There is an old, rusty goat bell nailed to my living room wall. There it stayed and aged, soundless, slowly, but noticeably, until something unexpected happened. It has been silent for almost twenty years. It has been even silent before. Its goat probably had already died a long time ago, before I found the bell. 

I found it almost two decades ago, covered by vegetation on a dry Mediterranean hardwood meadow, surrounded by rocks and goats. A useless remnant that was about to decompose. Or slowly sinking into its final grave. But that not without making itself noticeable beforehand through a voluminous play of lights: rusty red color gradations. 

I picked the bell up. Isolated from its own history, staying in an endless repose, inactively witnessing the passage of time. Being defined only by its rusty body, by its pure presence. A silent observer of my life. 

The old bell is no longer ringing. After all, old bells, who lost their goats, even don't have to ring any more. But then came the day, when it happened anyway, unexpectedly, suddenly. All began with a thunderclap in the distance. The bell's wall was hardly noticeably set in motion. Minutes long vibrations. And the old bell began to ring. At first almost not audibly, but then becoming louder and louder. A deep, hollow sound with a bright ending of each verse. And in doing so, the bell found its way back into life. All the old memories were awakened, one after another. And its ringing voice released a tremendous concert of  senses. It remembered its forgotten former life. It rang and rang and rang, first only repeating the same melody, finally ending in a polyphonic opera about life. It wanted everybody to know that it got its history back. 

And the hologram of a landscape floated in the air in front of the bell and stayed there forever. Noise of waves, smell of the sea, warm winds, chirping of cicadas and birds, odor of the woods, a blue sky, oleander and colorful rose chafers, buzzing through the air, colors, living rocks. Greece, cradle of Europe, Rhodes, island of roses. 

From that day on, the old rusty bell broke its silence forever. It rang, when the sun came up, it rang with joy, when the piano player in the neighbor house began playing his songs. It even rang without any noticeable reason. Just for the joy of its new life. The old goat bell became a goat bell again. The died goat was rising from the dead, as a colorful living memory.

 

In order to connect the old goat bell with its former life, I digitized my analog photographs from a stay on the island Rhodes in Greece in 2003. They show the area, where it was found during an excursion with a rent scooter from my hotel in Faliraki to the famous Acropolis of Lindos in a mountainous area near the road.

 

I have very warm and colorful memories of that stay in Greece, my scooter, which I had rent for a very cheap price for my entire stay of about 2.5 weeks, was like an additional body part for me. It brought me, wherever I wished. It was a feeling of unlimited freedom.

A short story in order to complete a still life project, an artistically motivated play with lights and shadows, experiment about the recovery of old memories.

Berlin, 12 January 2021, all copyrights Stefan F. Wirth