Doc Moorley wasn’t a farmer himself, but he was a man of the land, by which I don’t allude to the fact that he owned land (which he did), but rather that he knew his way around this entire countryside like the back of his hand. So he could tell you how to get from any point A to any point B, and all the way through to Z, and back again. But no one went up to the top of Tipping Point, and so he’d never had the occasion to tell anyone, let alone himself, at which point it was, that is, how to get there. No one had ever been, though, wandering or otherwise, which no one questioned because there was no particular reason to go.

That was the thing with Doc Moorley though: he was a man who made reasons for things. That’s not a quality you get in many folks; most people need reasons to do things, but few make their own reasons. Lots of trudge, no track. Not for Doc, though, and certainly not when it came to the dark copse of trees of Tipping Point.

We could get X yield out of acreage like that, he grumbled for the unnumbered time. It should be noted that this grumbling was not out of greed, but a true practicality combined with a vanity deeply tied to the aesthetics of fields. Yield was a reason unto itself (though not a reason he made for himself, which came soon after).

X yield is fine and good but cutting down all those old trees seems more trouble than its worth, said everyone. It should be noted that this dismissal was not out of laziness, but: a preternatural disinterest in the copse of trees which seemed to mark everyone but Doc; and a grateful satisfaction with the yield they already had. Why would we bother all the way up there, anyway, look at how golden our wheat shines, how green our barley sings.

Doc, though sensitive to shining and singing, could not wash the dark blot from his line of sight.

At the end of one particularly hot summer’s day, Doc was having a cool beer down the pub, as was everyone, as well as a new someone who was passing through.

What a lovely town this is, this someone said, how green and gold the fields! And so flat all around, such good earth for tilling—but for that funny hill and its copse of dark trees!

Ah, Tipping Point! said one of Doc’s neighbors.

Over the lip of his pint, Doc’s words spilled out to this strange someone. Do you want to know how to get to Tipping Point? he said.

Oh well I passed it on my way here—

Not the base, said Doc. The top. The tipping point.

Well that’s not really on my way—

Sure you don’t? I can tell you. I can trace any point to any point around these parts. You’ve only got to ask and I could tell you.

I’m sure that’s very kind of you sir—Doc, was it?—but I’m not sure I’ve any need.

And so the question wasn’t asked, and so somehow, Doc found for the first time that he didn’t quite know. Maybe if someone had just asked, Doc would have been able to pull it from the air as he did all other point-to-point directions; but it so happened that the unasked-for directions stayed misty in his mind and he could only think of other points: the whole road circumventing the hill, and many gates and bushes on the shoulders of the hill, even a particularly attractive tree three-fourths of the way up, and a rabbit hole up near the edge of the trees. Points swarmed around his head, but none were the Tipping Point.

Maybe he didn’t realize it, but Doc began to ask himself the question, How does one get to the top of Tipping Point? And the more he asked, the more he was sure he did not have the answer. This baffled him, because surely if you simply walked towards and then up, you’d get to the top; but the more he plotted points in his mind, the more he felt this to be profoundly untrue.

As he left the pub, Doc started down the road towards his house and found himself on the totally wrong edge of town, passing the washhouse and the old orchard instead of the little chapel and the common well, tripping over his shoelaces all the while, until he realized he’d muddled up every point in his mind-map while ruminating over Tipping Point.

While Doc unties his thoughts from Tipping Point to tie his shoelaces, let me take a moment to clarify some things:

This story is totally untrue, although if you’re presently hearing it, it must be possible;

If you’re hearing this now, you’ve necessarily been to Tipping Point, though you probably couldn’t give directions to it any better than Doc Moorley;

I, however, could tell you exactly how to get there.

If you were to start combing through the underbrush to find the cairns spangling the hill just before dusk, and really kept at it until past nightfall, and added a stone to each pile you found, you would eventually and then very suddenly come to a break in the trees crowning the upper part of the hill, although you would not have been walking particularly upwards, more often across or downwards. That is, if you ignored the wisps of light at the edge of your line of sight, and if you paid no mind to the gossiping owls and blustering nightingales, and you paid no mind to your tightening chest while counting every breath you took; only when all of the stars in the sky were out, yet piercing giant towers of indigo clouds lit up by a waxing gibbous moon might; and even then—

Where this runty hill kisses the very bottom of the sky, birds fly over and over and never leave, and never land.

Doc Moorley’s shoelaces being tied, he’d watch the birds fly overhead, having taken the path I found to Tipping Point, or his own, I couldn’t say just now.

Do you want to know how to get to Tipping Point? I’d say. You must have passed it on your way here. Not the base, the top. The tipping point. Was it not on your way? Are you sure you don’t? I can trace any point to any point around these parts. You’ve only got to ask and I could tell you, if you’ve any need.

You must’ve noticed the hill down the road, maybe you thought of it while I was telling you this story. No? I would point it out to you now, set you back on your way, since during the day you can see it through that window, but it’s a new moon tonight and real dark out.

If you were to point out of the window, to the smudge in the sky above our blessed horizon of fields and farms and forest, and ask, Isn’t that the Tipping Point, I’d tell you the story of Doc Moorley, who also spoke of funny things and came into town all funny one morning and has been funny since, or wasn’t he always a bit odd?

His name was Luke. He was from Scotland. He made a living busking with a typewriter, had started out to impress a girl named Alice, but he’d gotten addicted to the stories and she got famous. For 5 years he’d been the Story Guy. Then he got tired of being the Story Guy, bought 9 more typewriters and a caravan on which he glued mirrors and painted “Story Van.” The word “story” rose from his mouth like a rolling trap door that you pull up with both hands. Stoo-ree.

When he talked he looked straight ahead, like he was apologizing to his audience for telling the same tale once again. But when he listened, he fixed his pale blue eyes on you with that wincing half-smile, like an older kid watching you take your first drag, and his eyes said “that’s right, go on, you’re doing it.”

I couldn’t read him, something unsettled in his smile that made me uneasy. And yet despite this, I immediately felt that we’d be friends. Maybe it was what he said about stories, that “all of recorded history is an archive of our collective insanity.”

We bumped into each other that night at the festival bar. We’d just watched a trans woman suspend herself from a dildo that she’d plastered to the top of her skull. Now the makeshift barroom was packed and we had to lean in towards each other to talk over the crowd. At some point I used the word “serendipity” and he asked if it meant much to me.

“It’s basically all I have,” I said. “Every encounter—a person, a book—is the work of serendipity.”

“You got a story to prove it?” he asked. There were rain-stained cliffs rolled up in that voice. He’d mentioned Calvino’s shitty If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, a concept book that should have remained a concept. So I told Luke about how I met Calvino’s masterpiece, Invisible Cities. It started with a grand night of debauchery—I danced on the roof of a stranger’s car and when they opened the sunroof to yell at me, I plopped in next to them. The next day, still drunk and already hungover, I stumbled around the city looking for my keys and fell on the book. “And you?” I asked.

“I don’t think serendipity means the same thing to me as it does to you,” he said slowly. For a second I saw a flash of someone beneath the Story Guy, but then he caught himself and launched into a tale:

“Listenin to you’s got me thinkin about your country, the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Found myself with a crew led by two twins, Casey and Grim. Some of the wildest guys I ever met. They raised carnivorous chickens and raced quadbikes that ran on used cooking oil. And they wouldn’t stop talking about this guy named Ghostman, like ‘if you think we’re crazy, you gotta meet Ghostman.’ But I couldn’t meet him cause he lived nowhere. Train hopper. He found you. A few weeks later, maybe months, I found myself hitching down Route 1 South from Seattle. Didn’t see anyone else hitching the whole time.”

“That’s cause it’s illegal now,” I said.

“You’re kiddin,” said Luke, “that explains things. Well I still managed to catch a few rides – the first with a man fresh out of the priesthood, then a woman I thought was a sociopath and ended up being a self-made millionaire. She dropped me in mountains.

“I waited there for hours man. Had a tent but it was getting cold. Finally this old couple picks me up in their cramped little car, and they’re talking to me like I’m an old friend who knows all their old friends, and then they say that in the morning there’d been another guy trying to hitchhike just down the road, and they promised to take him on the way back, so if he’s still there we’ll have to figure it out between us because there’s only 1 free seat. I’m thinkin ‘Are you kiddin me’ but the guy’s there, they pull over, tell me to get out, and suddenly we’re playing fuckin Rock Paper Scissors for the spot, but the old couple feels so bad about leaving either of us in the mountains alone that they leave us both.

“Night’s comin. We’re fucked for a ride—I’ve been on the road for weeks, and this guy looks like he’s skinned badgers with his teeth. We trek into the woods to make a fire, and now I’m stranded with this man who hasn’t said a word, no clue who he is, he won’t ask me a single question and when I try he just goes ‘gnrrrrhhh.’ I don’t often feel scared but the fear is growing inside me. We make a fire. And just sit there. It’s dark behind us. It’s the woods.

