Sirena & The Island Of Mist

Inis Oirr

     That was life for me...a life that is as bleak as the black rocks on which the ocean rolls over.

     I dream of leaving Inisheer...pursue a life off my island of paradise. To see the world that I have only written about. But leaving this island can only be done by boat, and the only boats that service this island are the fishermen's boats.

     I stop on the drive as I look at my sky-blue house...the color of the water when you are under the waves...or so my mom says.

     Seashell wind chimes 'clink' in the constant onshore breeze as I can hear my dad tinkering in the garage with an automatic motor for a ball that the kids play with. They were careless and let in fall into the shallows of the ocean and the salt messes with the gears.

     I walk to my home as the sweet scent of cinnamon rolls are baking in the oven. Opening the door, mom is busy working on dinner: Salmon chowder.

     Sea-food is all we eat here.

     Fish, shellfish and sea plants. Mom knows all the secrets of how to harvest and prepare the meals with a pleasant balance of sea salt and seasons from our herb garden.

     She spies me watching as she stops what she is doing and smiles.

     "There is no reason to hide like an anemone-fish sweetie!" which is my signal to reveal myself and come into the kitchen. Playing hide and go seek with her is almost impossible. She seems to have this uncanny ability to find me wherever I may hide. I remember asking her 'How are you finding me so easy?' and she replied 'Instinct sweetheart...something that you too will develop one day.'

     "Miss Crouch says thank you for the rolls." as I walk over to the table to continue last night's homework.

     "That nice." mom replies as she seemed bothered by something.

     She sets her apron aside and walks over to the dinner table and takes a seat. She stares at me as she stores all the details in her head...envisioning something that only she could see. "How's your studies coming along?" as she looks at the book that she has given me to read: The Occult Sciences of Atlantis.

     "I won't lie...I find this somewhat hard to digest." I comment, looking up from the text. All these books mom holds dear to her...as if they meant something to her.  "Mom...why am I reading this?" as this text holds no real benefits to my survival.

     "Because it is a necessary subject that you should be aware of!"

     "But Finn says that Atlantis is just a made-up place from a guy called Play-Doh." as mom huffs in exacerbation.

     "His name is Plato, not Play-Doh sweetie." she takes the book and looks at the text. "Read this." as she shows a paragraph near the front of the book.

     "The sources of the occult sciences of Atlantis are known in the writings of Timaeus & Critias of Plato whom wrote of the physics and arithmancy of the Atlantean Empire pass the Pillars of Hercules. Scarcely less authoritative is the Historical Library of Diodorus Siculus who wrote of the astrological affairs of Atlantis, the Isles of the West, Hesperides, Elysian and Hy-Brasil which speak of the Atlantean ideals." "The deluge of Atlantis is spread across the Earth in the earlier chapters of the Book of Genesis, the Jewish Rabbinical and Koran...all covering a time when the Earth flooded from the terrible vengeance of the Gods."

     I look at mom as this this does not prove anything!

     "The reason why much of Atlantis was forgotten, was due to the fact that Atlantis existed during an age of oral traditions as the written word was still in its infancy."