If you clasp a seashell to your ear, so it is said, the roar of ocean surf can be heard, and by extension, I suppose, the sounds of mermaids singing, although their voices are seemingly obscured by some sort of aquatic static. But perhaps that's just how mermaids sing? An inchoate whooshing noise that resembles the roar of the surf that modern man, with the notable exception of T. S. Eliot, no longer recognizes as serenades from the watery depths. Alas, we shall never know, since Eliot doesn't elaborate on the substance of mermaid song, merely claiming it was audible to him despite not being sung to him. So who can tell the truth of the matter? A seashell held to the ear could merely contain the echo of severely flatulent fish and nothing else for all we know.
A large conch shell decorates my bathroom. Rescued from the shores of Antigua, I can still recall standing on the golden Caribbean sands with it pressed against my ear. All I heard was a reproving inner voice telling me I should have washed the thing off first because it could be dripping with local sewage and bacteria. Or perhaps some malevolent Antiguan invertebrate might use the opportunity to squirm its way through my ear into my head and begin the slow process of devouring my brain. Not quite the tropical island experience I was hoping for. Nevertheless, I rinsed the shell clean in saltwater, safely packed it in my luggage, and flew it home to my bathroom, where the gurgling of pipes and buzz of a ceiling fan are too loud to hear anything at all, no matter how hard I try to listen.
So if you really want to hear the sounds of the sea, I suggest listening to one of those commercially produced therapeutic audio recordings of the ocean. Although what is exactly "therapeutic" about twenty foot tidal waves slamming into a pebble beach in the middle of a tsunami I shall never understand. The tape I heard was called Coastal Meditation but was more like Neptune's Fury. All I could think about while listening to it was the hulls of wooden ships being smashed to smithereens and the cries of drowning men. And that, of course, is the real hardcore music of Davy Jones' Locker radio, not that namby-pamby, whooshing mermaid muzak that pretty seaside shells held to the ear disseminate.
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