Mermaid

 This story was told to me by my grandfather Ivan. He was a stern man, had been through the war, and was not interested in writing.

It happened in Ukraine, in the Poltava region. After the war, my grandfather got a job as a postman, and he worked as one until retirement. He traveled through the territory entrusted to him in a cart pulled by an old gelding. He usually returned at dusk, but on the day he arrived from the post office, his head hurt badly, he lay down, and slept almost until evening. It's getting late, but the mail needs to be delivered. I had to harness the horse.

I was coming back, and the moon was already shining. Part of the road ran along the lake, and in one place there were bridges where the men were fishing. And grandfather noticed a woman with long hair sitting on the catwalk with her back to him. Her hair was long, covering almost her entire back, and her lower body was lowered into the water. Well, he sits and sits, but this woman was crying so much that she wanted to howl herself. Grandfather began to fasten the reins to a special handle in order to get off the cart to find out what had happened, but the old horse, which had never run in his life, carried Ivan so much that he almost fell off.

The grandfather turned back to the woman and saw, and she turned around. He froze — he wasn't a man, but something incomprehensible: his face was angry, grinning, his hair was long and tangled, he was naked to the waist, and what was below was writhing so that the water around him was bubbling like a geyser. She rushed under the water and the water began to ripple in his direction. And the horse doesn't need to be prodded — he jumps and bucks all the time, as if someone is biting him...

My grandfather used to say that in the war, when he cleared the rails, he wasn't as afraid as he was that night. And he kept repeating: "So now believe the fairy tales that mermaids are beautiful!".