The Office Mermaid by Christina M. Rau
Her constant trips to the water cooler have begun to interfere with the quality of her work. She hears the glub-glub bubbling whenever anyone takes a sip, calling to her as the Sirens called Odysseus. Her fin needs to flex before it cramps in the cramped space under her desk, so flipping over to the corner to wet her palate and sate her scales is the best remedy to keep up her morale even though morale is not the equivalent of production. Gillian, her cubicle-mate, doesn’t seem to mind the constant breaks; she follows the flippers to the water cooler to dish about this and that. Henry, however, hates them both. He wears tight pants, feels as cramped as the mermaid at his small desk, but he never breaks from sifting through memos unless it’s to head to the copy room or the paper shredder. The Office Mermaid has shred her share of items in the past, so she sticks to light typing, the occasional drift into nowhere while staring at a screensaver of clown fish and giant bubbles, adjusting her headset so that it doesn’t get caught up in her cascading curls, and putting in purchase orders for more disposable mini cups for the cooler. HR has been haranguing her about the dress code violation, but she insists the shell bra is a cultural thing, and therefore it’s protected by law. (She’s pretty sure Henry lodged the complaint about it; Gillian overheard him whispering vehemently into the phone a few days ago. Henry hasn’t learned that you can’t keep secrets in an office with no walls). The Office Mermaid continues to wear her shell bra and has taken to coloring her scales neon so they look like Spandex. Then right after lunch, she licks up the leftover salt in the break room and rubs it on her skin.