He cries
tears of ink
They drip on me
I’m blackening
As I’m drifting
and floating
and falling
into sleep.

An Adventure Story from the Short Life of the Little Silver Fish

Once upon a time there was a little silver fish living between the rocks of a craggy coast. I don’t know what kind of fish it was, but then again, the little fish didn’t know either. It spent most of its days travelling between this rock and that, saying hello to its neighbors, eating little sea creatures who live between sea weeds and sometimes laying a few eggs to nice, warm and secret places, and then forgetting where she laid them and even if she laid them. The only thing that was stable in the little fish’s mind was her home. She knew every piece of sand in it.

One day while she was swimming between salty water bubbles, the oyster saw her and called for her:

“Where are you going little silver fish?” the oyster asked.

“I don’t remember,” the little fish answered cheered, recognizing she had forgotten her destination the moment the oyster asked.

“Well, well,” the oyster laughed, “you’re sure a dreamy one.”

The little fish, not knowing what to say in response to that, wagged her fins and smiled.

“You have pretty pearls,” she said then pointing into the oyster’s mouth, meaning the little pearls which would be too small for the humans to be valuable. “They remind me of something, but I don’t remember what.” This seemed to disturb her for a moment, but she didn’t allow this to bother her for too long, and the moment passed.

The oyster smiled at her, like it always did and said:

“I know something, which would make you wiser, so you won’t forget about these things anymore.”

“What is it?” the little fish asked excitedly swimming in loops.

“Look down there, do you see these weeds?” the oyster asked. It was referring to the silvery waving sea weeds which grew at the foot of the rocks a little more ahead. “You just have to take one bite of it, and you’ll remember.”

Now the little fish didn’t remember to have wanted anything like that before but suddenly, with the oyster mentioning it, she didn’t want to do anything else than to eat from those weeds. She darted towards them, leaving little hasty bubbles behind her, completely forgetting the oyster. She arrived at the silvery weeds and bit one of them. It tasted sweet, a taste the little fish didn’t experienced before. She felt dizzy, stood there paralyzed as the weeds were stroking her, caressing her slowly. It reminded her of the silver nets she had to escape from once; she almost got out of the water that day. She didn’t remember to be scared that much before. Struck by the horror of remembrance she shot up towards the shiny surface. The depths were so dark, so blue. She realized the first time in her life that her world was full of blueness. She stuck her little silver head out of the water, her mouth wide open, grasping for air in the waterlessness. The sun was shining, the weather was extremely hot, the air was arid, and the seagulls were screaming and were scaring her. She also remembered the appetite of the birds. She dived in back to the sea, swimming as fast as she could, flapping her little silver tail, cutting through the water like a knife. She swam like mad, fearing for her life, back to her home which was just the same, the way it always was. She hid herself in her little hole behind the rocks, gazing the outside with her eyes wide open. From the surface she saw the bubbles she made, not recognizing the trace as hers she pushed herself darker into the hole, turning her tail to the world outside, never looking back again.