女孩怀里的意识一样脆弱的门后。

女孩爱男孩,但化成泡沫的可怕结局足以让最深的爱悄悄蜕变,直到化成像美人鱼尾巴上那一片片的鳞,紧紧地贴在她每走一步就刺入她心的脚板上磨不掉。女孩就在甲板上缓缓地踩着这些鳞片徘徊,紧抓着小刀地来回徘徊……

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ning,how are you doing?
sorry,just popped in and read your little story.=]
you are so awesome,can publish a series of Chinese Tales later!!
what's the knife she is holding for?
It's a bit scary that she's holding a knife strolling on the ship at the end.@@
I love your idea of "bubbles is like scales",good one!!=]

Anonymous said...

My friend and I were recently discussing about the prevalence of technology in our day to day lives. Reading this post makes me think back to that discussion we had, and just how inseparable from electronics we have all become.


I don't mean this in a bad way, of course! Ethical concerns aside... I just hope that as memory gets cheaper, the possibility of copying our brains onto a digital medium becomes a true reality. It's one of the things I really wish I could experience in my lifetime.


(Posted on Nintendo DS running [url=http://kwstar88.zoomshare.com/2.shtml]R4[/url] DS FPost)

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