Multiplicity or Simplicity

Luca Rosner

by Luca Rosner

Story

The young animal leisurely gets close to the coast, but even here there seems to be a state of emergency. Starting with the very smallest, the plankton, up to conspecifics of the loggerhead turtle, there is turmoil.

“What is it now?!”, she sighs loudly. Then she suddenly feels it. Very subtle and absolutely indescribable. Something invisible, unpleasantly tingling glides through the floods. Comparable to a troop of hunting dolphins, and yet unnatural.

A particularly old sea turtle, who has just heard the queasy whispering, invites us to listen and promises exciting adventure stories from times long past. “Finally, someone with sense!”, the half-grown girl joins in without hesitation and listens eagerly as the old woman begins: “These are cries from the depths, areas where only whales are able to dive. Already I saw sea giants suddenly appear and stagger. Once I asked and the animal stammered from the overloud sounds.”

But as suddenly as she shares her wisdom with those around her, she changes the subject. Once, the reptile had spied land dwellers, who also reported events beyond the norm of their environment. Together, they would have determined that the diversity of marine species must be dwindling at about twice the rate of that on land.

Now the loggerhead turtle would like to just turn around and run away. How does she keep getting caught up in this fantasy? Doesn’t anyone want to have a little fun and lightheartedness anymore? You only live once. That just has to be celebrated, doesn’t it? While she ponders back and forth whether she or everyone else might be wrong, her kindred spirit blathers on about estimates and how many more sharks there were back then. As if every ninth shark or generally every ninth fish population had suddenly disappeared. Simply pulled out of the sea. The whole thing is even pushed so far that it sounds as if several shark species could not recover and would become extinct. Again this ridiculous thesis and still it sounds highly arrogant. All snobs. No sooner does she turn her back on the tragedy than something unspeakably terrible happens.

In front of her fins she sees a dead coral reef, completely lonely and deserted. The only living things far and wide are huge, strong algae with numerous algae blooms. Hesitantly she approaches the water surface of the beach. She must know it now. It leaves her no more peace.Is the world really in such a terrible state?

© Luca Rosner 2022-10-28