September 2025, Copenhagen

Anya undresses and jumps in the water with a big smile on her face. I’m watching from my muted spot on the quay, while the last warm sun rays of the year stroke my pale skin. I’m in my bikini too, licking a soft-ice with liquorice sprinkles, the vanilla ice cream goes black as I’m painting it with my tongue. While I taste the salty-sweet composition, I passively observe how Anya’s dog Shiva is anxiously awaiting Anya to appear out of the water again. Shiva’s nervously moving on the very edge of the platform, wiggling her tail, looking back and forth between the crime scene of Anya’s disappearance and my own idle presence. My mind moves in slow-motion as I turn my gaze from one bathing suit-wearing sunshine-celebrator to the other. They’re shifting on their towels, making gestures with their arms as they tell each other things, they light up cigarettes and smile at themselves as they take selfies with their phones. They sit in self-aware poses, cause they’re almost naked. They get up and walk away, they come back minutes later with fresh, cold drinks and salty snacks. They laugh. They read books. They look at their phones. They call someone. They lie down and close their eyes. They hide behind sunglasses. They look beautiful there in the sun under the blue sky. Under the way too blue sky. I see this typical, joyful atmosphere that Copenhagen is brimming with on a warm summer day. People go to jump in the harbour all over the city, they want to enjoy the sun while it’s still here and the centre of Copenhagen basically turns into one, big, buzzing beach party on days like these.

Shiva begins to jump up and down by the sight of Anya reappearing from the ladder on the quay. I watch her rise up and step back onto the platform I’m sitting on, she’s all soaked in freshness and cold water. “You don’t want to go in? I think it’d be really good for you”, she says and grabs her towel next to me. I shake my head lazily and put on my sunglasses. Anya pads herself dry. She’s wearing a black bikini and looks strong, lean and shiny, brimming with confidence and vitality. I stroke Shiva on her golden fur as she comes to lie down next to me, calmly. Anya is back, the world is good again, everyone can now relax. I look at the shimmering, sparkling water right there in front of me. It does look tempting, but it’s too far away, and even if I made it in, I’m afraid I’d plunge straight to the bottom and never return. Anya sits down next to me and lights up a cigarette. “Do you want to come with me to a rave later? My friends will pick me up in a boat and we’ll do MDMA and drink champagne while we sail to the party. It’s on the Refshale Island, I can get you in for free”, she says and pulls Shiva in between her long, toned legs so she can cuddle her soft bestie to bliss. I shake my head. “That sounds like the kind of situation that requires… serotonin”, I say and picture myself on that boat, surrounded by ecstatic, champagne-sipping, hot people, sailing off into the sunset, while all I can think is “Art Whore overboard”. I giggle lovelessly and look at Anya with appreciation. “Thanks for the invitation though”.

My phone buzzes somewhere around me, I locate it underneath my towel, it’s my mum calling me. “Are you okay? Are you with Anya?”, she asks, “Yes, it’s nice, we’re at the harbour in the sun”, “Okay I just wanted to tell you that Bella got the job in Bali, she’s going in a few weeks, then her room will be free for two months. So you can stay here if you’d like, you don’t have to go back to Leipzig anytime soon. Think about it, okay?”, mum says, I nod my head, “Okay, see you at home later”, I say and we hang up. Anya looks at me with her sincere, caring gaze, “All good?”, she asks. I move closer to her an lean my head on her tanned shoulder. I close my eyes. “Not at all. But I can stay with my parents until the end of the year if I want to. I’d even have my own room, for free, my sister is going to Bali. Can I have a cigarette?”, I ask and Anya pulls one out of her package, lights it up and puts it between my lips. I inhale. “Really? What will she be doing there?”, Anya asks. “She’ll be working. She got a contract with a model agency, I guess she’ll be modelling bathing suits on bounty beaches”, “Wow, she’s so lucky”, Anya says, “So will you stay in Copenhagen for a while? With me?”, “I don’t know”, I say, “Any decision I’d have to make right now seems endlessly exhausting”, I exhale and take Anya’s hand, squeeze softly. She turns my hand around in hers and begins stroking my palm with her finger. I can almost feel it.

Later, in the early evening, after having sent Anya off into her upcoming boat-rave-adventure, after having walked the heaviest steps I’ve ever walked back to my parent’s apartment on Strandgade, after having climbed the crooked stairs that felt like they multiplied by every step, I finally enter my current residence. I’m met with the sound of my father in the kitchen: the radio is on, he’s whistling when he’s not listening to whatever the news reporter is saying, he’s happily immersed in the preparation of a meal for my mother and I. “Hello Duds”, I say as I step through the kitchen door. He’s concentrating on looking into a pot on the stove, stirring it’s content with a wooden spoon. It smells like spices and rice. “Hi Mille”, he says and smiles at me, “How was your time with Anya?”. “It was nice. What’s for dinner?”, “I’m making us a lamb korma!”, my dad says and dries his hands in his apron while looking enthusiastically at the simmering stew on the stove. “Oh wow, looks great Duds,” I say monotonously and move further into my parents’ home. I enter the living room where I’ve been sleeping for the past few nights. My mother is sitting on the couch knitting, “Hi darling, how are you, tell me about your day”, she says without looking away from the fast paced creation between her fingers. “I don’t think I can speak right now”, I say with a growing lump in my throat and lie down on my little madras in the corner. I close my eyes and listen to the soothing sounds of my parents in the midst of their activities.

