Wiebke Rost

I am in a small town with average middle class, one family houses. (The place reminds me of Pforzheim.) I am inside one of these houses, first downstairs, in the living room and then upstairs, in the attic. The attic is a single long room flooded with light. It is a warm and friendly atmosphere, sunlight illuminates the walls and floor. It is almost as if the roof was missing but then I see it is made of glass and held by a slender steel construction. I look at the wall to my left and see an old shower head, which looks as if it had been out of use for a long time. Around the shower the wall looks run down and the plaster has come off. Beneath the barren stone is covered in green moss or algae. The scene looks like a photo. Sunlight is shining on the spot, water drips from the shower in slow motion and the green is a nice contrast to the warm rust-colored wall. I am thinking how beautiful it is up here and that it would be worth to do some construction work and renew the room. But then I see at other the end of the roof that it is somehow merged with the town’s modern library building. The latter has ten stories but oddly it feels I am at the same level. Either way, for some reason it would make any construction work in here complicated. I turn around. And there I see at the back of the long room – which seems to have gotten even longer – right there, where I had stood before, a couple of fishes. I am not wondering how these may have gotten here nor how it was possible for them to float around in the room. I remember how I had observed them before from the corner of my eye: a mother with her siblings. The mother is about 1,20 m long and has a pattern similar to those of zebra sharks. Her back and large dorsal fin are a dark brown, which runs down her sides in a few wide bands that become narrower towards the belly. Her lateral fins are also dark brown whilst the belly is a bright white. Her young ones are smaller, about 30-40 cm long and of a lighter color, but already sporting a similar pattern. They will probably become darker with age. I remember how I had been watching them up-close, when kneeling beside a small ditch, holding my hand in the cool running water, the fishes however floating around me in the air. It feels like I am in a vacuum. Time seems to stand still. Only the fish and water from the shower head are moving. The former in what seems to be their natural tempo, the latter in slow motion. Then I remember there was another big fish and I am now holding this fish in both arms. I am actually embracing and cuddling it. I feel a great joy and the fish seems to enjoy it too. I look at its beautiful scales and form: the entire body and fins are a matte black with only subtle hues of blue or grey-brown. It has an almost perfect round shape in profile but is otherwise a slender specimen with a peculiar serrated dorsal fin, the edge of which is elegantly rounded off and flowing straight into the tailfin. The pectoral fins are rather small and the ventral fin is similar to the dorsal one. I think how beautiful this fish is. Then I am back in the living room. I don’t remember what I had just experienced. Instead I am worried. Looking outside through the windows, I am expecting a volley of gunfire to hit any second. Then I am somewhere out of town and looking at the houses my last thought is how vulnerable this beautiful place was. Then I wake up

Tags: dream, elements, fish, sequences, slow motion, stories, visions, water, writing