A man had a wife and two daughters. The man’s wife did not like going outside the house. Each day she did the same things as on the previous days: she cooked, she laid the table. She cleared the table. She did the dishes. The man was not content to let his life go to waste day by day like his wife was doing. The man liked the outdoors. He liked to fish and ski and run. Using his body hard and breaking a sweat made him feel alive.

“How selfish you are!”, the man’s wife would scold as he was ready to leave the house again like so many times. “You leave me to take care of everything each day. If I did not have the girls to take care of I could do what I really wanted.” “How selfish our father is to be doing what he likes.”, thought the girls.The girls’ mother was not selfish. She always did what needed doing regardless of whether she liked it or not. “What do you want to do?”, asked the man, wanting to be nice to his wife. “I want to stay home and cook and clean in peace without being interrupted.”, said the wife. The man did not understand why his wife chose to stay home and do the same things she did each day but took his daughters with him as she asked.

“What should we do here?”, asked the daughters from the shore. They had to shout for him to hear them. The father had jumped from one big rock to another. Now he stood on a rock far from the shore, holding his fishing rod. Both daughters were of the age where the sufferings of creatures such as worms and fish are not yet possible to ignore. This was the father’s day off. He did not have the strength to guide his daughters through putting a hook through a worm or gutting a fish without feeling guilty. “Smart people are never bored.”, he replied and turned his back on them.

The girls explored the nearby woods. They were not afraid for this was a time when there were no pedophiles and no one abducted children. Besides, the woods were completely empty of people so it was safe. The father was good at seeking out remote places.

On the rocky shore the girls found a mermaid. It was perfect. Its torso, arms, breasts, neck and face were made of wet sand. Its tail was made out of driftwood and rocks. Its mouth and eyes were made of glass shards smoothed by the sea. The mermaid’s hair was made of seaweed. It was a pity that this was not the kind of shore where seashells can be found. The girls played with the mermaid.

Strange noises could be made out from the hill above the shore. The girls climbed up the hill and found a music tree. Lids, pipes and metal scraps hung by strings off the branches of a pine. The wind banged the pieces together to make strange sounds. The girls played with the music tree.