Nick Sweeney’s stories are scattered around the web and in print. Laikonik Express, his novel about friendship, Poland, and getting the train for the hell of it, is out with UK independent publisher Unthank Books. His 20K-word ‘novelette’ The Exploding Elephant was published by Bards and Sages in 2016. He is a freelance writer and musician, and lives on the English coast.
(First published in the Urban Strange Anthology – print only – January 2018)
The House of the Siren
Mum’s usual route down to the seafront avoided the
House of the Siren, but Dad took us past it if we were
seeing him off when he shipped out. Mum looked the other
way. Dad kept his eyes forward, on the mercantile sea
that would claim him.
Only I stared into the siren’s painted eyes, caught
the pucker of her gleaming lipsticked mouth.
I saw a sailor come out one morning, but usually
the only daytime sign of life was the siren. She had once
graced a funfair awning, older local boys said, winking,
adding, “She’s more fun, now.”
I never saw Dad exit the House of the Siren. Mum
said it was his first stop ashore, a man caught between
the sea and the sirens, distracted only temporarily by
the call of home.
It burned down. Its last sirens were those of the
fire engines. Protection was mentioned, and money, the
lack of one causing the lack of the other.
I forgot about the siren – forgot all the sirens
Dad knew – until Dad was buried in the cemetery halfway
down the hill between the House of the Siren and the sea.
Tattooed old men and faded, painted women saw him off. Mum
looked straight ahead. I avoided the sirens’ eyes, but
sensed the pucker of their gleaming lips, and the memory
of all those kisses they’d placed on Dad, signalling with
silence that I’d see their daughters one day when I was
back on dry land, distracted from home, divorced,
and diverted.