“And the fisherman asks the talking perch: ‘Why save stories when we are drowning?’ And the perch says: ‘Because you are not drowning. You are swimming through the memory of land. And if you forget the apple tree, the cat, the song—then the water wins everything.’”

“Without stories,” Vilis coughed, “we are just hungry animals on a raft.”

She brought it up.

The cinema was a cave of silt and shadows. The screen had torn long ago, waving like a ghost’s shroud. Marta swam past rows of seats where skeletons sat, still holding hands. She found the projection booth. The film reels were encased in a waterproof canister, painted with a fading daisy—Vilis’s mark.