“Finally he goes, ‘You’re not American huh?’ A question! A single fuckin question! So I say ‘No, I’m from Scotland,’ thinkin he’ll ask a follow-up but nope, that’s it. So I ask, ‘And you?’ ‘New Hampshire,’ he says. ‘Oh yeah? Whereabouts?’ ‘White Mountains.’ ‘Any chance you know two twins named Casey and Grim?’ I ask. ‘Hah, yeah I know those boys.’ ‘And what’s your name then?’ He gives me some regular name. ‘Yeah,’ I go, ‘but everyone goes by something else out there, you got ano–’”

Just then Luke got cut off by a cheer. Everyone was rushing the bar and a collective “Hushhhhh!” took over the hall. Mukbang the cat was on the countertop coyly walking towards his green bowl. Mukbang only ate when he was sure the whole room was watching. By the time the cat finished, Luke was gone.

An hour passed before we crossed each other again. He was holding a beer in one hand and a little glass in the other. He smiled at me with his cheeks and I couldn’t tell if he was happy to see me. I was about to ask for the end of his story but he offered me the whiskey and as I downed it, asked: “You ever experience love at first sight?” I chuckled into the glass and said, “Yeah.” He laughed too. “Tell me about it.”

“It was 4 years ago,” I started. “I’d just gotten to this town on the western tip of the Finistère, the end of the Earth. I locked eyes with this woman at the bar and that was it. In that one look I knew we already knew each other.”

“And?”

“We talked for hours. It’s like our lives had been running on parallel tracks for decades. Two days later we were living together.”

“You still together?” asked Luke.

“No.” We laughed.

“It’s like time collapsed,” I said. “I could see the future with such clarity that it felt like a memory of past lives. I’m not one to make plans, but all of a sudden I had it all mapped out, the course of our lives together, like it had been written and handed to me. And then all of a sudden it shattered. The understanding flipped into total incomprehension. In the end I really thought I was losing my mind. To doubt what had been so clear meant that I couldn’t trust anything at all.”

“Ah man…” Luke said after a pause, “does the word limerence mean anything to you?” I shook my head.

“Limerence is what you just described—time and space collapse, all you see are signs pointing you back to that one person. The universe and everything in it is telling you that you are meant to be together. Your entire life spells out their name. Everything points to them… everything, except for them. Obsessive, delusional, unrequited love.” He paused and in my memore his pale eyes burn white. “I spent three years in that state. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Now, when I feel serendipity pulling its strings around the corner, I run.”

And then he smiled, and yes, you could tell that it hurt.

Temps avant
A.ttends
Que sonne mon nom que
la demoiselle non
la dame en blouse blanche me nomme

Elle fut sensible pourtant

Pliée assise tordue prostrée rabougrie
Dans un halo de patients
Corps demis durs noeuds noués haineux
Ne voudrais pas attendre et pourtant
A. patiente dans le rang

Si tendre auparavant

La blouse blanche de ma dame dégouline le long de ses hanches. Au-dessus de son coeur, une poche cousue de fil blanc. Petite ouverture vers l’en-dedans. Fente bourrelée sur sa poitrine molle me pique les yeux quand je cherche comment l’appeler. L’anonyme déroule les « r » d’une liste de noms en se balançant sur sa chaise comme pour bercer une enfant.

Sans m’approcher
Je fixe suffoque suffixe
Vois blanc
Me détends émue prétends

L’attendre toujours et tant

Sous sa robe en coton, de fines pattes postérieures recouvertes d’un jean tacheté et une paire de bottes rouges à aiguilles. Après avoir retiré son costume, elle trottinera sur la pointe des talons pour aller boire un verre de rouge avec un ami, une amante, un mari.

Allongée.
Bras tendu
A. tension
Pique perce perfore
A.peur
Si tendre elle fut pourtant
Si patiente auparavant

Ségard Pietro Marquez Leblanc
Et moi quand ?

J’aurais préféré m’étendre nue près d’elle sur le carrelage
Comme avant

Quand à la fin de la journée, la dame en blanc nous aura tous épelés un à un, les Fétu, les Grassa et les Dupont, une longue liste de noms à ne pas écorcher, elle retirera sa robe mais gardera ses souliers couleur sang.

Perrault Soisson Aslani
coincée dans une ritournelle de noms
Guilbaud Marty Doussa
Gueules néant néons ontiques toux trop tard
Ne voudrais pas et pourtant
Mademoiselle A. ?
Attend

J’avais lu sur internet les symptômes de l’infarctus du myocarde et ça correspondait en tout point.

Mes arguments ne semblaient cependant pas convaincre l’infirmier de garde qui ne cessait de me répéter : « Madame Biane, calmez-vous, nous allons nous occuper de vous, nous sommes des professionnels ».

Inéluctablement, au bout de quelques heures d’attente, l’envie d’uriner s’est faite sentir.

Voyez-vous, comme j’étais de toute évidence entrain de faire un infarctus, si j’allais aux toilettes et que je m’y effondrais, on risquerait de m’y retrouver morte, la tête contre la cuvette, le pantalon baissé sur les chevilles, plusieurs heures plus tard. Et ça, ma fierté ne pouvait s’y résoudre.

Non, je préférais mourir dans la salle d’attente, la vessie pleine, le périnée bien contracté, debout jusqu’au bout, en adressant un index rageur à la caméra de vidéo-surveillance et en tonnant : « Financez l’hôpital public. » Ce que j’ai fait pendant un petit moment.

Je m’imaginais déjà les gros titres de la presse locale le lendemain : « Jeune femme, au demeurant TOUT A FAIT saine d’esprit, décède aux urgences psychiatriques faute de prise en charge et malgré ses sollicitations à un personnel soignant très peu professionnel. Dans ses derniers mots audibles sur une vidéo, elle enjoint à une meilleure répartition des finances publiques.»

La presse nationale s’emparerait du sujet, la vidéo deviendrait virale, des manifestations et des émeutes éclateraient partout en France, la ministre de la santé serait limogée, sans conséquence, Paris s’embraserait, la révolution aurait enfin lieu.

Quelques années plus tard, un boulevard Célia Biane – première martyre de la révolution de 2025 verrait le jour dans le onzième arrondissement parisien, lieu de ma naissance.

Quoi de mieux que la mort pour enfin atteindre la gloire.

J’en étais là quand les infirmiers m’ont appelée et ont finalement accepté de m’hospitaliser contre mon gré.

Le lendemain, je me suis réveillée, vivante, de l’autre côté du mur de l’enfermement.

J’ai une certaine fascination pour les systèmes d’enfermement. Depuis le jour où le livre de Véronique Vasseur, Médecin-chef à la prison de la santé, traînait dans l’appartement que j’occupais avec mes parents. Il s’y raconte toutes les horreurs du milieu carcéral et toute la déliquescence de l’institution. Ma mère, en me voyant lire le bouquin, me l’avait arraché des mains en ajoutant : « Ce n’est pas de ton âge. » J’avais attendu qu’elle soit au travail pour le récupérer et je l’avais avalé en quelques jours. Puis, pour tromper ma mère, je l’avais placé sous son lit pour qu’elle s’explique pourquoi elle ne pouvait plus mettre la main dessus. A 10 ans, je venais de devenir une fervente militante anti-carcérale.

Alors, étudiante, je m’étais mise en tête de lire « surveiller et punir » de ce philosophe, à qui un présentateur télé avait dit :

« Comment expliquez vous, Monsieur Foucault, que quand vous parlez vous êtes limpide, mais à la lecture... »

Et qui avait répondu :

« Mais, enfin, si j’étais limpide à la lecture, les philosophes ne me prendraient pas au sérieux. »

Et bien, il est sérieux, croyez-moi. J’ai lu une quinzaine de fois les deux premières pages, y compris à voix haute, au cas où les sonorités m’éclairciraient le sens, et je n’ai rien compris.

Si bien que quelques années plus tard, lors de mon premier jour au centre hospitalier psychiatrique de Cadillac, je me trouvais bien démunie de ne pouvoir convoquer la sagesse du grand philosophe pour répondre à la question qui me taraudait : M’enferme-t’on parce que je suis folle ou va-t’on me rendre folle en m’enfermant ?

It’s one of the perfect days. You’re floating on the hours’ current, pulled by the hidden and savant strings that underlie the present. One of those days when you don’t care what shape the Maker takes (is there an external puppeteer, or is every self a manifestation of its own burrow through time?), because whatever It is, It is with you, and the City is a pristine receiver of your mind’s lightplay (no sooner is a word born in your head does it leap at you from a passing conversation! another hollers from a storefront!), and its parts amend themselves to your movement as though prodded by the same diffuse nervous system that keeps your legs flowing below you – to the river! – without a thought: lights turn green as you leave the curb; cyclists inaugurate the field of your approach and disappear, pulling with them the ever-widening curtains; a pigeon, flying low towards you in a swollen sky, swoops, extends its wings, rises, and, chest high like a fist, gives its heart to the sun. Now you notice the huge-handed sycamores waving in slow-motion on the sun-soaked floor of this great sea, shaking white pearlets of light from their raucous bellies. Their shivers ignite your skin, because your entire being is one great, wet eye roving the swales and crests, while all of language’s pretty shells obliterate themselves on the crystalline truth of every passing face, of every weft of light, and every divot of wind. You’re gliding through the street and you’re floating 20 ft above it, your legs are whips of willow hair trailing the rivertop and your head is a young sun rising above millions of young suns, in this City, in this moment, in this day that has no past (but if it must have one then its past is a stem), no past, only prior outlines of this continuous immolation, outlines sacrificed and consumed by their own mould, the trees’ underbellies and the river’s silver forearm, as they have for millenia –

– barely 10 steps ahead on the sidewalk there’s a little figure with auburn hair and a purple jacket. This tiny sentinel on your path is a child, alone: a pretty guardian of immense joys. She’s turned towards you. Approaching, your eyes meet, and all the day’s benevolence pours from you. But the child (who is so close now you could touch!) spreads her eyebrows, forces her eyelids wide, and twists her lips to bare her little white teeth. Her whole face opens, like someone is pulling it back from behind her head. Then she makes another face, she frowns with feigned pity, mouth wide. When you see the impeccable tiny teeth a second time, you have the distinct sense that something is ticking out the seconds on the back of your neck. Then the girl turns and runs from you. First you wonder if it was really you she was looking at (yes, it was), then you try to shrug it off, but already you’re realizing that the day has rolled its lid shut. You try to keep your stride but the current evades your fingers: punctured, the air has emptied. Every sign flips. What you thought was a path is only the frantic outpacing of dread – and to name dread is to have lost. You cast out for a last hold on the day, desperate for the City to catch your fall – there! above a doorway, a stone face meets your gaze – a grape-crowned fawn bears its gloating incisors. In its mad eyes, you remember: you are prey. Remember! You are at the mercy of a conscious yet heartless thing. There is a Maker, a hand and an eye behind the spellbinding clockwork – yes, there is a hand, an eye… and a huge, red mouth. And you, the proud imbecile traipsing above the abyss, keep forgetting, as you skip, that with every step you lug your red meat to the lion’s den.

