As The World Caves In
A collective reflection upon the realities we live in.
Table of contents
Memories from the future - Mihai Grecu
I hope you are free - Monika Rybińska
Sweet Sweet Home - Chloé Kaufmann
Speech Transcript (from “ADELA”) - Nameless524
Barefoot in the ashes, they passed him by - Sandra Fava
Run, Mickey! Run! - Tyler Thompson
Bitter wine - Else Bergqvist
Grainy vision - Rozalia Kowalska
1. Memories from the future - Mihai Grecu
Mihai Grecu’s artwork presents a stark vision of a dystopian future in Eastern Europe, where religious symbolism is fused with military power. A tank, retrofitted with a glowing Orthodox cross and iconography, moves through a desolate, fog-shrouded landscape littered with debris.
This surreal scene suggests a theocratic-militarized regime in which faith has been instrumentalized as a tool of control. The illuminated shrine atop a machine of war reflects a society where ideology, tradition, and violence have merged into a single, authoritarian spectacle.
Instagram: @thegrecu.
2. I hope you are free - Monika Rybińska
looking at living
in another sphere
I see the handwritten
adjusted willow
as the name precedes
the meaning–I
would you capitalise
the person based
on one letter typed
with angry face
on the other side
I hope this one doesn’t
find you disturb you
I hope for
transgression of word
and italics from
the flowery emails
just pond over the
venom web so worldly
and widely dismantled
another time I’ll write
about the meaning
I’ll brag about the
concept of pretentious
highly overstimulated
humans like trashing
the land isn’t enough
oh yes we sit with
our heads down put
saliva dripping on
the mirroring youth
but what do we
want what do we
mean with the childish
scream
You can check more of Monika’s work on her Instagram page: @_livinglanguage
3. Sweet Sweet Home - Chloé Kaufmann
When I developed this film in the fall of 2016, I had no idea what I would find. I had forgotten. However, memories long hidden appeared in these photographs. I had to confront, through images, the few months that followed the 2015 attacks in Paris. At that time, the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research) had already begun a major study on the impact of the attacks on the population. I am part of one of the research cohorts, which will conclude in 2028.
In 2018, the protective bubble I had sought refuge in burst. The dissociative fugue transformed into an escape, and I hastily left Paris. This work explores, through text, the memory disorder that arises following a traumatic shock.
Like a liquid that spreads, it seeps everywhere.Time stretches. Landmarks and reference memories fall apart. The need to hold on to tangible facts emerges, to summon reality and cling to it like a lifeline, to help recall the mundane and the infra-ordinary.
Photography, by serving as a witness, proof, and physical memory, allows us to subtly weave the necessary reference points for our reconstructions through the evocation of traumatic events.
You can out more of Chloé’s work here: https://chloekaufmann.com/accueil
4. Speech Transcript (from “ADELA”, book in progress) - Nameless524
First Commune, 2085
The revolution has been being televised; you called us reactionaries.
Look what you have made of us, hammer against sickle, a spectacle for the 1% to sit back and watch, fingers covered in the grease of their overpriced fried food, while we tear ourselves apart for the crumbs that fall from their banquet. Cheap entertainment, doing the dirty work for them. Is this what you want your legacy to be? Are you proud of yourselves?
They took away our rights and called it a necessary evil.
Hostages as pieces in a twisted game. We are going to die, and the war will go on. Children with assault rifles, dislocated shoulders, do you think the higher ups care? Does our country-of-origin matter when we all bleed red? Invisible lines that separate us, the price of a piece of paper is our humanity. Those born on the right side looked down, until the right side changed. Alien. I am an alien. Alien born of an alien, first generation, rootless in an earth that prays for my demise. Don't you get it? Your god killed himself with the very weapons you protect so dearly. My mother had to choose between the worst of two evils, I didn't even have a choice. They took and took and took, and no one said anything until it was too late to stop them.
They imprisoned innocents and called it collateral damage.
Raise your voice, raise your voice, RAISE YOUR VOICE! They will come for you, give them time. They censored words first, they cut budgets, they flagged those who spoke too loudly. I'd rather be hysterical than die in silence. Raise your voice, damn it. Disrupt their calm as they disrupted your future. Raise your voice, we have no choice. They took it away from us, too. I will share the microphone with you.
They took away our joy, now we run on anger.
