I was experimenting with some shapes and textures the other day, wanting to make something that looked strange and aquatic, like a unique treasure washed up on a shore. I wanted it to evoke the themes of a story that I wrote in high school, about an immortal mariner taken off course by a range of strange and mystical obstacles while on a journey through magical seas. One of them was a stream of nymphs who seduce him on a hazy green island, distracting him from his true lover, a mortal dying woman, who he had unknowingly left behind for decades. Here is an excerpt from the story, and some photos/ artefacts I collected and made around the time of writing.

The Mariner and The Nymphs

At the thudding sound of a sandbar as it met the hull, the mariner’s exhaustion was set aside. The air of this land welcomed him. Within this cove, he felt the safety he had craved after being at sea for so long.

Taking off his boots, the mariner crossed another threshold. This time it was between everything he thought he knew and everything he was yet to discover. The golden sand dissolved seamlessly into rich ochre soil as the sea met the fertile land. Such a fade from element to element adorned the coastline like a veil adorns a princess. Everything was in a state of nourishment, the flower petals sang in a colourful choir, the oak of the trees oozed with sparkling treacle and the blades of grass were silk through the mariner’s toes.

A cluster of tall trees conversed beneath the tranquil moon. Illumination cascaded through the branches like pearls adorning the soft skin of a woman’s décolletage. Rocks wore a lace of emerald vines and the crystallised water reflected the opera of colours from above.

Despite the vivacity of the location, the land appeared asleep. Entering into a state of complete serenity, the mariner retired amongst the grassy pillow of the shoreside stream.

Sleep... The kiss of death on the waking mind.

When the mariner awoke, it was dawn. The soft sun cast a pale pink light onto his watery eyes. A symphony of angelic voices surrounded him. Still in a sleepy haze, the mariner could not navigate the source of wonder. Neither did he try, for embedded in every note was a divine reassurance, softening his hardened edges. The allure of the divine feminine beckoned him.

Sedated by her hymn, the mariner followed her lullaby’s echo along the river’s edge. The stream shifted in pearlescent pastel reflections and twisted in a sylphlike dance. The melody became louder and grew in intensity until he had found the source of both the crystalline water and the harmonious choir. The notes drifted under and over the sedated ripples and soaked the sizzling stones that lay beneath dense blankets of moss.

The source of the song matched the melody in beauty. Within the pool, the dripping locks of the choir obfuscated their bodies so that they became a wet blur of blushing, soft skin.

The mariner entered the lagoon of the nymphs. He was transfixed by their sweet faces, full cheeks and puckered lips. Long eyelashes, expansive emerald and cerulean eyes blinked at him, beaming with desperate playfulness. Full breasts and dimpled bottoms, soft curves and long spines drifted closer to him. Those on the rocks gathered their hair coyly down the slopes of their necks. The water gave each strand of hair a mesmerisingly glossy sheen. Their locks trailed behind them on the tide. Hypnotically, the nymphs drifted closer to the submerged mariner.

From under the mist, the mariner noticed a small purple flower blossoming from a dainty twig. He followed the frond to the bark’s base and from the base of the stick to the fingertips of a nymph whose strawberry locks fell in dipping strands across her breasts. Her eyes enveloped him. Her demanding emerald allure possessed him entirely. Her eyebrows folded in submissively, veiling her underlying deception. She tempted him with the fragrance of the flower, wafting it beneath the mariner’s nose. She was so close that the heat from her skin intoxicated him. He inhaled the petal’s addictingly saccharine scent. Its dense perfume was so fulsome that he could feel its thick vapours, taste its perspiration in his mouth and see the scent as it invaded the corners of his mind.

The nymphs rose up around him, warmed his hair and wet his face with their divine bath elixir. Curiously, the nymphs stroked his back and climbed the curves of his muscular legs. Not a slither of him remained untouched as the forms dissolved over him in slow melts. He was sucked into a whirlpool of lust; feminine enchantment was impossible to resist. The mariner was pulled further into this endless twirl of seduction. Their hands were so delicate that every touch felt like the ghost of a kiss. How they reminded him of his waiting lover. Yet, he could not resist their temptation, so charmed and so poisoned with desire, was he.

Their physiques dominated the mariner, whirling him under the singing waves. Their chorus grew to a symphony of elated chimes. The nymphs’ eyes grew menacingly slender, demanding compliance with which the mariner willingly surrendered. He drowned beneath waves of pleasure, suffocated by the nymph’s charming symphony. His consciousness slipped as a tune echoed in his mind:

Shimmering Streams

Golden tides,

The black has come

The waves now rise,

The lover waits

With ghoulish eyes,

Magic has spun

Eternal life.

The lover waits,

The lover dies.

The lover dies.

The lover dies.

Across the ocean the Mariner’s abandoned lover lay alone, tethered to the magic mariner. Her soul swam listlessly in her lonely sea.

She had sat for too long at the window. From behind the salt-licked glass, she wished she was like him. She longed to cast off her morality and slip into the golden eternal. Her thoughts fuzzed and fragmented. She was plagued by the knowledge that fate was often unkind. As for all mortals, death unavoidably awaited her.

Every day she grew ever weary. Though she was alone, she could her whispering voices taunting her. The chattering waves held cryptic messages. She felt that she was being discussed beneath the surface of the sea and had a strange feeling of betrayal. Was her mariner among those flickering tongues?

She dove into the sea. Even though she had aged beyond recognition, she leapt into the wild waters, desperate to join her mariner. Desperate for the man she had not held for years. She had hoped that the sea would embrace her like her lover should. But she found that it could not. Nothing could. Instead, iciness darted through her aged body.

Her mariner had forsaken her.