For a week I was a soft ghost in a quiet Berlin room. Wool-clad feet softly moving over the cold floors, water kettle boiling, clothes in a pile in the center of the room: the nest of a stray.

I stayed there to work and work I did, chained to the drawing desk by an attention span I forgot I could muster. In the mornings I practiced my pancake flips.

…

On most days throughout the week, the winds were chilly and I was happy to watch them from the indoors. When the tip of my nose got too cold and my fingers couldn’t trace the lines on the paper anymore, I would make a fire.

I enjoyed the contrast between keeping my hands exceptionally clean for the paper I was drawing on, and getting them smeared black by the coal I was burning. The fire made a reassuring sound as it ate through the carbs and the room got slowly warmer. When the cold was too dire, I had a last, sweet resort: a warm shower.

…

And so my days passed in soft light and gentle shadows, in wool socks and sweater, in Mozambiquan capulana. Slowly the lines and the lights and shadows on the papers formed figures, slowly they travelled from the pages into screens. The work is not done, but the drawing is.

Still life is still life. For a week I got to become one of the peaceful plants thriving in the sun, neverminding the sirens blaring outside. A week of work, a week of rest and slowly growing.

…

(This story told in pictures part one, two and three.)