“Girls, dinner is ready”, I hear my dad calling out to my mum and I from the dining room. I open my eyes, my mum puts her knitting project aside and gets off the couch, “Are you coming, Mille?”, she asks. “Yes, yes”, I slowly sit up on the small madras and get up on my feet. At the dinner table, my father meticulously serves my mother and I the steaming hot lamb korma. My mum immediately begins eating as the food lands on her plate. My dad serves himself with the same care and precision he performed for my mum and I. He sits down across from me, straight back, looks at me smiling, then looks at my mum who’s almost already halfway through her meal. “So, enjoy”, my dad says, and I fork a piece of meat and let it fall apart in my mouth. It tastes kind and familiar. My dad often made this dish during my childhood. While my mum has always been the social matriarch of our family, my dad has had his domaine in the kitchen. He’s actually an architect, but he loves cooking and he’s good at it. He took an interest in the Indian kitchen, cause my mum is half Indian. Apart from that fact and regular Indian food on the dinner table, I don’t have much access to my Indian heritage, neither have my two smaller siblings, Bella and August. “How is Anya doing?”, my dad asks me. “I think she’s doing really good. She seems content with herself at the moment”, I say. “That’s good!”, my dad says and sprinkles some fresh coriander on top of his korma. I side eye the empty bowl and chair next to me, “Where’s Bella?”, I ask, “I think she’s at the gym, she’ll be home later”, my mum says. Bella is 9 years younger than me and has a thriving model-career with her perfectly symmetrical, intricate beauty. She has 20.000 followers on Instagram and travels all over the world while designers are messaging her daily, desperate for her to promote their brands. She still lives with my parents out of convenience, she comes and goes as she pleases, always walking in and out on sunshine while I’m mostly crashing at my parent’s, cause I’ve again managed to crush myself.

“Mille, I’ve been thinking”, my dad begins with his mouth full of curry, “Once you feel better and you start working on The Project again, there’s an important question that I think you’d need to ask yourself”, my mum and I lock eyes for a second, “It’s okay”, I tell her without words. Mum releases a loud exhale of silent frustration. My dad looks at my mum and I, back and forth, smiling, a bit confused, I fixate my gaze on the plate in front of me and begin to divide my portion up in small bites with the edge of my knife. Dad continues: “I don’t think it’s been quite clear whether The Project is supposed to be an artistic rebellion against political correctness and social control. Or whether it’s simply “turning my life into an artwork” that’s the main headline? I see the former as an offshoot of the latter, but if the latter is The Project itself, then it takes on a bit of an “anything goes – as long as it’s noisy enough” - character. And that risks muddying it’s messages. The danger is that nothing really stands out. But perhaps it is a question of The Project’s final editing, which needs to cut to the points, maybe in the shape of chapters?”, it goes silent at the dinner table, only the sound of my dad’s fork and knife on the porcelain. I’ve begun placing the coriander leafs on top of each little tower-bite I’ve created on my plate during my dad’s reflection. I feel dizzy and so utterly tired. “I don’t want to talk about The Project right now,” I say, “Oh sorry, I just wanted to share my current thoughts on it with you, but maybe it was insensitive of me”, my dad says looking at me, nervously, my mum looks at him with a critical gaze. “No, it’s fine dad, it’s just that I don’t have so many words left in me today”, I say at an almost glacial pace. My mum looks at me with serious worry. She’s now leaned back on her chair, plate empty, crossed arms, “Mille, I don’t know how much more of your self-destructive life-style I can take. It’s your second clinical burnout in four years, and it’s always us who have to pick you up..” My pulse starts to raise and I feel a shake spreading through my apathetic body. “Not now, mum”, I say with rare determination, and everyone goes quiet.

