ROOFTOPS ROOFTOPS

„I once had a dream. I was running over rooftops. I ran fast and jumped over the ravine between the houses. Higher and higher I catapulted myself from roof to roof. Then I saw a floating island in the distance. As if torn out of the earth, I could see the roots sticking out from under it and heard the crashing of stones and chunks of earth crumbling away. I got closer and closer until I was right underneath it and grabbed one of the roots. I climbed up it, the smell of wet earth and grass surrounding me.

I looked down and was so high up that I could see the birds flying far below me, and I saw the gaping black hole that the island had torn in the earth. I climbed higher and pulled myself over the edge until I was standing on the island. Lush greenery surrounded me. Wide meadows, gently caressed by the wind and swayed by delicate flowers. Clear streams rippled and flowed out over the edges of the island, enveloping it in a bed of clouds that enveloped it more and more. I took my steps carefully through the tall grass and entered a deep forest. Sunlight streamed through the dense canopy. The forest was just as peaceful as the meadow.

But there was something strangely unsettling about this forest. The tree closest to me had a strange shape. It seemed to be enclosing something. I looked around and saw that it was the same with all the trees. All of them were in strange bent and twisted postures, as if they were frozen in motion. Also, some seemed to have something like shoulders and legs, as if broken in mid-stride. Then I realized that there were people in these trees. People encased in bark and wood. As if they had fled from something and nature had locked them in lonely prisons. I backed away, and when I got back to the meadow, even the babbling of the stream no longer seemed peaceful, but instead joined the wailing of thousands of voices. I stumbled to the edge of the island. We had long been so high that I could barely make out the roofs below me.

But there was something else. The houses, streets, everything had merged into nature, just like the people. The streets were littered with grasses and flowers. There were bushes in the houses, branches growing out of roofs and windows and birds nesting in the cracks in the walls. It was as if a thousand years had passed in the space of a few moments and the culture that had lived there had long been forgotten. And I was the only witness to this silent grip of nature.

Of course, it’s all just a whisper of simple-minded leaves in the wind, a mirage. The ghost of a destiny that may never be fulfilled. And yet it has happened so long ago and at the same time is the expectation of a judgment that has been passed. Just think of the forgotten peoples, of whom only ruins bear witness. Perished in fires, floods, ashes and earthquakes. Small whims of mighty nature that have come upon my long-suffering earth. And an entire culture is forgotten.

All this has already happened and is a distant future at the same time. Nations come and go. And what they have taken unlawfully will be taken from them again. What remains are holes torn in history.“