Said shift felt like it took an entire year. All my questions swam through my mind, and without any answers, it just made time move slower and slower. I tried to kill some time by picking out the best reaction shots of Ross on the Walk of Fame for my short, but my boss swooped over to chew me out for staring at my phone when I should be scanning the pool for drowners or running kids. The whole thing was eight hours of torture.

As soon as my shift was over, I raced to Ross’s place, not bothering to change even though sitting in that lifeguard stand for eight hours can leave you smelling rank. BO or not, I end up in Ross’s computer chair, a PowerPoint slideshow cued up while Ross and Kavya flank the desk.

“Wow, you really found your way around the Office suite, didn’t you?” I say. “Aren’t you the one who hates human technology and all that?”

Ross sticks out their tongue. “It can come in handy from time to time. Like now!” They reach down and whack the space bar. “Under the Sea” from The Little Mermaid blasts out of the speakers while a title page reads:

So You Want to Know About Merfolk?

A Rundown by Ross

with Special Contributions by Kavya

“Just know that my part’s going to be the best,” Kavya stage-whispers, then dodges Ross’s fist before they click to the next slide.

Where do merfolk come from?

The Blue Moon

This is the most magical night in the ocean, when the power of the moon combines with the power of the ocean. Millennia ago, a group of shipwrecked, drowning humans cried out for help on a Blue Moon, and they were transformed by the water’s magic.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” I say, and Ross begrudgingly turns down the music.

“Yes?” They say it with that tone of a teacher who’s been interrupted right at the most pivotal part of their lecture.

“I can just hop into the ocean on the night of a Blue Moon, wait until I’m drowning, then ask for help and I’ll get turned into a mer? It’s that easy.”

“It’s not easy. It’s rare, it’s magical, it’s a generous act of love and selflessness. You can’t just cause yourself to drown; it has to be a genuine accident or else the Blue will know you’re phony and trying to force its hand. Or current, I guess.”

“But if merpeople were made from desperate humans, how are you here? Do you have some, like, underwater stork who delivers mer babies?”

“If you’d shut up and let me get to the presentation I worked very hard on—”

“Tee-hee, hard-on,” Kavya snickers.

“—you’ll have all the answers to your questions. And no, storks don’t deliver mer babies. That’s ridiculous. They deliver elf babies.”