Europe
Ice Weather
Texts and drawings
by Sebastian Jung
Published by the
Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism
as part of the exhibition
Tell me about yesterday tomorrow
and the
digital assembly
History is not the past.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
I’m sitting on an island
on the beach, palm trees above.
The water is turquoise.
The sky is blue.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
An asteroid appears
and hurtles toward me.
The sand runs
through my toes.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
The palm fronds
rustle in the wind.
The doorbell rings.
The mailman.
Eight rolls of toilet paper.
200 sheets per roll.
Four sheets per visit to the toilet.
Two visits a day.
I have 200 days to live.
My woodchip wallpaper starts to cry.
A fly traces sinuous curves
up against the ceiling of my room,
seeming to write “SOS” in the air.
The Chancellor
speaks:
Stay
home.
The people
cry:
The start of spring.
Be
reasonable, please.
The borders
are closed.
Two scoops,
please.
One chocolate.
One vanilla.
Germany cuts off
its little finger
and throws it
into the middle of the room
while easing
backward,
butt to the wall,
humming Beethoven’s Ninth.
On the news,
refugees and asparagus fields vie
for attention.
My favorite band
advertises
for Pornhub and fapping,
holds a sea rescue T-shirt
up to the camera,
then goes back to singing about themselves
and their upcoming album.
The band isn’t called Blondie.
The song isn’t called “Maria.”
The doctors might
be able to help us with the pandemic.
But what about the economy?
Moria,
You’ve gotta see her.
A scruffy man
standing at the side door
to the train station
bends cautiously,
casually picks up
a cookie,
one of those advertised
as having 52 “teeth” around the edge
and scurries off.
He passes the pick-up area
of the electronics store,
which is still open
for online orders.
A plump woman-child smiles,
immersed in her comic book,
close to tears of happiness.
Cam girls look into webcams,
viewers look at screens.
In the virtual strip clubs
everyone is already naked
right from the start.
Together, viewers
drop tips into a pot
and crowdfund sexual actions.
The girls sit
in living rooms, probably fake,
and are watched by
invisible viewers,
probably out of true loneliness.
Two kids run around in the market square
with a bubble gun,
shooting soap bubbles into the air
and laughing.
A street musician
holds up his guitar
to the few people around
and begins to strum.
A bicyclist
swerves to one side,
and a flock of
pigeons flutters away.
In front of the train station
beggars beg
from no one, empty-handed.
The sun is shining.
The buds are sprouting.
Asparagus cries out
from the farmers market.
The next generation of asparagus harvesters
is already on the plane.
What will the people come up with
if the gladiatorial fights
in the arenas
don’t start back up?
Orange bicycles
bring food
to people’s doors.
Orange trucks
pick up the trash
from people’s doors.
At the central station
security guards
from the drugstore
take out
an unattended backpack.
Fear of the virus
gives way to fear of terrorism
gives way to fear of the virus.
They go back to
disinfecting baskets
and leave the backpack
where it is.
In front of a nursing home
stands a health aide
smoking,
wearing rubber gloves,
with her colleague,
smoking,
wearing rubber gloves,
chatting during their break:
1500 euros?
I’ll believe it
when I see it in my account.
All of a sudden we’re
supposedly so important to them?
Across the street, a man sleeps
under the bench
at a bus stop.
The fast food chains
are still open for to-go orders
keeping the system running.
The security guard
from the discount store
at the train station
whose main job
used to be
taking the empty baskets
from the exit back
to the entrance
is having a hard time
keeping up
with restricting entry
and disinfecting carts.
People look at him
almost
with respect now.
The zoos are spared
the usual assholes.
The ones in the C-suite
think about
cullings.
Those
wearing masks
look pointedly at those
who aren’t.
Those
not wearing masks
look pointedly at those
who are.
Everyone
turns to look
at the person
who is coughing.
The person
who is coughing
tries
to disappear.
Women
keep the world running
while men keep them hopping.
A little old lady
carries a bouquet home,
beaming with pleasure.
Capitalism is sad at first
that the shopping centers are closed
but then he rolls over,
every day is like Sunday, after all,
and blissfully goes back to sleep:
In the end,
the rich will be richer
and the poor
a little poorer.
Revolution,
lying at his side,
works up her courage
and smashes
capitalism’s face in
puts on her bathrobe
walks into the bathroom and says:
He was dead already.
Two old ladies sit
on a bench in the sun
and feed the pigeons.
One of them hums a little ditty
about poisoning pigeons in the park.
Who will die first?
The sun is shining.
The shopping centers
just stand there.
The escalators
run themselves to death.
The mannequins in the windows
look bored.
If no one goes shopping.
No one will be happy.
The mannequins in the windows
worry they might lose their jobs.
The security guard
walks his rounds
and watches to make sure
none of them break out
of their aquariums.