Later in the evening, I’m lying on my small madras in the corner again. It’s dark in the living room, my parents have hugged me goodnight a few hours ago, I’m now on my third Breaking Bad episode of the evening. My phone buzzes next to me, a message from my friend Noam. “So you started a fight with Horror House?”, he texts me. My heart immediately begins to pound and I feel suddenly nauseous. “I wouldn’t formulate it that way. How do you know?”, I answer, and 30 seconds that feel like 30 minutes go by before I receive a picture from Noam. It’s a screenshot of Sinon’s latest Instagram story: “WILL RONJA BRAINSTORM PROVE SHE’S THE UNSTOPPABLE BADASS SHE SAYS SHE IS, OR WILL SHE CRUMBLE, DROP TO HER KNEES, AND SURRENDER TO THE WOKE LEIPZIG MOB? WHAT IS YOUR PROPHECY? WATCH OUR EXPERIMENT AND SEND US YOUR OPINIONS.”, underneath mentions of The Academy of Fine Arts, Horror House and myself. “Okay. If anything else like this comes up, I don’t want to know. It’s fine if you take screenshots of these fucked up things, and safe them for me for later. I might be able to use them. But as of now I’m deeply affected by the current situation and I don’t want to know anything of what these lunatics are doing anymore.” I text Noam back with shaking hands and tears running down my face. I turn off my phone and return to watch as Walter White strangles a drug dealer to death in a basement.

I spend the next day on the madras. My parents both went to work while I was sleeping, and I’m continuing to binge the fictional misery on Netflix. I keep the time in mind, my mum will be home at 4 pm, I can’t let her see me like this, need to at least have showered before she comes back. I hear the door open and close, it must be Bella coming home. I get up and close the doors to the living room. I can’t face all of her youth, vitality and success right now. I still have two hours before my mum comes home and I aim to spend them in the healing presence of the story of someone who fucks up even more than I have. Fiction or not, it doesn’t fucking matter, cause it works. “At least I didn’t start cooking meth and murder people”, I’ll think to myself from my corner of doom.

At 3.45 pm, it takes me a mountain of effort to get off the madras and make my way to the bathroom to finally take that shower. Mother will be home in 15 minutes, gotta look somewhat presentable. There’s a limit to how much of a disappointment I want myself to look these days. Seems I do have a small ray of dignity left in me, after all.

“Can I borrow your grey sweat pants?”, I ask my sister post-shower. She’s sitting on her bed putting on makeup in front of a little, round, LED-lighted mirror. I’m standing in the doorframe with a towel wrapped around me. She turns her gaze towards me, “Sure, they’re on the chair”, she points. I fetch the sweat pants out from underneath a messy pile of garments. I find a hooded sweatshirt as well, also grey, perfect. I put it on and lay down next to Bella on her bed. “Where are you going?”, I ask her, “I have this promoter-dinner later”, she says, gaze still fixated on her long eyelashes that she’s working on making even longer. “Really? What is that?”, I ask, and she giggles, “There are these club-promoters from London in town. They’re having a dinner party on a roof top in the city centre and need me to come and make it look good for Instagram”, she says and pulls out another beauty product that I have no idea what is from her make-up bag. “What the hell, that sounds terrible”, I say and Bella laughs a bit. “Well, it’s my job”, she says, and dabs something shiny onto her lips with her finger. True, and my job is not much better. Same concept, different uniform. Bella puts her make-up bag and mirror aside and leans against the wall next to me. She begins scrolling on her phone, her face looking like a human porcelain doll. “Do you want to look at my fictional shopping list on Vestiare?”, I ask her from my endless greyness. Making wish-lists on various online clothing-markets has been one of my escapist obsessions, post-collapse. “Why fictional?”, Bella asks and turns her incredible face towards me. “Cause I don’t have the money to actually shop any of these items”, I say and grunt.

As I scroll through my wish-list full of eccentric pieces, Bella points to a long-sleeved t-shirt. “That one’s cool”, she says. I click on it. It’s a slim fit, beige, see-through piece, on the chest it says FEEL THE FIRE in brown, gothic-style letters, a little flame icon underneath them. “It’s a good brand too”, Bella adds. I look at the item and scoff, “Yes it’s cool, but I’ve never felt less like a person who can pull off such self-asserting statements. That top is no longer for me”, I say, and we both giggle. Cause, all cynicism aside, what fire is there to feel, when it feels like all there is, is air to feel? How pathetically pretentious it would be of me to wear that top now, no, a top like that requires both self confidence and stamina. “Fake it till you make it”, Bella says and takes a selfie, no filter used, no filter needed. But faking a high self esteem also demands some kind of flame, some kind of belief that I could actually make it, make anything, if I manage to put together the strength it would take for me to fake it. No, that top is not for me. FEEL THE AIR would be a more appropriate statement for me to make these days, though also a much weaker one, more esoteric even, more ambiguous as well, obviously. But I can hardly even feel the air around me, my frazzled insides have gone cold and I am nothing but one, big, sweat-pants-wearing wreck. I’m barely breathing in the ruins of my own fire-storm, and soon I’ll be grasping at the leftovers, the polluted air, cause it’s all I have and I don’t even have it. Grasping for something that’s not really there. Trying to make something out of nothing. Like grasping at air.

Schütze, 2026, digitised 35 mm negative, photographer: Ronja Brainstorm.