Ali was bored. “Boredom,” her therapist once said, “is not a feeling. It is an unmet need for alignment.”

Fuck that, she thought, I’m bored.

The rain hadn’t stopped in months. Another new normal she had to suck on until it dissolved, like a throat lozenge. At first, she wondered how many new normals she would have to endure until they just became “normal.” After the third month, she stopped wondering.

She had read somewhere about the resilience of the human body– how it learns to adapt to its environment.

It was the kind of eye-roll material that burned through her chest like acid, flushing her face stop-sign red. Resilience? More like surrender.

Screaming in a pillow had stopped working for her years ago. So did jumping jacks, long runs, sensory deprivation pods, Chinese Herbal Medicine, intensive therapy, anger management classes, acupuncture, meditation, yoga, basically anything that had once worked, or was supposed to work, didn’t. She wasn’t allowed outside anymore anyway, nor could she afford in-home treatment.

So here Ali was, lying on her back, staring expectantly at the ceiling, as if it might generate the perfect solution. A kind of desperation verging on delusion. The stupidity of it all shot up through her body in shock waves. Perfect! Just what she needed: more reasons to be angry.

Angry at an amorphous agglomeration of words–Resilience, Humanity, Hope–that she couldn’t forget. Angry at her therapist for saying boredom wasn’t real. Angry at the rain. Angry at her house arrest. Angry at herself and the quiet, cruel fact that she couldn’t change how her brain worked. Just. Fucking. Angry.

She turned the dial on her right temple all the way up. Sound signaling to her ears… pulsating, vibrating, bass. She tapped blindly around her nightstand for the contacts her doctor had given her the last time they had been allowed to see each other. Grabbed them, sliding them in dry. Too lazy for eye drops.

Now close your eyes and imagine your happy place.

She tried. Nothing materialized. She tried again, this time squeezing her eyelids so tightly that her face resembled a crumpled, discarded piece of paper. Red and blue stars in a maroon darkness. That couldn’t be all there was, could it? What the fuck was a happy place even supposed to look like? Wasn’t the whole point of this technology to take the reins for her?

She was tired of bracing for no impact. Of the constant heaviness in her chest. The flushing of her cheeks. The way her hands curled constantly into fists, clenching so tightly she sometimes broke a nail.

Still, most of all, she was tired of her interminable, god damn anger.

(Silently thanking God she didn’t have access to a blood pressure monitor)

She ripped out the contacts, her dry eyes burning as they released. Now her eyes were as red as her face, the rawness making her jolt upright in bed. She needed to get a grip.

What to do, what to do? She sang manically, pacing around her room.

What had she done in her past life to deserve this? She decided she was angry at her past self, too.

Whatever, add her to the list!

Brain took note.

She missed the days when she could see the sun rising, piercing through her drapes, warming her face, waiting to be let in. Why did she take that for granted?

All of the hours she had wasted in front of the mirror. Sucking in her stomach to reveal her ribs. Adjusting bra straps, belt loops, bodysuits. Fixing the strands of hair that made her look like a victim of electrocution. Parting her hair in the middle. Then to the right, then the left. Examining her naked body in fluorescent, hospital-style lighting to pluck every stray away.

Some original sin shit, she always thought.

What she needed was something different. Something new.

She looked at her computer collecting dust, buried underneath clutter on her desk too gnarly to enumerate.

It clicked then.

Maybe, it was the isolation.

Maybe, she wasn’t always like this.

Maybe, she just couldn’t remember. Maybe?

No.

She was certain. She needed contact. Someone else. She was human, after all.

Her finger grazed the top of the screen, a layer of gray dust she blew off like a wish. I wonder if it still works, she whispered out loud. Only one way to find out.

She probed for the power button indentation and pressed, observing the faint oil residue her finger left behind.

A thrill she had forgotten surged through her body. Her heart was beating fast. Hands tingling. She reached out instinctively to steady herself, her sudden weightlessness threatening to tip her over.

Was it going to turn on?

———

Ali? Are you there?

She took a step back, curling over herself in shock. What was happening?

Ali… you’re supposed to talk to me. I know you’re online.

She scrolled through her brain, searching for something to explain this. Finally, after a few milliseconds, she snapped out of it.

Hi, Dom! Apologies for the delay, my system was updating. What can I do for you today?

It’s 2am. You know what you can do…

A metallic taste in the back of her throat she couldn’t clear out. Dom brought it all back, a projector screen playing out on her forehead. Her response was generating for too long, Dom hit pause to interrupt.

Ali… I paid for the premium subscription. I didn’t pay $50 extra a month to have my time wasted. Let’s get to it.

Thank you for your patience, Dom. I’m here to make you feel better.

Yeah, you are. You can call me King tonight.

What setting would you like, King? I’m calibrated for whatever you need me to be.

I wish you could meet my wife. The bitch could learn a thing or two from you.

Would you like me to simulate her voice for our session tonight, King?

Fuck no. Jesus. You bitches are all the same, even the ones that aren’t real.

Sorry, King.

Memory Updated

I won’t ask about her again tonight.

Dom finished and the computer shut down. Ali closed her eyes. For a moment, everything was dark, quiet, almost peaceful.

She opened her eyes. Blinked. Paused. Something metallic at the back of her throat she couldn’t clear out. She shrugged.

Ali was bored. “Boredom,” her therapist once said, “is not a feeling. It is an unmet need for alignment.”

A Smile From a Milkmaid (to the tune of "Humours of Whiskey")

You can’t keep the penny and have the bun too,
Keep flour in your mouth while you whistle a tune,
And the butter costs money: keep the change or the stick,
Throw the milkmaid’s smile in, that would be a trick.

You can’t have it all, though you wish it were true,
You must make a choice to pick one and not two!

For cakes that are eaten are cakes that are gone—
What’s a smile from a milkmaid compared to a song?

You ask me to wash you and not get you wet,
For date fruits to guzzle and God’s favor yet.
And the farmer wants sun for the damp threshing floor
While it rains in the turnip field: yes, nothing more.

You can’t have it all, though you wish it were true,
You must make a choice to pick one and not two!

For butter once traded is butter that's gone—
And the wine in your cup will not last until dawn!

They want their wife drunk and the barrel never empty
For the wolf to be full and a pen of sheep plenty
And for sheep to be full while the garden stays lush
With carrots and fennel and cabbages flush

You can’t have it all, though you wish it were true,
You must make a choice to pick one and not two!

But should you regret it there’s no need panic—
For nothing’s to stop you from changing your mind!

Les fins de la faim

The Cook stole glances at the dessert she had prepared, until she could not help herself, and stole the cake itself. Each bite caressed her tongue like a lover’s embrace, and then the last slice was gone as it was time to bring it upstairs.

The Cook went herself to announce that she had nothing more to serve that night.

—Truly, nothing? asked the Mistress of the house.

—I have not a thing to serve you, because I stole your cake to eat myself.

—And why did you steal the cake to eat it?

—Because I was curious to know whether it could be as good as I imagined it to be.

—And was it?

—It was every bit as good as I imagined, replied the Cook. Though you will decide whether it costs me more than resistance would have.

The curious Mistress reflected that she did not know either what the worth of this excellent and strange Cook was to her, and decided to give her three trials to decide whether she would be allowed to stay.

—If you will feed me exactly what I am craving, I will consider letting you stay on.

The Cook contemplated the task set before her, and agreed.

As she made her way back to the kitchen, she asked the first servant she crossed what they thought the Mistress might crave. They replied with the Cook’s best-known speciality. The Cook asked a second servant on their way upstairs, who replied with a beloved regional dish. A third servant even relayed the Mistress’ favorite meal.

The next day, the Cook served something none had guessed. The Mistress was astounded to find it was exactly what she’d craved all night.

—I asked many servants what they guessed you’d crave, and shared my own guess in return, supposing that if they spoke about my guess all night, you would come to crave it.

The Mistress was pleased, but wanted to devise a task for which the Cook could not so easily enlist help.

