A landscape photo from Berlin with elements of a bridge in the foreground and construction cranes working on new apartment buildings in the distance
A photograph of a group of Berliners waiting for transit on a very hot summer day
A photograph of a German man on a bike waiting at an intersection
A picture of a kindertransport memorial in Berlin
A picture of a Holocaust memorial in Berlin comprised of a table and a chair that has been knocked over. Through the legs of the table there is visible a woman with a baby carriage.
A photograph from East Berlin showing apartment blocks in bright sunlight and, in the shade, an advertisement featuring a woman holding a bottle of water.
A picture from Berlin depicting two older women wearing shawls conversing outside of a restaurant. Behind them stands a younger woman wearing a hijab minding a baby carriage. Signs show photographs of the food available for sale.
A picture of a man filming part of a monument to the Berlin Wall with a handheld video camera
Two people sprawling on the grass napping in the late afternoon at a monument in Berlin
Graffiti in Berlin that says: ACAB All Cops Are Bad
A monument to the artist Kathe Kollwitz in Berlin. On the side of the platform there is graffiti that says: Capitalism Is Theft
A graffiti covered utility structure in Berlin
A collonade at a park in Berlin, striped with shadows
A construction facade in Berlin with several supports wrapped in plastic and striped red and white tape
A picture of stones on a grave at a Jewish cemetery in Berlin
A woman walking through the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin
Children playing at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin
A woman mostly hidden by large limestone blocks at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin
Yahrzeit candles at the Platform 17 memorial at Grunewald Station in Berlin
An overgrown brick structure at the Platform 17 memorial at Grunewald Station in Berlin
Train tracks at the Platform 17 memorial at Grunewald Station in Berlin
Train tracks at the Platform 17 memorial at Grunewald Station in Berlin
A detail of text on the side of the train tracks at the Platform 17 memorial at Grunewald Station in Berlin

Everywhere that I went this summer it was unusually hot. When I left for Europe it was very hot at home in California. Then there was a relentless heat wave in Berlin and after I left it got hotter still.

It is easy to envision a slow apocalypse: The temperature rises a little bit more drastically every year. The hurricanes and fires get worse, larger swathes of land where people used to live become uninhabitable and they are forced to move, but the fearful and xenophobic populations of safer places are not willing to let them in. Their governments enact harsher and harsher measures in order to contain the displaced people.

Judgement Day stretching across years, happening piecemeal, with cities under water and rainforests on fire but no broader panic beyond the immediately impacted locations. Business as usual goes on while neglected infrastructure crumbles. There are inconveniences and occasional tragedies as the built environment that we take for granted gradually fails. Slowly enough that everyone keeps going to work, but more quickly than anyone expected.

Most of the buildings in Berlin are relatively new because so much of the city was destroyed. After the war, the city was rubble. Now it is rebuilt.

This sweltering summer felt like the calm before the storm, like I was sitting there, sweating, waiting for hell to break loose.

I came home and wondered: Will there be rubble here? Who will we commemorate then, and what for?

~2019