Day 591

Mermaids are thought to be something like part human and part fish, much in the way that werewolves are part-time human and part-time wolf. As we should all know a werewolf is about as human as a dog (with instincts to match). You can see it in their eyes, that vague disdain for the personoid skinsuit they are forced to inhabit until the full moon and let's not even mention how the older ones lose control over their form and walk around with half reconstructed bodies, mouths a permanent snarl and lumbering on all fours. Not a pretty sight.

Mermaids are interesting in their own right. They mimic humans pretty well... from a distance and several meters underwater. Up close they're between twelve and thirty-two feet in length though rare sightings of much larger ones have been found from deep-sea cameras. Aside from their somewhat human facial features (after all they lack hair, a nose and, more often than not, a chin) they tend to exhibit human characteristics. Now whether these are learned from observation or passed down from parent to offspring or even purely coincidental, they are like us in manner.

Strange as it is to observe, stranger it is to find oneself parroting their gestures as humans are wont to do in social situations. The smaller ones are more prone to wild gesticulations of both arms and tail, often creating small whirlpools and rapids with their boisterous movements. The larger ones stickmore to nodding their heads (or in cases where the head isn't pivotal, their entire torso). They even have jokes of sorts though most pertain to the faces we make when drowning. As I'm sure you're aware by now, the younger ones are very fond of displaying this with no malicious intent, however the older mermaids are far more versed in these facial expressions and use them as more of a lazy threat, if such a thing exists.

Though their language is little more than clicks and whale-like moans they have still managed to develop their own kind of philosophies and religions. They worship what is translated (by them) as the Deepest Ones, those giants we occasionally capture on film. It would seem that as they grow larger they grow too heavy to maintain buoyancy and so sink until they are crushed by their own weight in the abysses of the oceans. According to the mermaids that have learnt human speech this is the greatest way to die, the only way for their life to reach the "endless oceans of the sky" - their nirvana.