| Sumario: | Theodor Storm (1817-1888), a key author of German realism, is internationally renowned for his coastal novellas. This paper examines Journey to a Hallig (Eine Halligfahrt, 1871) as an econarrative that uses the Hallig, a unique type of low-lying tidal island, as a concentrated littoral habitat to explore (anti-)symbiotic forms of human-nonhuman coexistence along the North Sea coast. In Storm's novella, the coastal shore as well as storm tides are dramatized as forces that expose the precarious and asymmetrical relations between humans, flora, fauna, and water, where life unfolds in unstable alliances with the sea. The analysis highlights how Storm narrates interdependence through dialectics of vulnerability and agency, including moments in which human action itself disrupts ecological processes. It further shows how this symbiotic tension is mirrored aesthetically, with the dynamics of the sea resonating in narrative rhythm, temporal layering, and a semantics of colour. Storm's text thus inscribes the risks of living with water and offers historical perspectives on coexistence, catastrophe, and ecological vulnerability that remain relevant today.
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