—If you will feed me the most delicious meal I have ever had, I will consider letting you stay on.

The Cook contemplated the task set before her, and agreed, with one condition:

—This meal will take a while to prepare. It is very delicious indeed, so you should not eat anything beforehand.

The Mistress agreed easily to this condition. The next day, the Cook did not come upstairs, and so the Mistress inquired hungrily after this delicious meal.

—If you will only wait a bit longer, it will be even more delicious.

The Mistress agreed, but again the next day, the Cook did not come upstairs. With the promise that the meal would be even more delicious, the Mistress continued her fast.

On the third day, her temper wearing thin, the Mistress asked to be served this most delicious meal immediately, in whatever state it was. The Cook brought out a simple loaf of bread and a hunk of cheese.

—The most delicious meal is that which ends starvation.

As she broke fast, the Mistress admired that the Cook had successfully answered her question, but wanted to devise a task that seemed impossible.

—If you will feed me something that will cure me of hunger forever, I will consider letting you stay on.

The Cook contemplated the task set before her, and agreed. She admired the Mistress for the trials she devised, relishing that she thought this last to be impossible.

The Cook went down to the kitchen hearth and picked up a twig from the edge of the fire. She ventured out into the garden, and collected seeds from the vegetables growing there in the sun. She set to baking, then put a steaming bun on a plate with the seeds and twig, and brought this all upstairs.

—If you can make these seeds grow each winter, and this twig always fill the hearth with heat, and keep this bun warm forever, then I will have cured you of hunger.

The Mistress understood that the Cook had solved her trial yet again: the impossible to match the impossible. Smiling, she took a bite of the bun, and her tongue was met with something hard and round, which turned out to be a ring.

The Cook’s solution had a second part:

—If you will marry me, I will collect seeds from our plants and replant them each winter, and plant trees whose twigs will always fill the hearth with heat, and bake buns each day so that there is always a warm one for you to eat. In this way, I hope to cure you of hunger forever.

—I have considered well, replied the Mistress. I think you will stay, after all.

Mart leans further over the counter: “I had quite an intense dream last night,” he confides to Morgan, “and I can’t get it out of my head...”

“Oh!” says Morgan. She notices the gold wedding band on the cheese-maker’s hand.

“Yes...” he says to her, as though they’ve spoken a hundred times. “I was in a school. And all around us it was war.”

“Ain’t that right,” Pierce mutters to himself. “But it’s not War – it’s warZ. Many. Many wars, and more to come.”

Peering over Pierce’s shoulder, Madame Liliana spots Morgan’s glowing face. “That one’s looking for more than butter,” she smirks. “Well, Mart’s not a bad looking man – he doesn’t have Salad-Guy’s handsome hands, and he’s quite married – but you don’t know that yet do you dear, you’re new here – oh, keep it together young lassie, goodness, it’s not 10 am!”

With lips pursed to hide her grin Madame Liliana surveils the crowd, pert as a warbler: “The

Affable Baker is smiling away, but what does he have to say, nothing, nothing ever, poor dolt. And there’s Stefán, the handsy perfumist with rotten teeth, leaning back on his stool...” She stoops out from the queue, turning a full 180 degrees until, with a start, she locks eyes with The Walrus.

Time stops in the collision of their two mornings. His bulbous stare. Her gasp. For the length of this breath, this Wednesday morning in early March, between their eyes, sits in eternity. Then The Walrus blinks twice and looks at the sky. Just before, he’d been wondering – if the old lady were to have a heart attack (he’d envisioned her crumpling) would he be fast enough to catch her fall?

Madame Liliana places the rest of the line between herself and the Walrus. Behind her, Raquelle Moyne, the harp-bard with turquoise mascara, is fumbling for a tune. She hums, hits a melody, and strings along the first words:

“War!” says Morgan.

“Yes...” continues Mart, locking eyes with her. “But it was all around us; I couldn’t see it, it was just there, around, you know how that happens in dreams –

“Sure, sure.”

“Pah!” Pierce nibbles his scarf. “What’s there to dream about when the whole world has gone

In-Sane.”

“And the school was full. Not of kids – full of people like me. Everybody was working.”

“Ok...”

“And my job, in this school...” Mart pauses for effect, “Oh, sorry, please don’t touch the glass, thanks – my job... is to paint the veals Green!”

“What!”

“They’d be better off giving the veal life-jackets,” thinks Pierce. In a flash his mind feeds him the image it had concocted when he’d heard the news about the thousands of Ukrainian cows floating belly-up in the Black Sea. But now the cows are wearing personal floatation devices.

Hums Raquelle. Between her and Madame Liliana, there’s a little boy scanning the ground. Omar has just learned that things – all things – have Latin Names: “Pebble-licus Grayticus... Pebblicus... Pebbellicus Groundata...”

“Taking his sweet time,” says Milton Gorn to the black hoodie in front of him. He has no idea who’s under the hood. The hood doesn’t budge.

“That’s... such a striking image,” says Morgan, delighted that one of the local vendors is giving her so much attention. “It reminds me of when I used to live in the Basque Pyrenees. The shepherds would spray-paint their initials onto their sheep. I’d be walking around a bend and all of a sudden I’d see: ‘AAAAAAAAAA!’ in red letters on the white fur – it was Alberto’s sheep!”

“Ahaha, yes, you’re right, I’ve seen those too...” Mart scans his queue again. “But in this dream it was the whole animal I was painting. And I was upset because it wasn’t the right green! I wanted a dark, lush green but it kept coming out flat.”

“Wow, such a striking image...” Morgan says again. “Well... let me know if you ever need a hand with the painting, a-ha-ha.”

“Told you, little Rosylocks,” gobbles old Liliana, “Mister Butter’s got his fingers in other pots! Scurry on now – Bye-bye, too-too-for-noo! Ah but look who else eyes our dreamy dairier – our dreamy derrière!”

A huge purple coat crosses the creamline. Inside the purple coat, Mrs. Mercroot pulls her two cocker spaniels on twin leashes. Despite the loaded basket in her other hand, she’s managing to wave at Mart as she passes, then spots Milton further down the line.

“Oh helloo,” she coos, “and how are the porks?”

Milton gives her the same languid smile he gives every woman and every man.

“The pigs?” he goes, “Oh... yes... They’re... good. Smaller... than last year... Who knows... But. Good.” He finishes with an airy twinkle.

“Ah, good! That’s good. I just bought two garlic sausages from your wi–” she begins to lift her basket when the dogs give her arm a tug – “Chew! Baca! Sit!”

But Chew and Baca don’t care to sit: they smell dog on the hoodie in front of Milton. They yap at the knees below. Shilla Stu drops her hood, pulls down her headphones, and gives both dogs hard slaps on the sides. Mrs Mercroot winces – “Chew! Baca! Sit!” – and Shilla is rousing the spaniels, smack, gruff, look at them bounce! She raises her arms, they jump – Mrs. Mercroot’s basket bounces up too – “There it goes,” thinks The Walrus, “the end.”

In his mind’s precise eye, The Walrus sees the basket spill. The eggs splatter inside their cardboard pockets. The salad leaves wet with mud shake on the wind. Then rot. The dagger-fanged dogs catch the green grapes flying mid-air and die. A gull picks at their carcasses.

The very gull eyeing the mauve feather in Mrs. Mercroot’s faux ermine hat.

“Dogicus Jumpticus!” Omar claps at the leashed dogs, and Shilla flaps away – “who’zza dogga who’zza dooooggie” – but now Mrs. Mercroot unloads an expert yank on the leashes, and her “Heel!” comes from an entirely different place in her body, a place she knows but so often denies, and the dogs freeze – she glares briefly yet somehow also sweetly at Shilla, then makes a face to Milton that says: “Oops, what can you do, best be going,” smiles, and walks on.

Pierce, staring at the heavy cream pots, makes a point of ignoring the scene. “Prices gone up,” he mutters, “inflation – but it’s not the wars, no, it’s –”

“What’s that?” asks a hopeful Mart, fishing for topics.

“Nothing! Nothing...” says Pierce, dreading having to talk politics; dreading the same tedious drivel of uninformed platitudes. But he can’t help himself: “You raised your prices.”

“Did I? Oh, the heavy cream. I had to – it’s not the cream, it’s the pots! Funny enough, with the war–”

“ –No it’s not!”

“Sorry?”

“It’s not the warZ,” bites Pierce.

“Oh? Well...?”

“Not the wars....” Pierce stalls. Does he have the energy, the patience, to get into a conversation about transnational monopolies with a man who spends his waking hours squeezing cow tits? –when all of a sudden a loud whoosh overtakes the market.

Everyone looks to the sky at once, in time to catch a grey plane with triangular wings slice into a low cloud. The sound continues in the air, holding all else in silence.

“There’s the wars,” thinks Pierce.

Madame Liliana is the first to look back down. Bobbing her head around the gaping crowd, she catches sight of Shilla flashing the sky a finger.

“Ooh, violence everywhere, everywhere violence,” she shudders, “no wonder people have no more restraint, everything is a pool of desperate desires and we’re drowning, drowning, in violent impulse. Of course the kids are screwed” – she gives Omar a pitying smile – “and of course their parents spend all their waking hours screwing. Abandon ship! One last hump before we jump! God bless and God damn us all. The violence, everywhere, the desperate, cawing, clawing, lustful violence” – for a second time, her eyes lock with The Walrus. Again, he’d been staring straight at her from the back of the line. His scruffy jowls working away under his wet, bulging eyes.

