I wanted to write about the books I’m reading. About Tolstoy, Proust, Bachmann, Bernhard, Humboldt, Stepanova, Vuong, Preciado, Nelson and Smith. About colours and how they move me. How I painted the door of an old shed in bright turquoise and felt redeemed. About how desperate I am to visit the Forbes Pigment collection in Harvard. How I imagine that standing in front of colours which no longer exist elsewhere would heal my broken soul. I wanted to write about how colours can tell us what is right and what is dangerous. About how the aesthetics of Netflix are so ugly that I want to cry. About how some pigments continue to be made from organic matter. That some famous paintings are made with cow piss and pulverised mummies. How brutal beauty really is. About how if we stare at green for long enough our eyes will interfere and turn everything red. How red is the oldest pigment we know. How we can only stare at things for so long before our brain stops blurring their existence. I wanted to write about my body and how it keeps drifting in and out of me. How there is no desire left. How I’m scared that all the wrong forces are in charge now. That nobody will ever fuck again and all museums will be permanently closed. About how all colours will cease to exist and we will have to destroy someone before we can create again. I wanted to write about how Stalin was right that a single death is a tragedy and a million deaths is a statistic. How I think that all historical anecdotes are bullshit and usually told by self-important men who think they are a mix between Churchill, The Godfather and Joyce. I wanted to write about how all I want from these daily numbers, 761, 897, 937 is to go down. How I want people to stop dying so I can carry on with my empty pleasures. How I have started to do workouts and live in hope of a firmer ass. I wanted to write about how a zoo in Germany has contemplated slaughtering some of its animals to feed the rest. How they have a fucking list and how their polar bear would come last. How this is exactly what we are doing. How we sacrifice each other to get to the top of the list. How we play around with the word essential. How we brush our shining white fur and look down on antelopes and meerkats as second-rate cat food. How beating hearts suddenly become disposable. How Count Bezukhov says – Whilst I’m alive, I should live. How we think that only joy can reconcile us to our fate.
Katharina Volckmer is the author of The Appointment, forthcoming from Fitzcarraldo Editions in September 2020.
