The Daughter of the Counterlight

by Sanne Rosenmay

The town lay like a breath between the mountains — a small, almost forgotten village somewhere in Germany, resting by the edge of a lake that mirrored everything.
The houses stood close together along the shore, with dark timber walls and red roofs, and in the evenings, the windows glowed like small lanterns in the dark.
I remember thinking the place felt timeless.
As if it didn’t really belong to any world — only its own.

I was there with my family, just passing through, on our way somewhere else.
My uncle told me the town was soon to be dismantled, and I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to erase something so beautiful.
There was nothing in the air that hinted at danger — only the quiet sound of water against stone and that sleepy calm that makes you forget how quickly everything can change.

But by afternoon, the wind began to shift.
The sky turned that metallic shade that always comes before a storm.
The air grew dense, heavy, electric.
People started going inside, drawing their curtains, lighting lamps.
I could see the warm light through their windows — safe, human.
But I stayed in the doorway with my camera in my hand, watching the clouds gathering in the distance.
The sky darkened, and I felt myself being pulled toward it.

I love storms.
There’s something so wildly untamed about them — as if the world stops hiding itself.
And while others seek shelter, I seek the storm.

So I went out.
The wind caught my hair, and I could taste the dampness in the air — a promise of rain.
I walked down to the lake and stood there, watching it happen.

The water was pulling back.
Slowly, but with purpose.
At first, I didn’t understand what I was seeing — how could this happen here, in such a quiet hollow between the mountains?
But then the lake revealed its bed: mud, glistening stones, a silver shimmer from something that had long been hidden.

I lifted the camera, purely out of fascination, and in my mind, every composition unfolded before me.

Then came the shouting — and I saw the water rise.
The lake had turned into a living wall, a massive wave rushing toward the shore.
People were running toward me, screaming in panic, but I stood frozen in the sand, caught between awe and instinct.
I needed to capture it.

At first it was just a dark line on the horizon.
Then it moved.
Then it rose, growing taller, folding over itself like a curtain of water swallowing the light.
It was beautiful.
Terrifying — and beautiful.
And I couldn’t stop myself from pressing the shutter.

Click.
An image of something no one should ever see — and everyone should.

It wasn’t until the ground began to tremble and the screams closed in that I realized I had to move, or I’d be taken with it.
I turned and ran.

But even as I ran, I didn’t want to lose a single second of this impossible, breathtaking moment.
I threw my arm back, camera in hand, and pressed the shutter again and again.

I didn’t think.
I just ran.

I ran toward the house, toward the lights in the windows, toward the voice in my head that kept repeating their names.
My youngest son was still inside — but my husband and my eldest...
They had gone down to the lake earlier. Far down, along the shore.

The thought hit me like a blow.
For a second, everything inside me folded in on itself.

Am I one of them now?
One of those who lose everything in a single moment — who stand among the ruins of what used to be life?
Is it my turn?

But there was no time for answers.
I kept running.

When I reached the house, the door was open.
I shouted their names again and again, until my voice disappeared into the roar of the storm.
The water was coming. I could hear it.
I turned once — and saw the wave moving between the houses.
Its light was like a thousand small suns.
I lifted the camera again without thinking, and pressed the shutter.

Then everything went white.

When I woke, the world was silent.
The water stood high, but still.
The lake was calm again, smooth as glass — as if it had never moved.

I sat on the steps outside the house, soaked and trembling, the camera in my hands.
My fingers shook as I turned it on.
Most of the images were blurred — except one.
The wave, captured in the moment it rose, bathed in light.
And in the center of that light — a woman.
Her hair lifted by the wind, her face turned toward the sky.

I knew instantly it was me.
But I couldn’t remember standing there.

I sat for a long time.
Then I heard footsteps.
First one pair, then several.

I turned —
and there they were.
My husband. My sons. The others.
Soaked, breathless, but alive.

Something inside me broke open.
Relief.
Tears.
Silence.

I didn’t say a word.
There was nothing to say.

Later, when I looked at the photograph again, I thought that maybe that was what the dream had been about.
Not loss — but the thin line before it.
To love the world enough to want to capture it, even as it falls apart.
To stand in the counterlight, and know that when the darkness lifts,
you’re still here.

And we were.
All of us.

Author’s Note

This story is based on a dream I had — one of those that feel more like memories than sleep.
I woke up shaken, heart pounding, but also with a strange sense of clarity.
In the dream, the wave was terrifying, yes — but it wasn’t only destruction.
It was awe. It was life, showing its raw, uncontrollable face.

When I painted The Daughter of the Counterlight, I realized the dream had never been about the wave itself.
It was about the moment in between — when you don’t yet know if everything will be lost, but you run anyway.
It’s about love, courage, and the instinct to keep looking at the world, even when it scares you.

I think that’s what art is for me.
A way to hold the storm still for a second —
to find the light inside the chaos,
and remember that we survived.

— Sanne Rosenmay