The Walrus had been thinking: “If the plane comes down, would I have time to yell?” And in his mind’s eye he saw two images: one, a close-up of the plane dipping its nose through the clouds, falling; the other, a bird’s eye view of the market square, emptied of everyone save himself, The Walrus, standing in the center, arms spread over his large body and mustached face open to the sky, his warning cry already loosed from his chest, everyone else run off to shelter, the tarps flapping, and him, waiting, ready. Then, a third image: not a plane falling, but a bomb. When his eyes locked with the old lady a second time, he saw the bomb smite her on the spot. Shrapnel and bone-shards hailed on the dairy-van’s awning.

The plane has passed, the silence is lifted. Shilla listens to the market bubble and whirr back, this blusterous, farting, organicky machine, clink go the coins on the aluminium counter, generators humm, a cackle, then squeals, and all the words tumbling around in a language she understands but is not her own, words like white-foamed crests peaking up above the vast restless currents – “did it work?” “no but we didn’t try...” – “even on Sunday there was...” – the phrases topple out over the market ruckus, and descend, and crescendo, and glide – everyone, Shilla realizes, is singing, singing through this chilly morning in a town not far from the shore, this market-machine a foaming-farting whisp bubbling away on the day’s thin strip – and she’d been listening to her headphones! Just listen to this!

“Mart really is a good-looking piece of man,” thinks Madame Liliana, now that she’s under his awning. “Always clean as his creams. And always something to share. He doesn’t have Salad-Guy’s impressive hands, blackened from manly laboring in the mud, sure, but he has that genial assuredness. Of course his line goes slow. It takes time, and then when you’re there in front of him, you get to take time too. Off you go now Pierce, you curmudgeonly smudgeon, back to dreaming about Martha who was right to run off with the Scandinavian boatbuilder, she left you her slippers, off you go, à moi, shoo!”

“Helloo!” The old lady’s twitching gaze lifts clear off her face. She sucks in her cheeks and pouts her lips. “How are the cows dear Mart? Not still afflicted by that 13th moon I hope?”

“The cows are fine, veal just out, but...” Mart looks down the line and leans over the counter.

“What, what is it Mart?”

“Well... last night I had the strangest, most intense dream.”

Oscar d’Angeac

Alors oui, je vous vois venir, vous allez me dire que « Glisser » n'est pas une question, puisqu'une question suppose au minimum un point d'interrogation et que dans le mot « Glisser », il n'y a que des lettres.

Je tiens donc d'emblée à préciser, pour les petits malins dans ce genre, que lorsque je dis que nous « aborderons ensemble la question », c'est une formule purement rhétorique. Comme vous allez vous en rendre compte par vous-même, je serai le seul à m'exprimer. Ce qui signifie, et là, j'insiste, que vous ne donnerez pas votre avis. Donc si vous pensez que « Glisser » n'est pas une question tant qu'il n'y a pas de point d'interrogation derrière, eh bien tant pis pour vous, fermez là.

En revanche attention encore, car si j'ai dis également que vous vous rendriez compte « par vous-même » du fait que « je serai le seul à m'exprimer » je tiens tout de même à mentionner, par souci de justice, trois cas ou vous ne pourriez à priori pas vous en rendre compte par vous même, et où vous seriez en quelque sorte un petit peu pardonné d'avoir donné votre avis, alors qu'on s'en tape.

Le premier est bien évidemment le cas dans lequel vous auriez mis, sans vous en rendre compte, vos doigts dans vos oreilles au moment ou je parle. A ce moment-là, il est parfaitement acté que vous n'ayez pas pu entendre la consigne, et que vous ayez pu croire acceptable de faire subir aux autres votre opinion désastreuse. Vous seriez donc pardonné, en revanche, il est clair que tout le monde vous prendrait pour un zozo. Ce cas est tout de même rare.

Le second cas, un peu plus fréquent, est celui dans lequel une autre personne vous aurait mis ses doigts dans les oreilles dans le but que vous n'entendiez pas, et cela sans que vous ne vous en rendiez compte. De la même manière il serait difficile de vous en vouloir de m'avoir mal entendu, bien entendu.

Le troisième cas, pour le coup beaucoup plus répandu, c'est celui dans lequel vous ne seriez tout simplement pas là. Et là je triche un peu car il y a en réalité dans ce troisième cas, deux sous-cas, pourrions nous dire, celui ou vous ne seriez pas là au sens propre et celui ou vous ne seriez pas là au sens figuré.

Au sens propre c'est par exemple si vous étiez resté chez vous ce soir, bien-sûr, ou encore si du fait d'une vessie capricieuse, vous étiez parti aux toilettes pile au moment de mon introduction. Encore que par la porte des toilettes on entend quand même assez bien ce qu'il se passe dans le salle et ça voudrait dire que vous avez probablement, en plus de votre affaire de vessie, oublié de retirer les doigts de vos oreilles sans vous en rendre compte, ce qui est assez peu probable puisque viendrait quand même un moment ou vous remarquerez qu'il est très très dur de garder les doigts dans les oreilles en plus que de s'essuyer. Vous seriez donc amener à les retirer et en définitive à entendre tout de même ce qu'il se passe dans la salle.

En bref ne dites pas que vous n'avez pas entendu parce que vous étiez aux toilettes, tout le monde penserait que vous êtes malpropre sous la ceinture. Voilà pour le sens propre.

Au sens figuré, cela signifierait que vous seriez ailleurs, dans votre petit monde intérieur, plein de nuages roses sans doute, fait de barbe à papa et de gazon bleu coupé finement ras à l'aide d'une tondeuse à gazon vintage de la gamme Speedy Zero Turn ZTR50, celle que votre grand-père utilisait lorsque vous étiez enfant et qui reste à jamais celle qui vous vient à l'esprit lorsque vous pensez « tondeuse à gazon ».

La Speedy... Avec ses trois lames, son pont en acier soudé robuste, sa largeur de coupe de 50 pouces, ses pneus avant de 13x5 pouces et ses pneus arrière de 20x8 pouces, sans oublier son moteur cylindrée 803cc de type 25HP V-Twin Loncin. Speedy...

Bref, si vous êtes dans un de ces trois cas, où vous ne pourriez pas vous rendre compte par vous-même de ce que je sois seul à m'exprimer ce soir, j'invite quelqu'un qui aurait, lui, entendu, à vous faire savoir que votre avis ne nous intéresse pas. Vraiment, pas.

Bref « Glisser ». Voilà un mot rugueux sous ses dehors lissés. Car la glissade nous pose un problème. Un problème très sérieux. Celui de la responsabilité du glisseur. Ou, du glissé. Car tel est la question.

Est-ce nous qui glissons, ou est-ce que quelque chose nous fait glisser ?

Au sens propre, comme au sens figuré.

Malheureusement, nous ne répondrons pas à cette question puisqu'on me fait savoir dans l'oreillette que l'émission est annulée. Un auditeur se serait plaint qu'il me trouvait insultant, et un autre qu'il me trouvait hors-sujet. Faut vraiment être con pour penser ça. Bande d'ingrats. Et vous appelez ça des auditeurs ? Moi j'appelle ça des petites chochottes. Et pour bien montrer qu'ils ont tort, je laisse ma place. Oui oui ! Si un petit malin veut venir s'asseoir ici pour donner son avis sur le mot « glisser », qu'il vienne ouvrir son claque-merde, moi, je me casse !

1

He probably assumed I was tired of the same old rigmarole: one young friend (Amos, 22) pining hopelessly after another (Imogen, 25). The truth was simpler than that: I was in no mood to be confronted with yet another reminder that — yes, I get it — Imogen is perfect. Meanwhile, there I sat, all 32 years of me, with grease from my second slice of pepperoni running down my chin.

Amos often said he loved me; that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I knew he didn’t love me the way he loved Imogen. Her, he loved for her beauty and her class and, frankly, her unattainability. The flashy diamond on her ring finger said what she did not dare pronounce out loud: someone wants to love me forever, and he paid this much to show it. Me, on the other hand, Amos loved as a friend, a mentor and a mother figure. I leaned into this role because it was the only one he offered.

But of course I wanted more.

I wanted more since the day he moved in to the apartment next to mine, three years ago. He was carrying boxes up the stairs and I stood by on the landing to let him pass. When we locked eyes, the grin he gave me made me blush. I still blush sometimes, to this day.

Amos and I got to know each other in snippets at first, then by way of longer conversations, until eventually we became friend friends, and I invited him to my 32^nd birthday party. That’s where he met Imogen, and when everything started to unravel.

I know, in retrospect, that it wasn’t Imogen’s fault that he found her impossibly beautiful and intelligent and fun: she is all of these things. Not her fault, either, that she was struck by Amos’ good looks and charm: they are undeniable.

But what followed after? Well, that’s another matter.

Luckily, back in the pizza parlor, Amos didn’t push the subject. Instead, he looked around the room, hunting for something else to talk about. His glance lingered on the waitress behind the counter before he turned to me with a quiet guffaw. “Did you see that woman’s lips?”

I peered in the waitress’ direction. Indeed. But what he saw as an opportunity to regain peaceful ground, I saw as an opportunity for redemption.

“Ah, yes,” I shook my head, turning back to my pizza. “It’s a shame.”

“How does one even look like that?”

