Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid
and the Storytelling Soup
Kim Antieau
Published by Green Snake Publishing at Smashwords
Copyright (c) 2011 by Kim Antieau
Cover photo by Kim Antieau
All rights reserved. Used by permission.
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Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid
and the Storytelling Soup
Kim Antieau
SISTER RUBY ROSARITA Mermaid adjusted to life in the New Desert after the Old Sea dried up more quickly than the other Old Mermaids. Of course she missed the Old Sea and all that was within. But she knew the Old Sea was in the clouds, her blood, and in every cell of the Old Salmon who made their way up and down various creeks and rivers. So it wasn’t that she didn’t love the Old Sea as much as the other Old Mermaids; it was that she loved the New Desert, too.
Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid appreciated the New Desert for exactly what it was: dry, sparse, mysterious, dangerous, beautiful. And in the New Desert she discovered her calling, her gift, the thing she loved to do almost more than anything else: Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid learned to cook.
She had never cooked in the Old Sea. No one had. It wasn’t done. Probably couldn’t be done. But in the New Desert, Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid took to cooking like a fish takes to water. She went around to all the neighbors in the New Desert and up to the Mountains where the Old Man and Old Woman lived. She ate the meals they prepared for her, asked questions, then went out in the New Desert and discovered other things to eat. After she learned to cook, she taught the other Old Mermaids how.
All the Old Mermaids participated in their daily nourishment, but everyone knew that the meals created by Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid were special. Some of you have already heard about the chili she made when she accidentally used water from the Old Sea that Sister Bridget Mermaid had saved for them. People are still talking about that chili, how it lasted until everyone was fed, how people came from all over to eat at the Old Mermaid Sanctuary that day, how even the birds in the kitchen tile flew out and hovered around the soup pot to see what wondrous stew was brewing because it smelled so good—even to birds.
No one knew what would happen when Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid cooked, but they knew something would happen—especially when she made soup. Her dishes were always nutritious, of course; the ingredients were healthy, grown or plucked or harvested, all obtained with love and good nature. People said that when Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid made soup she whispered a little something extra into the pot, or maybe she added a special herb or some other ingredient. Most people didn’t care what she did; they just knew they felt better after eating her food. Sometimes they felt happy; sometimes they began telling their secrets; sometimes they realized what their true heart’s desire was; sometimes they understood the language of the cacti or the quail or the coyotes.