An Unexpected Piscine Flood Victim

20260802

Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

Tim gazed forlornly across what had, until yesterday, been a garden.
“Mild flooding my ass…”
Which was immature, he knew. Rationally it had been minor. But this place wasn’t meant to be at risk of flooding at all! And hadn’t been two decades ago. Stupid, festering, lobby-indulging-
“DAAAAD!!” Molly’s squeal cut the unusual silence, sounding both excited and horrified. “THERE’S A CRYING FISH!”
Oh dear. Tim winced. Assuming he was about to have to explain several harsh facts to the poor child. So he slogged over in a hurry, listening in concern to Molly’s soothing patter.
“There, there, fishy! It’s ok. Dad will know how to help. You’re ok.”
“Um… sweetie…” Tim froze as he saw what Molly was talking to.
In the murky mess of their backyard pool was a… well, he’d call it a huge fish, except its head was disturbingly human. Right down to having short wispy hair. And now he was close enough he could make out the fact it was snivelling. Like a frightened child. But its eyes were fish-like as it stared up at him.
“Uhhhhh…”
“It must have gotten caught up in the flood!” Molly mused, showing excellent logic and a terrible grasp of normality. “What do we do?”
Sadly, parenthood meant having to Be The Adult even when shit got weird. So Tim took a deep breath and cast about for what they could possibly do.
“W-well, first off, don’t get too close to it - animals can freak out if you do that.”
“Oh. Ok.” Molly sat back on her heels.
“Secondly, um, let me take some pictures…” Tim fumbled out his phone. “And I’ll send them to the local animal rescue, and hopefully they’ll have capacity… I’m sure they’re very busy right now, so they might just tell us what to do.”
“Ok!” Molly beamed encouragingly at the freak fish and cooed “Smile! We’re taking your picture! And then we’re gonna find out how to help you and get you back to your friends and-”
Tim actually had the local animal rescue's email already, because last year he’d sent off for some hedgehog gates. Thank goodness. One less bit of hassle in an already hassle-saturated day.
Email sent, he emphasised to Molly that she wasn’t to touch the thing. But it was swimming little circles near her and no longer crying, so he encouraged her to keep talking to it while he got on with inspecting the garden.
“If they haven’t emailed me back before tea, I’ll try calling.”
“Ok!”
As it was, Tim had barely gotten back to work before his phone went off. “Are they still there? Are they alright??”
“Er…” He blinked rapidly. “This is…?”
“Right, sorry, Amanda from Southeast Wildlife Care, I just got your email about the baby merfolk. Are they alright?”
“Merfolk??” Tim hurried back to reappraise the fish. “I, uh, think there must be some mistake, it doesn’t… There’s no arms or-”
“Those come in at puberty.”
“Oh.” Tim ran his fingers through his hair, obvious to the streaks of muck left behind. “Yes, it’s still here, and it’s definitely alive. Uhh does it need salt water?”
“If they’re not already dead, no. Must be a lake merfolk.”
“Oh goodness, I thought there weren’t any for miles.”
“Yes, the poor thing must have been swept all the way from Harsgate.”
Tim winced and cast a sympathetic, concerned glance at the baby mer. “What should we do?”
“Can you get them into clean water? Not tap water. Filtered or even bottled should be alright.”
“Ah, yeah, we’re stocked up on bottled water and I bet most of the neighbours are too. I’ll put a request out on the local chat. And see if anyone has a container big enough - we certainly can’t get the pool clean, but maybe someone has an inflatable one…”
“Have they made any speech-like sounds at you?”
“Yes, it was crying earlier and it keeps chattering at Molly. My daughter. She’s keeping it company.”
“Then they should be alright being out of water for a few minutes - worst case it’s probably best to carry them to a bathtub rather than leaving them in flood water. Who knows what muck’s in there! But if you can bring a container to them, that’s far better. I’ll try and get someone out to you as quick as I can, but with the roads…”
“Right. I’ll check with my neighbours and see what we can do, and update you if anything changes.”
“Good man - just call me direct on this line.”
“Will do.” Jim bade farewell and hung up, then turned to Molly, who’d been listening with shining eyes. “So, um, you probably heard that this is a baby merfolk, and we need to find it a nice clean tub filled with bottled water.”
“Right! Because fishies don’t like tap water.”
“Exactly.”
“We should ask Mr Howard! He has those big tanks he raises frogs in and he said he was taking them all inside for the flood so I bet some of them are clean.”
“He… oh!” Tim brightened up. “That’s a great idea, Mol! Yes, I’ll post on the neighbourhood chat telling everyone we need extra bottled water and ask Isaac if he’s got a tank he can spare.”
“I’m sure he will.” Molly beamed at the merfolk, who was watching them closely, its head mostly out of the water. Listening? How much could they understand at… whatever age it was?
Hopefully enough that Molly’s “Don’t worry merbaby, help is one the way!” was reassuring.
Tim wiped his hands clean and started typing up a storm. Goodness, this was going to knock all those simple complaining posts out of the (flood)water!

Prompt was “Write a story about discovering a mermaid trapped in your pool after a flood.”