When We Believed in Mermaids

by Barbara O'Neal

“There are seasons of darkness, yes? Loss and sadness all around.” He tightens his grip. “But if you are patient, the circle turns, and then there is happiness all around, everything good, everyone happy.”

“My friend, he just forgot that happiness is part of living too.”

But even if you’re suffering, you don’t get to do whatever you want,

I wished he didn’t have to do drugs either, but I could feel that darkness in him getting better as he smoked his joint.

It was like he carried around some mean monster that shut up only when he drank or smoked pot.