The Importance of Being a Good Person

I watched as April met the merman and left with him. She was visibly nude underneath, but there was a length of thick gauze plastered along the right side of her neck. I had no wish to return to the big city in the north, even though the beach resort now held painful memories. Weeks passed, several months, maybe even more than a year, in a state of misery, half alive, submerged by sadness. Then on the morning of the third day, since I had witnessed her in the arms of the merman, the key turned in the front door; she walked in. There was a raw deep scarlet scar running along the ridge of her long neck.