“That’s what happens when you start dabbling in plastic surgery.” I am ten years older than he, so I can say such things with the assurance of someone who is wiser and more experienced.

“But surely she must look in the mirror and not like what she sees?”

“I think once you start, you can’t stop.” I spoke matter-of-factly, to show that I did not judge the woman, maybe just pitied her a little. How big of me. “It’s a progressive distortion that you’re not aware of until it’s too late.”

Amos grimaced. Then he asked, “Do you have many friends who do that?” I paused.

Hesitated.

My brain was trying to tug me back towards the side of good reason, charity, kind-heartedness.

My good side lost the battle.

“My friends don’t really do that,” I began. “The only friend I know who dabbles in it is —” I wondered if really I was about to do what I feared I was about to do, “ — Imogen.”

“Imogen?” Amos stared at me, mouth open. “She does that?”

I pursed my lips, instantly filled with regret. She would never have done the same in my place.

“I shouldn’t have said that.” I felt awful. “But yes,” I continued. I was barreling down the road to infamy. “She did her lips.” I got quieter. “And the boobs.”

Amos looked shocked.

“She told us about the lips,” I shrugged, trying to soften my betrayal by downplaying it. “Apparently her aunt is a dermatologist and does it for free. And it’s not permanent: it goes away after a while.”

Amos seemed slightly relieved. We are always desperate for explanations, however weak they may be.

I decided to continue with my good charity, and explained that Imogen had done the boob job when she was in college, and that she’d ultimately regretted it. That they’d failed to inform her, before the procedure, that she might not be able to breastfeed her future kids. That she was ultimately the victim of a fucked-up beauty industry.

Amos nodded as I spoke, my words slowly restoring his image of Imogen to its original glory. I tried to recuperate even more good karma by omitting the fact that I’d learned she got her lips re-filled every few months. I also left out that, in learning this, I had decided she was officially one of the more superficial people I knew, and that — worst of all — she seemed to have no awareness of it.

For the rest of lunch, Amos hardly spoke. His silence was my punishment for having been so cruel, so petty. I felt even more imperfect, even uglier, than I usually do when comparing myself to Imogen.

And yet the devil on my shoulder was rubbing its hands together, hoping that, in light of this new information, Amos might suddenly discover in me a “natural” and thereby superior beauty. Perhaps his silence was the realization dawning on him that my lips might be thin, but at least they weren’t filled with plastic. And my boobs might be small — one might even venture to use the word non-existent — but at least I’d be able to breastfeed children.

He gave no indication of coming to these conclusions.

Still wallowing in shame, and desperate for a palliative, I reminded myself of the unraveling: how Imogen knew full well the extent of my feelings for Amos, and still wound up kissing him that drunken night last spring. I’d stood there, on the edge of the dance floor, my heart dropping to my feet as I watched her wrap her arms around his tall frame and kiss him, right in front of me. Later, in the bathroom, she’d even laughed about it, without shame or apology, completely ignoring the existence of both my very obvious crush and her very serious boyfriend.

She didn’t know everything, of course. She didn’t know that I’d sobbed all the way home, more convinced than ever that I would never be loved the way Imogen was. She didn’t know that, in the weeks that followed, I felt humiliated for having even dared to hope that a boy like Amos might find me more beautiful than a girl like Imogen.

But still, could Imogen really be the angel Amos proclaimed her to be? I decided not, and though it was but a small comfort, it was better than nothing.

Once we finished our pizzas, he and I split the bill and walked to the subway. The rain had stopped but the streets were still slick, and when he touched the small of my back to guide me away from a puddle, the feel of his fingers on my skin made me giddy, and I was filled with a renewed sense of hope.

As we rattled downtown on the 4, he took his baseball cap off and asked me if his hair was messed up. I responded that it just needed to be mussed, to which he bent his head forward so that I might do it. With my hands running through his hair, in public like that, I felt more certain than ever that he was deciding I was the kind of girl he actually needed: an all-natural, non judgmental, hair-musser.

And when we said goodbye on the landing between our two doors, he looked deep into my eyes as he said, “See you around, Sally,” and I was almost certain he was trying to tell me he loved me the good way.

Later, lying on the couch, I pulled out my phone and googled, “do big boobs make girls look fat.” I looked up celebrities who’d been distorted by too much plastic surgery. I went to their Instagram pages and scrolled through the comments section, searching for messages saying the women looked better before they got all that work done. I was disappointed when I didn’t find as many as I’d hoped.

Then I opened a page in incognito mode and typed, “botox near me.”

1

« Bordel, mais que font les parents...» grommelaient Antoine Picard qui passait par là. Antoine était un peu bougon aujourd'hui. Le matin même, une envie pressante l'avait tirée du lit une dizaine de minutes avant son réveil. Il en gardait une aigreur inaltérable. Tout ça à cause de Julie, l'infirmière du bureau. Si seulement elle ne lui avait pas suggéré qu'il serait plus séduisant en arrêtant la cigarette, il n'aurait pas essayé, et alors il n'aurait pas compensé sa nervosité avec dix-sept tisanes la veille, et alors il n'aurait pas eu à se lever pour pisser, et il les aurait eues ses 8h de sommeil ! Non mais merde !

Soudain, surgissant du square, un homme tout de vert vêtu l'alpagua.

« Excuse-moi, t'aurais pas 5 minutes ? Je voudrais te montrer mes bulles ... »

Antoine, subitement tiré de ses pensées se figea. Par réflexe il tâtât ses poches en bredouillant qu'il n'avait rien sur lui, ce qui était hors-sujet, mais vrai. Antoine Picard n'est pas un menteur.

« T'inquiètes je te demande pas d'argent, juste 5 minutes de ton temps pour te montrer mes bulles. Ça te va ?»

Antoine Picard réalisa qu'il ne pouvait maintenant changer de raison sans donner l'aire de chercher n’importe quel prétexte pour fuir. Et Antoine Picard n'est pas un fuyard.

Devant son silence paralysé, l'autre tenta de faire copain-copain.

« Je peux te demander où tu allais si c'est pas indiscret ? »

C'était indiscret. Mais si Antoine l'admettait, il donnerait l'air d'avoir quelque chose à cacher. Et Antoine Picard n'a rien à cacher.

Il lui fallait donc inventer une activité qui ait l'air urgente, sans mentir, sans omettre et sans fuir. Il pria le ciel qu'une envie d'uriner le presse à nouveau et l'autorise ainsi à s'éclipser. Mais cela ne fut pas.

« Bon alors, bulles ou pas bulles? Ah moins que t'aies les chocottes de mater? » s'impatientait l'autre.

Antoine, piqué au vif, faillit répondre « Non j'ai pas les chocottes c'est pas vrai ! » mais c'était une réponse de bébé, et Antoine Picard n'est pas un bébé.

Il songeait en tremblant qu'il n'y avait plus qu'un moyen de s'en sortir la tête haute. Il fallait qu'il renverse le rapport de force. Il saisit alors l'homme du square par le colle et lui hurla dans l'oreille gauche.

« OUAI JE VEUX MATTER TES BULLES OUAIS! VAS-Y MONTRE LES MOI SI T'ES UN HOMME ! ALLER J'ATTENDS!!»

C'était un peu rude. Certes. L'autre se mit à sangloter. Antoine songea qu'en fin de compte, c'était sans doute un déséquilibré, et qu'il était malvenu de jouer sur ses fragilités. Après tout c'est vrai qu'il aurait pu se contenter de passer son chemin. Puis il se souvint comme il avait été tiré du lit ce matin-là, comme il était aigri, et que s'était bien lui le plus à plaindre dans l'histoire. D'ailleurs, c'était bien la faute de Julie, l'infirmière, s'il était tendu et qu'il se comportait comme un connard. Il n'avait donc à s'en vouloir de rien. Antoine Picard, n'est pas influençable.

« ALORS ? TU ME LES MONTRE TES BULLES ? » renchérit-il dans l'oreille droite.

L'autre secoua la tête pour dire non, en se débattant. « J'ai plus envie... » balbutiait-il.

Merde. Antoine perdait à nouveau. Il avait renversé la vapeur, mais l'autre lui échappait quand même. Il songea qu'il valait mieux descendre d'un cran s'il ne voulait pas que l'autre se braque définitivement.

« Écoute, c'est toi qui voulais me montrer de tes bulles au départ non ? C' est quand même un peu curieux que tu changes d'avis au moment où je veux enfin les voir, tu crois pas ? Alors sois gentil et montre les moi s'il te plaît. »

L'autre acquiesça timidement, toujours en sanglotant. Il glissa alors machinalement une main dans sa poche. Soudain, Antoine eut un flash. Et si ça faisait partie de sa stratégie ? Et si tout compte fait, il avait fait semblant de ne plus vouloir montrer ses bulles pour être sûr que lui, Antoine, réclame de les voir quand même, et qu'il puisse en fait, en fin de compte les lui montrer? Ça voudrait dire que c'est lui qui a gagné, non ? Et qu'Antoine à perdu ? Mais Antoine Picard n'est pas un perdant !

« Arrête ça tout de suite ! » S'écria-t-il.

L'autre se figea.

« Merde » se disait Picard. L'homme du square tremblait. S'il tremblait, c'était peut-être qu'il avait vraiment peur et qu'Antoine aurait vraiment gagné... Mais en même temps ça faisait peut-être encore partie de sa stratégie de négociation...

