Snail and Vole

A story by Katharina Lamprecht

A vole watched a snail, which dipsy-doodled along a path and asked her: “Why do you crawl so arduously back and forth? Doing that it takes you much longer to get forward”. The snail sighed. “That’s true, but I always look on both sides of the path for something to eat. When I´m on the left side I keep thinking, that there might be better food on the right. When I´m on the right side I think the same and therefore go back to the left. I´m always afraid that I will overlook some yummy greens”. The vole understood perfectly. “I´ll help you. I´m a big taller than you are and walk in the middle of the path, that´s a good lookout. You can stay on the right side and in case I see something worth coming over to the left, I´ll let you know”. And in this way they went on. The vole saw many lush and juicy herbs on the left side, but it didn’t say a word. Because now, giving all her attention to just one side of the path, the snail found enough treats. After a while, as the snail discovered that she found enough to eat, she thanked the vole for the help and went on by herself. Just following her path.

La respiration agréable

Une amie m’a appelée. Elle respirait extrêmement vite et de manière agitée et ne pouvait prononcer que quelques mots à la fois. Sa voix avait un drôle de son. Elle raconta que sa fille venait d’avoir un accident de voiture avec son bébé sur le siège arrière. Le bébé n’avait rien eu mais le SAMU avait transporté sa fille à l’hôpital car ils craignaient une fracture de la base du crâne. Elle-même avait dû rester où elle était ; elle devait garder le bébé et n’arrivait pas à savoir ce qui se passait avec sa fille. J’ai alors commencé à respirer et à parler de la même façon qu’elle et au bout d’un certain temps j’ai changé de rythme et ai ralenti peu à peu ma respiration et ma façon de parler. J’ai remarqué qu’elle me suivait instinctivement dans mon comportement et qu’elle se calmait. Sa voix sonnait claire et forte et ce qu’elle racontait maintenant sonnait plus positif qu’au début de la conversation. « Je te remercie de la façon dont tu m’as parlé », ont été ses mots quand elle termina la conversation.

Everything Else

In a land in our time there lived a man, who read a book and found lots of wonderful stories therein. There were true and invented stories, experienced and pensive, enjoyable and painful stories. There were stories which contained stories, and such which were actually not stories. For every story he read, there occurred to him nearly five which he had either experienced or thought up himself. So the thought came to him, that a lot in the world was a story which could be healing for himself and others; he only needed to absorb the healing stories well and to forget the terrible ones immediately. Then he would learn which story he had used when and for what. So he organised his own stories which he knew, and which had become a help to himself and others, or could become so. Sometimes he noted it down when a new story came to his ears and sometimes when a helpful story occurred to him, he memorised it.

Then he saw before him in a picture the storystories of this life arranged in long shelves, as in a large pharmacy. And behind the counter there sat a man who had learnt to listen to himself and others. He was a master of his subjectspecialty. His talent was that he understood how to tell the right thing at the right time to himself and to those who visited him.

Lumbago

„Witch’s shot“, that’s what they call a lumbago in my country. And indeed, it is like a curse! This pain whenever I move! “It would be best not to move at all any more”, I thought. “If I just keep my arm in front of the body, pull my right shoulder up, let the left shoulder drop down, and bend a little bit forward, I can stand it.” If I were to move very cautiously, I could even go to the door. But how should I press down the handle without changing my posture? Any wrongfalse movement was causing terrible pain.

On the other hand: What was a “wrongfalse movement” in this situation? The longer I stayed in my unnatural position, trying to protect myself from the pain, the more my muscles tensed, and the worse they would ache afterwards. If my means of escape were actually my trap – what could I do?

I decided to do an experiment. Instead of trying to find a comfortable position for my body, I went into the most painful position I could stand for a prolonged time and I stayed like this. Surprisingly, my pain became less after a few minutes, and my ability to move increased. Once more I leaned back into the pain – the worst I could bear. And again the pain decreased after a while and I could move more freely. I repeated this procedure another six or eight times. The curse lost its power and turned into bliss.