Justine by Kerri A.; Iben; Pierce Mondrup Page A

courtyard’s cobblestones. It was a great honor and a great responsibility to be a student in the castle. We were already becoming a part of history.
    Grandpa thought it was all a lot of snobbery, he couldn’t care less about the overblown place, he said. Nothing good would ever come out of it. But we who were released into the castle’s corridors hurried to find the place that would be ours. I had nothing on me but some India ink, and I wrote my name on a piece of paper and stuck it to a wall. A moment later Ane appeared and staked out a spot next to me. In reality, she said, she’d mostly done drawings and watercolors before applying to the school, but when she was working on the application piece she’d talked to one of the academy’s professors a friend of a friend had put her in touch with. The professor had said she shouldn’t apply with her paintings. They were too emotive, he thought, and way, way too nice. They lacked bite, distance, that something that gave them artistic legitimacy. Ane thought she’d fooled him, and she enjoyed the fact that she was now free to drop goats and videos and continue with the paintings she’d always done.
    We flowed together. The whole studio flowed together. Things whirled around. They entered through doors and windows. Boxes, tables, chairs, more boxes, buckets, pots, jam jars, lamps, paints, stands. It wasn’t too long before the janitorial staff could no longer tell the difference between what was trash and what was important.

“T he difference between whoever made this piece and you is that you want people to experience something in particular. They just want to make you aware of the fact that you’re experiencing,” I said.
    â€œI never wanted people to experience any particular thing,” Grandpa said. “They can think and feel whatever they want.”
    â€œI don’t know how to respond to that, Grandpa. I actually think it has to do with the fact that at some point the brain simply stops trying to understand.”
    â€œWhat the hell do you mean by that, kid?”
    I slammed the door so that the window rattled in its frame. A moment later he came out into the garden. He took the deck chair from the shed and opened it next to the chopping block.
    â€œThere’s enough wood for plenty of winters, Justine.”
    â€œDo you plan on moving any?”
    â€œRemember that I’ve got to be able to stack it.”
    â€œI’m not a child, Grandpa.”
    Grandpa sank heavily into the chair.
    â€œNo, I’m well aware of that, Justine. I’m well aware. It’s just that I’m getting a little fucking old.”
    â€œThat’s what I’ve been saying all along.”
    â€œBut no one is going to fucking come along and tell me that my senses aren’t intact.”
    â€œAll you’re missing is the metasense, Grandpa.”
    â€œWhat kind of sense?”

A nders Balle was with me when I created my     piniartorsuaq , my great hunter, a woman named Inngili. Inngili was me, and I was her, and it was great, we could simply inhabit the same body.
    Inngili and I accompanied Balle to Nordsøcentret in Hirtshals. We wanted to take some shots with animals, preferably seals. I’d arranged things with the aquarium’s head, and Balle had rented some camera equipment for seventy thousand kroner from Zentropa, where he had a contact. We were well prepared. Balle would take the photographs so that I could exclusively concentrate on Inngili and the animals. Bear skin trousers and a white anorak. I didn’t just look it, I was a real hunter.
    The seals reclined on the artificial rocks, there were quite a few of them, at least twenty. It was like the olden days, said Inngili, back when there were seals all over the ice. Lounging. Distending. I wondered if I would be able to instill life in those that were dozing, but then a pair of the seals glided into the water after all