week 5 story: Finding Pambe's Paradise

you can find Pambe's story in my portfolio

Finding Pambe's Paradise

Peris, known for their beauty, exquisite wings, and mischievous smiles, were known to inhabit the sea. They would disguise themselves as worthy fish and once a long time ago, a fisherman caught one. The Peri told the fisherman to keep her or to throw her back, he was oblivious to what he had found but ended up taking the fish home. I, a nosy researcher, wanted to know more about the Peri and her life, so I tracked down the fisherman and Peri. In a modest cottage next to the sea, the husband and wife spend many days on their boat on the water, on the beach, or admiring the waves from their garden. Here I will be retelling the Peri's, Pambe's, story and how she came to be a human, from her point of view.

A self portrait provided by Pambe (1).

         So, I guess it starts with me, standing outside the Paradise gates admiring how mighty they are. The blueprint I had definitely was not to scale because they were way taller in person. I shifted into my half-human/ half-fish form, I think people call this a mermaid? I swam over to the very far side of the gate, hoping my friend, Azra, was doing a good job of flirting and distracting the guard that was supposed to be on duty. Well it turns out, that specific guard was married and Azra did a terrible job of keeping him occupied because I was caught swimming up the wall. The guard quickly threw a seaweed rope that wrapped itself around my tail and yanked me down to the sea bed. 

    I should first explain what Paradise is. It's were the best of the best live: the most powerful, the most clever, the most beautiful. If you are lucky and you work hard enough, you can be invited in to stay, but that rarely happens. I just wanted a quick little visit to explore and grab some goods but clearly that did not work out. 
        Basically, I end up in a jail, they force shifted me back into my lion fish form and told me to wait for my punishment. The chief of guards came to me and said to me, "Since you don't value the concept of Paradise and everything it stands for, you are being sent to land to gain a new perspective. You are panished at once to serve your penance on land. Don't come back until a human has fallen in love with you." 

    They released me from the jail, and I swam off thinking, "Why in the world am I supposed to make a human fall in love with me??? Don't they realize how easy that's gonna be?" As you can see, my human form is far above the average human, so there was no real challenge. As I was swimming around in my thoughts, I spied a net sweeping the surface of the water and I thought there was no way it was going to be this easy. I swam up, got caught in the net and when pulled from the water, the fishermen's face lit up immediately and he tossed me into his basket to take home. Once home, he dug a well and placed me into it, and I just had to wait for my opportunity to make him love me.

    The first day he was gone, I shifted into a human and cleaned the house. If I was going to have to live there, it was going to be clean. When he arrived home, he gave credit to his neighbor which I did not like. After another day of cleaning he got suspicious, and tricked me into thinking he had left the house. I have never been tricked before so I immediately knew he was special... except for the part where he tossed my scales into the fire, prohibiting me from ever going back to my fish form. But besides that, I liked him! All I had to do was make him love me and then hopefully one of the more powerful Peri's could give me my fish form back! Except the Padishah discovered me, sent for me, and decided that I were to be his bride. I simply could not be his bride because that would mean life on land, forever.  I had to figure something out and when my fishermen told me what the Padishah had demanded, I told him to return to the spot where he found me and to ask for a cushion. He dropped the cushion in the spot where the Padishah wanted his palace and poof, a palace was built.
        The Padishah was relentless, requesting impossible task after task for my poor fisherman. But you've already read this part: a palace of gold and diamonds, a crystal bridge, a feast, a mule from an egg, and a talking baby. And somewhere along the way, I started to care for my fisherman even though I already knew he loved me. I foolishly helped the man and ended up falling in love with him. But, fast forward 8 months and we live here in this cottage by the sea. I think I understand why this was my penance, Paradise is special, valuable, and you have to work for it. 
        So, I guess you could say I found my own Paradise. 

 

A visual representation of Pambe's fish Peri form (2).

Author's Note

I was inspired by the backstory of the Peri in the story. I wanted to know why she came to land and why she decided to help the fisherman. After reading about the Peri in the Turkish culture, I learned that they were beautiful creatures, often associated with romance and mischief. I chose the Peri to be a lionfish, I think they're graceful and beautiful creatures who could be mischievous.  I also learned that Peri's often had to serve penance in order to entire Paradise. Pembe is the name I picked for my Peri, Pembe means pink in Turkish, and lionfish are sometimes pink. Pembe tried to break into Paradise and therefore was punished and sent to land to make a human fall in love. Little did she know, she was going to have to help this human by sending him to the area above Paradise. He asked a Peri in Paradise for help from the relentless Padishah. Pembe ended up falling in love with her fisherman, she learned how valuable Paradise is, and living happily in her seaside cottage. 

Peri Information: WikiPedia

Bibliography of original story: 

The Fish Peri, Forty-four Turkish Fairy Tales by Ignacz Kunos

Image 1 source: Pixabay

Image 2 source: Pxhere