idiosyncreant:

sffbookclub:

“Project Amphitrite”—otherwise known as “Mermaids
for the Military”—started attracting public attention when I was in my
senior year of high school and beginning to really consider the Navy as a
career option. I wanted to see the world. This new form of service
promised me a world no one else had ever seen. They swore we could go
back. They swore we would still be human, that every possible form of
support would be offered to keep us connected to our roots. They said
we’d all be fairy tales, a thousand Little Mermaids rising from the sea
and walking on new legs into the future that our sacrifice had helped
them to ensure.

They didn’t mention the pain. Maybe they thought we’d all see the
writing on the wall, the endless gene treatments, the surgeries to cut
away inconvenient bits of bone—both original issue and grown during the
process of preparing our bodies for the depths—the trauma of learning to
breath in when submerged, suppressing the millennia of instinct that
shrieked no, no, you will drown, you will die, no.

I have posted about this story before, but not with a gripping illustration!

Read this story. If you’re seeing this, I know you’ll love it. (Like, military submarine mermaids. I’m telling you.)

Each to Each – Lightspeed Magazine