A message overhead via the A-Sea-and-Sea Conch Network:
Dear King Neptune,
I am thirty-two cycles old. Some of my mer-friends say that there is no such thing as Sandy Klaws. I think they’re wrong. The Great Kraken says, “If you hear it in a shell, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth. Is there a Sandy Klaws?
From,
Marina Wavesong
The Cove of the Seven Sea Stars
The Warm Part of the Ocean
And the reply comes as follows:
Dear Marina,
Your little mer-friends are wrong. They are cursed with exposure to Landwalker ways and have lost the innocence and magic of being OceanKind.
Yes, Marina, there is a Sandy Klaws. He exists as certainly as the tidepools, ocean currents and kelp forests exist, and you know that they abound to help sustain the lives of you and your family, as well as providing beauty and joy.
Alas, how dreary would be the seas be if there were no Sandy Klaws! It would be as dreary as if there were Marinas. There would be no pearls to dive for, or whalesongs to listen to, or dolphins to play with. Instead, we would be as limited as our Landwalking kin, without the shimmer of scales and tails to gladden our existence.
Not believe in Sandy Klaws? You might as well not believe in shifting to having two legs when you wish to walk on sand! You might get your papa, and your friend’s papas, and all the mermen in the ocean to watch in every waterspout on Christmas Eve, but even if they did not see Sandy Klaws arriving, what would that prove? The most real things in the seven seas are those that no mermaid can touch or hold.
Have you ever been able to capture the green glow of phosphorescence floating in the water? Of course not, but that doesn’t make it any less real. No one can imagine all of the wonders that swim unseen and unseeable in the deepest depths.
You may pry open the oyster’s shell to see how a pearl is created, but there is a veil shrouding the unseen abyss that not even the cleverest mermaid, or the united talents of all the merfolk who ever lived could push aside. Only faith, fancy, love, romance, and ocean magic can draw open that curtain and allow a view of the beauty, glory, and mystery beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Marina, in all the ocean there is nothing else more real and everlasting.
No Sandy Klaws? Thank the Mother Ocean that he lives, and lives forever. A million tides from now, Marina – nay – ten times ten million tides – he will continue to foster joy in the hearts of mermaid kind.
(With apologies to Frank Church.)