Image © Adim 2020
| by Clarissa Lempp | April 29, 2020 |
I am going outside and the world happens. Birds sing and some people make out under a chestnut tree. Sparrows take a dirt bath against bugs and parasites. It stinks like piss and puke. It is Saturday morning in Kreuzberg. But wait. Something is wrong…
I am going outside and the world moves slow, because there is the thing called coronavirus. The streets are nearly empty. Airplanes stopped flying after making empty rides. It is said the airlines were afraid of loosing their sky-spots, or they were ordered to carry on to avoid a mass panic. The truth lies between the newsfeeds. On the sidewalks someone drew circles with chalk. ‘This is two meters’ — is written inside. Keep out of each others spheres. So I am not going outside. I listen to the noisy sparrows in front of my window and there is no one else in the apartment besides me and the cat. It smells like coffee and thick air. I am eating a lot, because I am cooking a lot and do a lot of other things you can find on a lot of personal feeds on the internet. I am sleeping a lot and the world turns faster and the world is different now. The air is fresh because the pollution dropped after the lockdown. Some children run around in gangs. We call them the untouched ones. They never got sick, and they were too young to understand what happened to their parents. Cars don’t drive anymore. The outside people enjoy the world again and the inside people are still whining on social media over the end of the world as they knew it. Some people gave all up on bodies and became an electric whizz in the internet. We call them cyborgs. The care groups keep the cyborgs organic remains alive, because the precarious clump of cells is still necessary to have a consciousness. Once in a while the cyborgs send a virtual applause through the networks to thank the working bodies for their self-sacrificing mortality. There is no capitalistic economy but a basic income, free health care and no borders. Only world citizens. Berlin is full of gardens and people live together in caring communities instead of heterosexual family models. The epidemic was like a collective LSD trip and people killed their egos and it is quite peaceful now. Wild animals are roaming the parks. Foxes, deer, boars, wild goose, a unicorn… ah, wait. We are not there now. So I stay inside, breathing an unrisky, solitary air, watching the sparrows from my window, dirt in the feathers like golden glitter in the sun, and try to find an image in myself of what may come.
Clarissa Lempp is a writer and instructor for german as a foreign language and creative writing classes. She lives in Berlin and has no Instagram to follow.
Adim is from Japan and designs, illustrates and draws currently in Berlin. His world is kitschy and full of fun cats and people. Why don’t you follow him on Instagram?
https://www.instagram.com/adim.adim.adim/