He stared at the merman in disbelief and then back down at his open palm.Matt stood on the pirate ship, expression clouded with concern.
“Areyou getting enough sleep?”he asked.“Do you remember that movieNightmare on Elm Street?‘Cause in that, the final girl was so sleep deprived that she started having microsleeps—and I think those might be a real thing that can happen if you go too long without sleeping.”
It was rare for Matt to make such a good point.Blake was uncertain if his insomnia had finally caused him to hallucinate, but it sounded like the only logical explanation.
Matt walked down the gangplank slide on the side of the ship, groping around in his pocket for his phone.
“I’ll call around and see if someone else can come cover for you.You go home and get some sleep, all right?”
“I’m fine,” Blake insisted.
“No, you’renotfine,” Matt huffed, holding his cell up to his ear.For someone who had to be cajoled from his bed on a regular basis, Matt was beingobnoxiouslyresponsible that day.“I don’t want to see your ugly mug back here until you’ve slept, okay?”
“Thanks,Mom,” Blake rolled his eyes, climbing back down the slide.He would hate to miss an extra shift (that implied a lot of Top Ramen in the coming weeks), but Matt had yet another good point—if he was talking to fiberglass mermen, then he needed some rest.
Within several minutes, Matt was able to get ahold of someone else to pick up Blake’s shift.Securing this, he banished Blake to the employee lounge, encouraging him to take a nap before riding his motorcycle home.
Blake agreed and headed off towards the castle, but not before he stole one last look back at Marin on the aft of the pirate ship.
He was as still as ever and Blake wasn’t sure if he was projecting, but did his smile now look a little more mischievous than before?
2
Sunday, July 31
(One Day Before)
After an appointment at Sacramento State’s health center, Blake was surprised that he hadn’t been shipped off to what his friend Faren lovingly referred to as “grippy sock jail” the moment he stepped into the office.He’d half expected the doctor to laugh at him when he mentioned a talking merman, but the practitioner had listened to Blake’s anecdote without question and rewarded his efforts with a recommendation for melatonin, a note for three days off of work, and instructions to get at least eight hours of sleep a night from there on out.
Blake returned to his apartment off-campus and settled down onto the sleeper couch in the living room.Ryan, his roommate, was probably still at work, and the apartment was quiet without his emo music playing at low volume at all times.
Blake had looked up sleep deprivation the night before, determined to put his thoughts to rest.From what he’d read, Matt might not have been far off—maybe hehadhallucinated the whole thing.After all, between working on his thesis, pulling double shifts at the water park, and suffering from insomnia, Blake had only been sleeping for three hours a night, if that.Not to mention, he was running on energy drinks and protein bars, wanting to make his meager collection of groceries last as long as possible.Whether he was hallucinating talking mermen or not, it was clear that he needed an extended rest.
Although the clinic doctor had written him an excuse from work, missing so many shifts would put Blake at a huge financial detriment.The federal student aid program had been reluctant to cough up more money for his graduate courses and he needed to work as much as possible during the summer to make up for it.
Maybe I should get a remote job, he thought, grabbing his phone and punching “psychology bachelor’s temp work” into Google.Most of the results were volunteer jobs.Blake sighed and tossed his phone aside.
It was ironic that he of all people was hallucinating.He’d taken a class the semester before with entire units on delirium and schizophrenia.It wasn’t the same thing as sleep deprivation, but it was weird that he was now experiencing hallucinations firsthand.
But it had beenso real—he hadn’t even been that tired at that particular moment.Most of the first-hand accounts on Reddit said that they had been nodding off or fighting sleep when they’d hallucinated.However, Blake had even been well enough to be going up and down the slide tower before it had happened.
He looked down at his phone, navigating back to Google.He stared at the search bar, thumb hovering above the keyboard.Despite the doctor’s dismissal, the incident was still bothering him.He promptly typed in “talking statues.”
He got a few hits for an educational project, a set of statues depicting the senate in Rome, and a defunct animatronic show at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.He then searched “talking merman” and “talking mermaid statue” to no avail.
He hesitated before looking up: “Marin merman.”
The first result was a review for Slide Palace—Blake recalled that Water Zone had bought out Slide Palace some time ago, which explained how it hadn’t shown up in his earlier searches—it was from eighteen years earlier and listed as defunct.Blake could only see a snippet of the review from the search page, but it sounded promising and he clicked without hesitation.
Get the goddamn pygmalion out of your stupid boat
?????
Review by Nikki C.
8-11-2004
I’ve tried contacting you about this stupid merman five times!!Who the hell at your water park cursed the merman figure on the boat to be a pygmalion??Are you out of your damn minds???Took my kid to this place and this stupid thing wouldn’t stop asking for a churro so my kid’s been crying all night.He says his name is Marin.Speaks English and Japanese.what is wrong with you people you need to fix this immediately!!!!