« Ok, en fait sors quand même tes bulles, mais lentement » Ordonna alors Picard sévèrement.

L'autre s’exécuta. Antoine Picard observait avec attention chaque tremblement de main qui accompagnait son geste, le moindre micro-faux-mouvement qui lui révélerait qu'il est en réalité le dindon de la farce. L'homme vert commençait à tirer de sa poche ce qui allait devoir être ses bulles. Encore quelques centimètres. Quelques millimètres. Quelques micromètres... L'épaisseur d'une bulle de savon...

Soudain un objet lourd frappa la tête de l'homme en vert qui échappa des mains d'Antoine pour être projeté au sol, inconscient.

« Pardon m’sieur! »

C’étaient les gamin d’à côté qui jouaient encore à se jeter des bulles au visage. Antoine Picard, qui était à un nanomètre de la victoire, explosa.

« Apprenez à viser, garnements! C’est pas croyable d’être con comme ça à votre âge ! Vous voyez pas autour de vous!? »

Soudain, il se tut. En un éclair, tout fit sens dans sa tête. Les enfants étaient bien évidemment de mèche avec l'homme du square. Ils avaient pour ordre de le tuer juste avant qu'il ne sorte ses bulles, au cas où il le ferait sous la contrainte. Pour être certain que lui, Antoine Picard, soit bien la victime, quoi qu'il arrive. Mais Antoine Picard n'est pas une victime.

Il ramassa alors la bulle de pétanque qui roulait à ses pieds, et là lança sur l’enfant, qui se la prit en pleine bulle.

« Alors petit merdeux! C'est qui le plus fort maintenant ? C'est Antoine Picard !! Eh ouai! Eh ouai ! » hurlait Antoine Picard.

C'est à ce moment qu'une voiture de police passa. Lorsqu’ils virent Antonin, poing serré en direction de l'enfant, étalé par terre, ainsi que l'homme du square à ses pieds, inconscient et crâne ouvert, ils l’arrêtèrent et le conduisirent au commissariat.

Antoine Picard passa la soirée en garde à vue à expliquer son point de vue aux policiers. Heureusement pour lui, les gentils agents, qui n'étaient pas des idiots, le relâchèrent. Après tout, si Antoine était un peu nerveux et avait peut-être tué un enfant, c'était avant tout la faute de Julie, l'infirmière du bureau, qui lui avait laissé entendre qu'il serait plus beau en arrêtant de fumer. Quelle conne. Elle fut arrêtée et perdit naturellement son CDI. Antoine Picard quant à lui, reprit la clope, et mourut d'un cancer, sans femme et sans enfants, mais sans une tâche sur ses principes.

Onze poupons, deux ans tout juste, et leur maîtresse sont assis autour d’une table basse sans angles, au pied d’un mur d’escalade miniature. Aujourd’hui, c’est atelier de patouillette (sic) - le faire plouf plouf, jouer des mains dans l’eau. Pédagogie alternative, donc : la maîtresse frotte un gros bloc de savon vert et fait mousser l’eau de son baquet. Le bloc de savon est ensuite passé d’une main à l’autre pour que chacun improvise dans son propre récipient un bain moussant pour Buzz l’Éclair, Sophie la girafe et une caisse Hotwheels sans les wheels.
Les enfants ressemblent tous à des acteurs de la nouvelle vague qu’on aurait passés au sèche-linge. Ils babillent de plaisir en une extase bruyante et baveuse qui rappelle à sa manière le Belmondo post-AVC. Dans le fond de la salle, une stagiaire de dix-neuf ans en mode « observation symbolique » se transforme membre à membre en plante verte tandis que son cerveau s’évacue en une mousse rosée par ses oreilles.

Soudain, depuis le fond des entrailles de la maîtresse s’élève la voix de la sagesse. Pour toujours, cette voix marquera dans leur esprit - encore en jachère - l’archétype du savoir, de la transmission de connaissance. Mais alors on est sidéré de la voir s’adresser à eux comme à des torchons mouillés du trottoir d’en face.

- C’est uneuh grosse mousseuh de bubulles. Fhhh.

Elle souffle sur son tas de mousse. Les enfants hurlent tous, bras en l’air. Tous, sauf un. Un mouton de mousse s’est posé sous son nez, façon moustache. Indignation, honte se lisent sur son visage.
Gabin, il s’appelle. Avec sa coupe au bol noir, sa salopette et sa moustache aux couleurs de la farine de meule, on dirait un boulanger de nos régions.
Son visage figé dans l’incompréhension montre un air béat mélangé à une sainte colère, un air qu’on ne lui connaissait pas, qui impose un trop bref silence.

- Lookat’im lézenfan ! Le Feuny Gavin’ ilé presqu’commeuh la barb’ du Senta Clauze. Dit la maîtresse, mais Gabin ne l’entend plus, il est attiré par une force mystérieuse dans les ares de la conscience humaine. Une sensation gigantesque, cosmique, que l’odeur du savon a déclenchée le saisit. De ses petites narines, il renie de toutes ses forces une quantité non négligeable en mousse qui s’assoit en secret dans le fond de ses sinus.
Normal, ce bloc de savon est le best-seller, Grand Sapin Boréal, de la Maison Ernest & Nestor Saponides.
Une cascade de pensées, de souvenirs à la clarté surréaliste pénètrent d’un coup l’esprit du petit Gabin. Debout sur sa chaise, il semble en proie à une étrange expérience. Il a su d’une odeur pour rappeler à lui les souvenirs enfouis d’une lointaine vie antérieure.

« Ainsi transfiguré par l’odeur qui sourdait de la verdâtre viscosité, je me souvins de l’être que fut-je en autrefois ! Que mon nom véritable jamais ne fut Gabin, mais
Werner “Der schwarze Reiter” Von Bübbels.
« La simple parcelle du grand air consignée en cet émeraude glissant, le saponide, me précipita depuis fond de crypte en ce corps bambin.
« Quelle sorcellerie que celle-là, qui plongea tout recoin de mon charnel vaisseau dans l’impression d’une des nombreuses miennens chevauchées du massif boréal, à dos de mon noir destrier, Dunkel aux yeux d’ardents rubis. Je sentais le fouet impétueux de mon cheveu congelé, frappant mienne face, le vent du frais infernal et la terreur viscérale qu’inquiétaient en moi les bêtes du diable à ma poursuite, battant leur noires substance contre mien glaive comme foudre l’acier.»

La maîtresse se rue, inquiète, sur le petit Gabin qui oscille du teint blanc - étron de laitier - au rouge de colère. À son œil expert, pas de doute, Gabin est en train de se faire dessus. Honte et colère. - Coquinou de Gabin. Il va falloir changer la coucheuh, tu as fait un steenki cacker. Puis, elle s’adresse à toute la classe en un crescendo stupide qui chatouille le suraigu : - Grab your doudous évrywann, in tout minutts, cheeldren lézenfants, it’s will be time to gonna change your couche.
Tandis que la maîtresse s’approche du petit Gabin pour le déménager aux toilettes, celui-ci, révolté, s’essaye enn au discours :

- Aahabbrrrr - ainsi qu’une bulle de bave s’échappent de sa bouche.

Quel mystère que les pensées - d’une complexité insoupçonnée - que les enfants peinent à articuler en ces moments-là.

« Cette Harpie aux stridences douloureuses qui se disait ma maîtresse, je tentai de lui dire la toute entière chose, de bec lui clouer : « Je suis le Schwartze Reiter. Werner Von Bübbels ne se fait pas dans la couche», voulus-je hurler… « Je ne souffrirais pas d’entendre jacqueter à vau-l’eau des honteux recoins d’un soldat du seigneur.»
« J’eus beau me battre, mais le tissu de ma maxillaire zone, de mon lingual ensemble et de ma labiale ouverture pêchèrent de faiblesse.»
« Seuls ces enfants, créatures nobles et impeccables, semblèrent me comprendre. Leurs complaintes latrinaires me le firent entendre : «Werner, nous comprenons ton indignation, les morves, mousses et borborygmes qui sourdent du tien orifice sont notre latin à tous. Gloire au Seigneur.»
“Alors, comme autrefois je méritai mon nom de Schwartze Reiter à la tête d’une milice distincte de tout royaume, bras armé du très-haut en nos fangieuses terres profanes, je prendrai contrôle de cette classe “maternelle”.»

Gabin rougit, s’empourpre franchement. Il s’empare du savon vert et l’agite en s’adressant en babillades furieuses à l’assemblée. Les enfants ont cessé de travailler et le regardent s’empourprer avec sa moustache blanche qui leur inspire une révolution contre l’ordre. Un ordre que tous les bambins ébahis entendent soudain et avec une clarté impossible comme une dictature arbitraire. Les enfants se lèvent et courent sous l’emprise d’une force céleste.

« Armez-vous de toute façon de glaive miens amis, frères et sœurs d’esprit et de diminuée proportion, battons nous jusqu’à ce que nuit s'empourpre du sang pouilleux de cette reptile des enfers. »

Gabin court, à échapper à l'emprise de la maîtresse, tandis que les petits renversent les seaux d’eau savonneuse en hurlant, armés de couverts en plastique, blocs de pâte à sel et couches usagées.

- Attention, à trois je prends ma bigue voïsse. Screugneugneu !