They took everything from us, the stars no longer shine, the earth no longer blooms, winter is no more. They took away our humanity and our rights and our friends and our families and our future and our hope. They took everything from us, but we are still here. Anger is not sustainable, neither their fucking system, the one that dragged us into this in the first place. They brought us down to their level, waiting for our fire to consume us, selfdestructive, Molotov bombs exploding in our own hands. Anger is not sustainable; this was their endgame from the beginning. Eyes dull, sunken, tired; voices that can no longer be heard. But we are still here.
We are still here.
We are still here.
Do they want bombs? We will destroy everything in our path. Cities of ash, who will die in their mines when we leave? Let it all burn if we can't be free. Let it all burn, let it all burn, let it all burn…
Those who follow will build the world we deserve.
5. Barefoot in the ashes, they passed him by - Sandra Fava
6. Run, Mickey! Run! - Tyler Thompson
Faster! Faster! Faster!
Glimpse of a foot, glimpse of the other. First one again. Faster. I’m so small, I need to run faster, my feet don’t follow. I squeak. Squeak? Like a mouse. Makes sense, I am it. My name is Mikey, I’m the world’s most bullied mouse. So I run.
Faster! Faster! Faster!
I’m an accelerationist mouse. I’ll bring the US down. No uncle Sam chasing me-I’ll do it out of my own free will. And then I, an all-American mouse, will then ascend. I will morf into a supreme Parisian rat. On top of the Montmartre hill, I will stop running. Ah! My feet is bleeding, I got caught up in something.
Faster! Faster! Faster!
I cannot be distracted. I cannot slow down. One foot, then the other, one foot, the other. I only see the sharp tips of my nails now. Faster. I am so close to my goal and the world is spinning. It makes me dizzy, it makes me high. Faster, I’m close! Faster, I’m -
- Damn it, the mouse is dead. Look, it must’ve flown straight out of the wheel you got for it. Take it out of that cage. I don’t know what to do with the corps, just ask someone to take care of it. Just get it sorted. We need to hit the store now and replace this thing, before Donny gets home.
7. Bitter wine - Else Bergqvist
We dressed for dinner like the sky was fine,
you wore your dotted tie, I poured the wine.
The city groaned, a tired beast,
the stars went out from west to east.
You kissed me like the world could wait,
like fate was just a second plate.
But I am tired and I hope no more
for end to lies and nearby wars.
Just toast with me this bitter wine,
to every lie we made divine.
The world collapses, fast and sore,
yet terrified, I need you more.
I wrote this poem while listening on loop to Matt Maltese’s “As the World Caves In”. Originally, it was more of a writing exercice for me to mimic the aura of the music, but adding to it a more personal dimension. Maybe an hour later I saw Tinnitus’ open call. Clearly, I believe you are meant to have this. - Else
8. Grainy vision - Rozalia Kowalska
The little girl in the picture is my older sister, Iza. There are eight years between us, but it feels like a whole generation, even if we both technically belong to Gen Z. When I was little, I would flip through family albums for hours, always ending up a little jealous. That perfect, blonde-haired girl filled almost every page. She looked like she lived in another world, a parallel universe. I wanted to be as big as her—but looking at the photos, the gap between our realities only seemed to extend.
I think it was the analogue texture that created that sense of distance. The warm, grainy tones. Our grandfather still standing tall, our grandmother still wearing make-up anytime she was going out. And our mother, so, so young. Everything looked like it had happened in a different time, held in place by some universal principles.
I had to grow a bit before realising that my parents actually took pictures of me, however those ones were stored on their iPhones and computers. Many of them got lost as they were changing devices. The technological advancement somehow erased a bit of my childhood, creating the illusion that my sister has had more of it.
I own a couple of vintage cameras, and choosing them over my phone feels like a quiet way of keeping the best elements of the past alive. I’m not sure how long I can hold on to these small rituals—these micro strategies for meaning-making—not to mention the risk of romanticizing the past simply because it is the past. But somehow, the future feels more stable when it’s tethered to something older. Not necessarily more hopeful, but more intelligible, because I can trace its contours back to something already concluded.
What matters most for me is staying grounded. In some kind of cosmic equilibrium, in the grain of daily rituals, in spiritual (though not institutionalised) traditions, in lines that trace us back to our ancestors—human, non-human, maybe even not-organic. I believe that we need to stand on something, believe in something, in order to act.
Acknowledgements
Dear writers,
Thank you for your invaluable contributions to this publication. Your minds bring creative ideas we could never have foreseen. It is a pleasure to publish your work.
Dear readers,
Thank you for supporting Tinnitus and helping give greater visibility to creative people. We hope you enjoyed your reading session as much as we did. Be confident in your ideas and abilities — our team will carefully consider any submissions that align with the magazine’s mission.
Tinnitus.
