The Siren's Song

Her songs once drew sailors, heroes and adventurers to her side.  She sang of fabulous places and faraway spaces, entrancing them and bringing their fantasies to life.

They say she was a witch, enchanting her lovers to their deaths. But what if she reached out to them just because she was lonely, unloved? They weren’t crushed against the rocks. They left her, time and time again, and if she preferred the popular version that gave her a wicked reputation, well that was better than it being known she was the one who was abandoned.

In the legends the Siren drowned herself after Odysseus restrained himself from her song, sailing past her. The tales tell that she threw herself into the ocean as he escaped her reach.

But that’s not how it really happened.  The truth is that Odysseus would sail to her regularly, captivated by her songs, her stories, her imagination.

He would wind his fingers through her hair, pulling her close just so he could inhale her scent. Her skin was as silky smooth as the water she swam in, diving down deep and then bursting through the surface into his arms.

It was only when he realised what he had to lose, how dangerous it was to love her, that he hardened his heart and harnessed the winds to take him where he could no longer hear her song.

"I love you," he whispered, though it was only safe for the winds to hear.

And she watched him go, her song now a lament, a warning to others not to love what couldn’t be theirs.

She curled around herself on her rock, her tears falling, splashing into the waves below, swelling the water churning around her, until it closed over her head, dragging her down into its depths.