He runs his
imaginary baton
along an imaginary metal fence
making clacking noises.
And even if he did
have a baton,
all you’d hear
would be the soft squeak
of rubber on glass.
A couple of kids
ride skateboards
towards the end of the world.
On the Viktualienmarkt
the drinkers are back, standing
around the bubbling fountain,
getting hammered
at arm’s length.
With the distance
and the noise from the fountain
they have to shout.
Bursts of beery spit
and drunken words
change sides.
The area around
the Munich central station
is empty.
No tourists,
no gamblers,
no one looking for sex,
no one selling it, either.
The first strip bar with booths
and monitors
and tissue dispensers
is sold out.
In the luxury passages,
returnees are once more
brimming with added value.
Four auxiliary police officers
have a discussion
with a drunken man
about the ban on alcohol
around the central station.
The drunk gets into it with all of them,
he’s definitely getting a citation.
His fourth.
“I never had issues like this
in New York.”
Two muscular men,
half-shouting in Arabic,
deep in conversation,
approach a homeless man
cowering in a corner,
helplessly bundled
into his sleeping bag,
and hand him
a couple of bills.
A 23-year-old man
and an 18-year-old girl
are looking for an 18-and-up casino.
She’s pregnant.
He’s in a tough spot.
He has two euros left.
Well, eight,
but he needs six
for cigarettes.
She doesn’t smoke, of course.
But he does.
He says he once
turned two euros into 238.
And another time
into 302.
They’re not from here – from Augsburg, actually,
and they’re planning
to visit her parents
tomorrow.
Whenever things get tight
he does exactly
the same.
Because his account is frozen,
because he has that whole fraud thing
hanging over him,
because a girlfriend
pressed charges,
because she wanted
a controller from him,
but he got it
from a buddy of his.
An 18-and-up
casino is nowhere to be found.
They walk away
and disappear around a corner.
On Theresienwiese
there is a demonstration for basic rights
although the only thing actually taken from them
is the freedom to have fun.
For freedom.
Against vaccines.
For the natural course of death,
they call for natural selection.
Some ask questions in disguise.
The virus,
sneezed out into the crook of many elbows,
is joined, in whispers,
by hatred of Jews.
A basic rights protest
like this
looks just like
one against immigrants
at first glance.
“We have no
will of our own anymore!
We’re being controlled,”
a man in lederhosen
declares to a
homeless man
at the side of the street,
while the homeless man
shares his sandwich
with a couple of pigeons.
One piece for him.
One for the birds, gray as asphalt.
Peter
from the central station in Leipzig,
recently started wearing
a fluffier pullover than usual.
He puffs on his cigarette
without using his hand
to take it
out of his mouth.
One hand holds
a cup of coffee.
The other,
a bag of bottles for recycling.
Otherwise, he’s always been here
passing through
with his old lady.
At the entrance
to the shopping center,
a guy from yesterday’s
anti-muzzle protest
stands at the entrance,
making sure
everyone
wears a face covering.
It smells like urine.
In slow motion,
a man in ragged clothes
moves toward the exit
escorted
by two security guards.
People lick ice cream
in special areas.
Peter wears
sunglasses and a leather jacket.
A little girl
feeds pizza to the pigeons.
Three men
wait at a streetcar stop.
In a triangle.
Five meters away from each other.
Acting
as if they’re
just waiting for the streetcar.
The sun is shining.
The sky is blue.
The streetcar comes.
The three men
get on.
As if
nothing had happened.
The world hasn’t ended yet.
There must be some delay.
I look out the window:
Blue sky.
Sun shining.
No wind to speak of.
I’m ready.
Two whole packages of muesli.
The end of the world
can come.
The objects
in my apartment
make fun of me.
Well, we’ll see
who has the last laugh.
Ridiculous
salt shaker.
Asshole of a
coffee machine.
I start
on my taxes.
The world is still
turning.
Taxes are boring.
I look for something to play.
The sun
goes down.
The sun
comes up.
The garbage truck
comes by.
End of the world:
hasn’t happened yet.
My neighbor calls.
On the way back from China.
Asks if I can turn up
his heating.
In the supermarket,
shelves are being stocked.
Texts and drawings
by Sebastian Jung
Proofreader: Friederike Weidner
as part of the exhibition
Tell me about yesterday tomorrow
and the digital assembly
History is not the Past.
Munich Documentation Centre
for the History of National Socialism
Max-Mannheimer-Platz 1
80333 Munich, Germany
Hours
Tuesday–Sunday
10 a.m.–7 p.m.
Contact 089 233-67000 f 089 233-67005 e nsdoku@muenchen.de
This website is part of the online presence of the Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism.
It is subject to the website’s legal notice and data protection declaration.
with support from the
Federal Cultural Foundation