Ohrwurm

I never like to see a creature suffocating to death in the street- it portends grim and ugly times.


At the entry road to the fish market, two fishmongers hunch on the curb. They have slapped a wet pile of still-gasping eels on the pavement in front of them. Some eels are covered in geometrical yellow markings. Other eels are a slick, brown-grey, the color of seaweed. I know that some of them are moray eels.

When the fisherman catches an eel, the eel wraps its’ body on his arm, clutching him, while he tries to remove the hook.

I haven’t seen any female fishermen yet. I did see a woman wearing a cardboard box as a hat, sitting on the curb across from the eel vendors, peddling pale, desiccated sardines.

So many questions about how you would find yourself wearing a cardboard box on your head.

Is this her choice?

Can she not afford a hat?

Does she realize how far she is from being, “on trend?”



From my new favorite people in Cologne-

A German word I learned and like:

Ohrwurm

Pronounced: (oh- ah- vurm)

It literally means:

“eel in the brain”

This is what you say when a song is stuck in your head.



One of our recently departed Londoners told me a story about a diving bird in the Thames. The bird caught an eel, and had the eel’s head in its’ beak.

The eel whipped at the bird in desperation. It wrapped its’ tail around the bird’s head.

The bird continued eating the eel slowly, swallowing it bit by bit, as it flapped and swung its’ tail. In one moment, the bird paused, relishing being draped in an eel as a proper London scarf.

Finally the eel was gulped down. The bird paddled in slow circles, jerked and jolted by the live eel fighting against the stomach.

The girl finishes her story:

“All this while trying to carry on a bit of a chicky wink with me mum.”

I take a group to the fish market. The eel vendor intuitively picks out the girl who suffered the disturbing eel scene on the Thames.

He lifts an eel just below the head. The mouth and gills strain in the air and sun.

He holds it so close to her face.

"Still breathing, see?