A Few Minutes Later

He awakens from a dark place within no memory of the previous few minutes. He can now see the seabed clearly, the fishes and small crustaceans living down there. There are ripples in the sand; a flounder previously hidden by its camouflaged upper scales is disturbed by their passing and silently glides away, causing a brief flurry of silt. A large crab, half hidden by a rock is holding something in one claw and breaking bits off with the other and passing them to its mouth. A shoal of mullet, gleaming in the flickering white sunshine from above, veer off course to avoid him.  The various seaweeds carpet areas of the seabed like a laid out garden, and it feels as if he is at home here. It’s a beautiful place. The mermaid is just ahead of him looking back and smiling. He flaps his silvery tail to catch her up and they swim out sea hand in hand. He does not even considering breaking the surface to take one last look at the old harbour as thy head into the depths.