Just got the following email from Laura. Make of it what you will. The submission she mentions has already been accepted and posted below. Quantity over quality. Quantity over everything.
Chris. Can you tell me if this guy is serious? Like, am I reading it as a travelogue or a diary? Is it supposed to be funny? I don't understand. What am I doing here? Why do I get the weirdos? Why don't you get the weirdos for a change? Phthirus has gotten into the Lysol. I fear it's given him superpowers. That or the place is still haunted. I understand it's the landlord's problem and he needs to pay for it, but I don't agree that hiring the lowest bidder for an exorcism was the right way to go.
- Laura'D
A TRAVELOGUE TO COLONIA DE MARIA DEL PULPO
by Topher Topher
"The waves are choppy today" is a common enough warning uttered by lifeguards the world over, but only at the Coves del Pulpo do the lifeguards wear armour. The waves aren't just choppy, they will tear you in fucking half.
I'd come to the sleepy hamlet of Colonia de Maria del Pulpo on rumours of sighting the last known siren colony, a species all but wiped out during the same time as the opera whale back in '43. Whale hunting was big, and siren-hunting was almost incidental - a souvenir for the sailors to bring back home, or make use of during their long voyages. Greenpeace didn't care about the siren plight until decades too late, as until then the only confirmed reports of beautiful sea-maidens whose singing drove men mad had always turned out to be such aquatic lumps as manatees, walruses, and the occasional narwhal. Real sirens never had a prayer with that kind of press.
In a chance stop to a pokey little second-hand store in Kakapski I stumbled on a geography book of Spain and its surrounding islands. One of these islands held Colonia de Maria des Pulpo, and the Colonia held sirens. Wild sirens, with no mention of protection by outside human interests. It seemed like unlikely tourist-snatchery, but so did the cockatrice of Alsace (note: do not visit without mirrored sunglasses. Or a weasel). There was nothing to do but buy a ticket and investigate.
The geography book ("Too Much Spain?") was quick enough to mention sirens, but remained oddly quiet about the characteristics of the beaches. White sand? Volcanic rock? Bring own umbrella? No. The entirety of the passage reads like a campy whodunit: "With only the waters of Colonia to protect them, will the sirens ever truly be free of the land above the waves?" And that's it. Which is a load of zumo de bullshit. Or so I thought.
I've visited the Coves del Pulpo, and I tell you: the waves will fucking tear you apart.
None of the locals will so much as dip a toe when the waves are choppy. The treat the water the way Les Stroud treats a bull moose: leave it alone, leave it the fuck alone because it's goddamn insane and will kill you for looking at it. For existing. Because there ain't nothing to stop it.
Jess Thurgold doesn't fear the water. In her titanium-plated catamaran she's the only one brave, or foolhardy, enough to risk the waters. Not because she loves the ocean, but because she hates the sirens.
"I piss them off," she tells me over a plate of dorada con mejillones. "They think they're safe when the water's wild and out I come in my cat. I intend to train 'em up like Pavlovian shit. I sail over and give 'em a scare. I want their grandkids to shit when they see a boat."
Has she ever killed one? I make it clear I'm a travel writer, not Amnesty International. She answers anyway.
"You have to starve them to kill them," she says. "Anything else and it's like chopping the tail off a lizard." It's not an exact answer, which considering I'm scheduled to ride out with her during the next 'wild water' time, is less than comforting. She misinterprets my look - at least I assume she does, since I'm still alive. "Don't worry about your safety," she says. "They won't go after you."
So very little is known about the feeding habits of sirens that by this one statement I assume I'm in the hands of an expert. "What will they go after?" I ask. I expect to hear squid, monkfish, crabs.
"Women," says Jess. "They love women."
I decide it would be a very bad idea to ask Jess Thurgold who she lost to the sirens. I decide it's a very bad idea to be alone with her on the choppy water with only a titanium plate between myself and death, but I've already paid up and signed my waiver. People who think they've got it tough when they're between a rock and a hard place have never rode with Jess in the Mediterranean.
We don't have to wait long for the waves to get choppy. The next morning before dawn we're heading out past the coves to the feeding grounds of the sirens. We both wear chainmail suits, the sort that divers who play with sharks wear. Our outfits also include welder masks. It seemed like overkill on the island, but seeing the dents in the catamaran's hull provide incentive to gear up.
"Scared?" Jess asks. At this point I'm not. I'm incredulous, and wary, but it's hard to be scared when you're only fifty meters from shore.
"Go stand at the prow for a bit," she says. "Wait 'til we're in the open."
It sounds like a bad idea, but so does being next to Jess and saying no. I stand at the prow and watch the blue waves slam into the ship like prejudiced sledgehammers. A wave rolls us up, bring us crashing down. A chunk of ocean spray ricochets off the deck and slams into my welder mask. It's like being hit by a fastball thrown by Nolan Ryan. A cyborg Nolan Ryan. With a grudge. Jess is laughing behind her bulletproof glass.
It takes less than an hour to reach the siren's feeding area. I worry that Jess and her hatred will keep the sirens from appearing, but Jess seems expectant. We don't drop anchor. We just drift. Jess is leaning over the side and screaming. They couldn't possibly be attracted by this.
And yet they come.
It's like looking at a Magic Eye picture. Suddenly it's not water I'm looking at, but the blue-scaled hides of sirens. They're singing.
Around here I think is where Jess clubbed me on the back of the head, where the welder's mask conveniently didn't protect. We're back at port. I feel like a bad hangover.
Jess is watching me. Her mask is off. "So you got to see sirens," she says. "Treat, eh?"
"You hit me," I say. It was about the speed I was up to.
"Sirens got no regard for men," she says. "I think they only got captured so often during whaling 'cause they were alone and thought men were the biggest joke ever. One little song and you would have drowned to join them. 'Cept the whalers learned that sirens can survive a harpoon and decided to keep 'em aboard for fun. Sirens had to learn community to survive."
Maybe this is where I said 'you hit me'.
"They think men are pointless," she continued, "but they love women. Their songs don't hit the same switch on women. The women..." Maybe it was the concussion, but she stared through me, past me, into memory. "Women get a choice."
I changed my flight plans and headed back home later that day. I didn't want to experience the waters when they weren't choppy. I didn't want to investigate Colonia de Maria des Pulpo any further. I didn't want to know who in Jess's life chose blue-scaled death over being with her.
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