Mara, a storm-child, is riding high and against the birds of prey, but you can’t teach an old fairy-tale horse new tricks.

Written by Miriam Laura Leonardi
Translated in English by Gerrit Jackson
Read by Laura Lockwood

The short story speaks of departure, the travels, as well as the return of Mara, a girl who addresses the listener via fantastic thoughts and direct speech. Her journey, in which she tries to save a mountain that prevents the sky from falling, proves to be a metaphor for an existential attempt at personal orientation in Mara’s life. By changing not only her own name but also those of her acquaintances, she invents descriptions synonymous with incidents, the result is a fast-paced linguistic back-and-forth reminiscent of Mara's own dealings.

According to Mara, a person's real name is not the one they were christened with, but the one they are shouted at by others. Contrary to expectations, this does not lead to misunderstandings on the part of the listener, but on Mara's; she finds herself again and again exposed to verbal misunderstandings, the dire consequences of which she endures when she speaks up in protest. In her rebellion against her own social existence, one can recognise the contemporary individual trapped in the radical subjectivity of their own emotions; ensnared in endless inner conflicts, which stem from the inability to feel at home in society or to live outside of it.

Original Language is German