Arson

"I must begin to survive." Sober, calm, and composed, the woman whose voice we hear in Laura Freudenthaler's book observes how things spiral out of control. The things in her environment, in her life, the things that herald a global catastrophe: fires burn everywhere, drought prevails, and heat spreads. The woman telling this story registers it with cold despair and growing obsession. She seeks refuge, constantly changing her residence, driven by dreams, exchanging the intrusiveness of the city for the isolation of the countryside, and increasingly distancing herself from the world where people discuss relationships and psychotherapy at dinner parties and celebrations. Instead, she finds a partner in her obsession in a man who works as a wildfire expert at the meteorological institute. He suffers from insomnia but knows that four and a half hours of sleep are enough to survive. And so he keeps watch over the fire maps that record every blaze worldwide, as if it were possible to control what has long since spiraled out of control.