The Capricorn and The Fish
A Parable
By Markus Lochmann, 14. March 2021
A mountain view. High, snow covered tops. Jagged rocks. Further down fresh green pine trees. In the valley a blue green shining mountain lake, the water cold and clear.
At the waterside. A Capricorn trotting slowly to the water. He is thirsty from the summer heat. After all, he is not used to these hot summer temperatures, coming from his cold mountain heights.
So, he bends down to the lake to drink the delicious wet.
Suddenly he sees two yellow green eyes glowing at him from the water. “What”, does he think. “Who are you”, he asks?
“I am the Fish”, the voice in the water returns. “You don’t know me? I am the great pike. I live here.”
“Hello Fish”, says the Capricorn. “Nice to meet you. I am the Capricorn, how are you doing?”
“I’m doing great”, the Fish replies. “You know, I’m a really big thing here. I have thousands of little fish following me. I have dozens of great friends and acquaintances here in the lake. We are doing really well, how about you?”
“Well, I live high on the mountain top”, the Capricorn replies. “It is quite lonely and cold up there, you know.”
“Hahaha”, says the Fish, laughing. “What a miserable existence you have! I swim here with thousands of my fellow fishes, I am popular and loved. I have power and friends. And you? You sit alone on your rock and have to eat your sparse grass bushes. You sink into loneliness. You are nothing, you are a loser. You don’t even have a social life. I laugh myself to death because of someone like you”, the fish says, scoffing.
“You see? I am the greatest fish in the whole lake – and you are nothing.”
“You are right”, the Capricorn replies. “Everything you say is right.” He nods down his head and is leaving. Then, suddenly, he turns around one more time and looks at the still broadly grinning Fish. That Fish, who barely could hide the joy over his wonderful victory.
“But you know, Fish,” the Capricorn says with a serious voice; “you might be the greatest fish in your pond. You can have hundreds of thousands little fish following you. But you are trapped in your lake forever.”
“I, on contrary, can anytime come down from my mountain top. I can step into the water, in your element. But you never can come out of the water and visit me on my mountain rock.”
“See, I can enter your element, but you’ll never be able to enter mine.”
“You are prisoned – and I am free. I can climb, wherever I want to. And may tomorrow be at another much more beautiful lake.”
Says so, the Capricorn, takes a big leap and runs away with clacking hoofs. Reaching the mountain top in no time at all. And there he disappears in the cold mist of the mountain tops.
(for Anna)