'Livestock'
It was the seventh day of the heat wave and the water in the lake hardly moved. The only motion I made was in defending myself against incessant mosquito attacks. We holidayed in Stein am Rhein, where the young Rhine releases herself from the sluggish slowness of the Bodensee. That’s where the Rhine is ripple-clear.
Just outside Stein, at the camping, there is a magical entry. The river leads you swiftly through some rapids without getting mean.
The bottom runs steeply to three metres and stays there until 15 metres from the waterfront. That’s where the actual channel begins and the bottom steeps down deeply.
On the outside she partly flows back, so you don’t have to hike past barbed wire, bulls and angry farmers.
With an appropriate historical feeling I snorkel-dived on the abrupt drop of the slope.
From the sand a tiny rim stuck out that had been made by human hands and it did not look like a coca cola can. I picked it up and saw it was a copper mould from granny’s era in the shape of a small fish. Delighted with my exceptional treasure, but without any pocket to keep it, I put it inside my swimming trunks.
Half an hour later, I left the water with that pleasant thingamajig feeling of soon admiring my trophy up close.
It was a true little darling, the outside in baroque detail and beautified by the ravages of time. The inside, which I had fleetingly rinsed out, turned out to be inhabited by three leeches.
Instantaneously and with a raw shriek I ripped my trunks from my butt for fear that some might be hanging from my bollocks.
But as acutely and intensely as my fear had peaked, as pleasant was my acquiescence, for I had been spared a bloodbath.
With an ice cream stick I carefully removed the animals from my find. The blood was still throbbing in my temples.
Jan Ploeg, Meadow, February 2nd 2008