Feuerfluch

Excerpt
Dear Diary:
I imagined that I went back, though in real life we can never go back to that place again. The pointed steeple stood tall once more in my dreams. The stained glass windows scintillated as they always used to do in the moonlight. I entered through the double wooden doors of the building that used to be a church where congregations gathered to worship. I could once again smell the odors of cooking coming from the old kitchen. I could hear the clink of crystal glasses and the sound of silver scraping against fine china plates. Ladies laughed. Gentlemen replied. Even the birds flew past once more outside the window in the garden where the fountain once again plashed.
Alas! The Sanctuary Church, the place where I lived for one summer one year ago while my parents had operated a restaurant within its ancient walls, are all charred ruins now. The building, the garden, the kitchen are gone. Where there once had been lush growth, where there once had been life, was now ashes.
And ocean . . .
I went to sleep last night as usual in the house far away from that place of memory where I still return almost every night. Suddenly I could see below the dark, crashing waves as if it were a clear moonlit night at the bottom of the sea. I could swim from room to room as if I were now turned into a fish with gills. I could touch the wooden steeple, now caved in and home to a colony of fish. Then I swam up to the big stained glass window and looked at it from the outside. After that I swam around to what used to be the big double front door where congregations used to enter and after that restaurant guests. I swam through the gaping opening. The doors swung wide for me now almost as if they remembered me.
Dear Diary:
I imagined that I went back, though in real life we can never go back to that place again. The pointed steeple stood tall once more in my dreams. The stained glass windows scintillated as they always used to do in the moonlight. I entered through the double wooden doors of the building that used to be a church where congregations gathered to worship. I could once again smell the odors of cooking coming from the old kitchen. I could hear the clink of crystal glasses and the sound of silver scraping against fine china plates. Ladies laughed. Gentlemen replied. Even the birds flew past once more outside the window in the garden where the fountain once again plashed.
Alas! The Sanctuary Church, the place where I lived for one summer one year ago while my parents had operated a restaurant within its ancient walls, are all charred ruins now. The building, the garden, the kitchen are gone. Where there once had been lush growth, where there once had been life, was now ashes.
And ocean . . .
I went to sleep last night as usual in the house far away from that place of memory where I still return almost every night. Suddenly I could see below the dark, crashing waves as if it were a clear moonlit night at the bottom of the sea. I could swim from room to room as if I were now turned into a fish with gills. I could touch the wooden steeple, now caved in and home to a colony of fish. Then I swam up to the big stained glass window and looked at it from the outside. After that I swam around to what used to be the big double front door where congregations used to enter and after that restaurant guests. I swam through the gaping opening. The doors swung wide for me now almost as if they remembered me.