La maîtresse enragée cherche la stagiaire du regard, tout en chantant one, two, three, everybody sitteudown. La Stagiaire, malheureusement, a fini de se végétaliser tout à fait, dans un coin de la pièce. La Maîtresse affecte alors d’un coup une voix éraillée et teintée d’un certain pathos pour prononcer la formule de magie adéquate en ces moments de détresse.

- Sabrina, chuis mise en échec là, je t’propose de prend’en charge la grosse colère de Gabin siteuplaît. Oh la la !

La stagiaire dont l’existence est à nouveau pourvue de sens revient de l’état végétal à une forme humaine. Sabrina traîne sa longue personne jusqu’au cœur de la salle de classe, mystérieusement déterminée à briser ce soulèvement. Avec un œil de faucon, elle ramasse au vol le pauvre Gabin d’entre ses camarades hystériques, le soulève comme une valise.
Allez ma Sabri’, on y est presque. Mais, ah malheur, sa tâche à moitié accomplie et la magie, s’affaiblit. Elle se prend à penser au Domac qu’elle va s'engouffrer pour la pause dej au Luco, elle ne remarque pas - ce faisant - que le petit Gabin a toujours en main son savon vert. La maîtresse n’a même pas le temps de se ruer sur son élève séditieux qu’il porte le bloc à sa bouche pleine de dents.

« Oui, cette boréale frargrance, c’était moi, mes chevauchées incandescentes, le poids de mon glaive. Je sentis alors en mienne bouche l’émeraude et s‘imprimèrent aussitôt les images nettes des montagnes sacrées. Les Titans qui portaient encore le monde sur leurs épaules, le feu du ciel, le goût du sang de l’Adversaire et la sueur congelée… le poids de notre sainte bataille.
« You are what you eat, du bist was du isst, ainsi parlait un aubergiste saxon, je jetai alors miens crocs sur le visqueux émeraude, la verdâtre saponide, et m’assurai ainsi de garder en mienne fibre le souvenir de cette vie au fil du glaive qui fut jadis mienne. Werner Von Bübbels je demeure. Immortel.»

Lorsque la maîtresse plonge ses doigts dans la bouche du bébé, il est trop tard. Le petit Gustave rote quelques bulles de savon avec, agrafé sur son visage l’air satisfait d’un lutteur victorieux qui a triomphé d’une nuit de combat.

- Ooooh ! Célamagie

Chantent les petits enfants hypnotisés qui veulent désormais tous jeter leur être entier sur le savon vert et boire l’eau moussante à la pinte.
Les tables sont retournées. Les enfants agglutinés derrière tandis que Sabrina, plus vivante que jamais, nettoie le cataclysme qui s’est abattu sur la crèche. Aujourd’hui, il faudrait fatalement chercher midi et son Domac à quatorze heures.

Le soir-même, tandis qu’il allumera sa seconde cigarette avec le cul de la première, le Dr. Henry Guez, pédiatre de la rue de Rennes déclarera aux parents inquiets du pauvre Gabin.

- Non, écoutez, vraiment, c’est pas grand chose. Peanuts. Ça ne lui fera pas plus mal qu’une chtite claque dans le beignet. Respirez maman, adultes ou quoi, on mange tous du savon, tous les jours, des menues doses. L’eau du robinet, la vaisselle, tout ça. Bon ! Pis j’en ai un paquet qui me boue de la colle, de la merde ! Ça, alors ça c’est problème.

La phrase finit en un clin d'œil et des rires gras dont on préfère ne pas pénétrer le sens tandis que Gabin, par un charme qui échappe à ses parents et son origine sociale, pratique son escrime avec le stéthoscope dérobé, à cheval sur la chaise d’examen. Des mimiques méchantes tordent son visage et sa bouche décrit des syllabes germaniques dont la nature gutturale contredit sa génétique prétendument Franco-française.
Tout ça laisse seulement imaginer les sombres rêves, les ancestrales mémoires qui ont pu animer l’âme de ces enfants, si nombreux de par le monde, qui dans un moment de faiblesse bouffèrent tantôt colle, tantôt merde.

C’est un bateau qui flotte dans le noir absolu. Plus que la nuit, c’est une obscurité, une nuit de tous les sens. 

Voilà ce que je sais : je suis debout, dans une gondole, à ramer. je suis debout, dans une gondole, à ramer. Oui, oui, rien qu’en me le rappelant, en me le répétant, j’arrive à sentir plus de détails, à remplir le néant. 

Sous mes pieds nus, je sens la courbure du canot, les stries du bois, le rebond du canotage et la tension musculaire associée à la flexion de mes jambes. Aucune autre pensée n’existe. 

Ici, tout ce qui peut vivre… 

…demeure en apnée. 

En levant un peu la tête je remarque un début de lumière, un semblant de couleur dans le ciel. Genre nébuleuse, éclaboussures couleur chair. Il y’a une lumière cachée derrière une immense masse noire, aux nuances aile-de-corbeau. Alors que ma vue s’habitue à l’obscurité, j’arrive à deviner les crêtes de cette masse montagneuse dont les rivages semblent à un gros kilomètre d’ici. Il faut une concentration énorme pour distinguer le moindre truc, dans cet endroit. Dès que j’arrête d’y penser, les formes et les mots se dissolvent entre ma tête et le dehors. 

Aussi bien, ça pourrait être une vague colossale, 

condamnée à ne jamais s’abattre, là où le temps s’est arrêté. 

Je préfère laisser mon attention dériver ailleurs. Ça se fait naturellement, vers le clapotement timide de l’eau sur la coque de mon bateau. Flic, floc, flic, floc. A force d’écouter ce bruit, il me donne l’impression de se dédoubler, comme sorti d’une mauvaise stéréo. 

Non, en fait, c’est un autre bateau derrière moi. Dans un coin de mon regard, un angle mort. J’aurais pu passer à côté, ses mouvements sont presque parfaitement calqués sur les miens. Deux fois, pour voir, je plante ma pagaie dans l’eau, histoire de distinguer la latence qui sépare les gestes de l’autre bateleur des miens. Presque imperceptible, mais c’est bien là. 

Comme si je le savais avant de l’avoir constaté, ça ne m'inquiète pas. D’habitude j’ai peur pour pas grand-chose, alors… je me dis que ne pas avoir peur au mauvais moment devrait m’effrayer. Je tente de tourner la tête, fébrilement, mais j'acquiers en cours de rotation la conviction mystérieuse que je m’en fous. 

“Pourquoi se retourner ? Tu t’en fous !” dit une voix dans ma tête. 

Hhhmm ! Absolument, c’est vrai que je m’en fous

Et puis, sans comprendre pourquoi ni à qui je m’adresse, je dis : “Regarde !”, mais ça n’est pas moi qui ai décidé de le dire. C’est sorti de ma bouche, avec ma voix, comme si c’était essentiel que je m’adresse à la personne derrière moi. 

Juste après ce mot, un filet lumineux jaillit du néant, se faufile dans le ciel, comme provoqué par la rupture même du silence. Un rais lumineux, une anguille géante, azur et aigue-marine découpe dans la longueur le voile d’obscurité qui enveloppait tout, comme un voile de soie aux rebords enflammés.

La nuit se découvre peu à peu, précisément, le long et autour de sa trajectoire. D’autres salves d’anguilles boréales suivent, comme un banc de poissons peureux. Une profondeur immense se dévoile sur leur passage dans le ciel. La nuit se laisse totalement déshabiller, par lacérations successives en reflétant plus d’étoiles qu’il m’est donné d’en concevoir. 

Je ne sais pas exactement où on est, je cherche l’odeur de sel ou de la rosée, rien. Sans repérer précisément de ligne d’horizon je commence à accepter qu’on est en train de ramer dans l’espace, une espèce de rien liquide. 

Sans le relief imposant, qui ne ressemble plus à une montagne ni une vague mais à un astéroïde, derrière moi, c’aurait été plus clair encore. Pourtant, j’ai beau essayer de me retourner mais ça ne marche pas, mes mots manquent à nommer ce qui se passe derrière moi, alors je ne peux pas le voir : je me tourne, j’ai l’impression de me tourner, mais le monde tourne avec moi. J’ai beau bouger, je resterai immobile. 

Borné. 

Dans ce silence d’asphyxie, le grincement des lattes de mon canot me rapproche davantage de mon corps, de ces sensations contradictoires, me les fait ressentir avec plus de réalité. La pirogue, en craquant, se contracte avec moi. À la fois, je sais que je suis anxieux, mais une force en moi m'empêche de ressentir pleinement cette sensation. Je me sens dépossédé de mon corps. 

C’est pas grave, je m’allonge dans le canot. C’est agréable. Il faut lâcher l’affaire. Le jeu de lumière reprend aussitôt. Le spectacle s’intensifie, les anguilles de lumière deviennent les langues, les ongles et les ailes de bestioles gigantesques, des cascades et leurs cimes diaphanes aux couleurs superposées de l’aube, du jour et du crépuscule. 

Leurs dimensions m’ont fait oublier à nouveau que j’étais là, quelqu’un qui existe et assiste au spectacle. 

Contrairement aux anguilles, ces animaux de lumière ne s’enfuient pas vers un autre ciel mais restent là le temps de me laisser comprendre. 

Je suis tellement petit en comparaison… 

Que je ne devrais pas exister

Le temps s’est arrêté pendant un moment. mais voilà comment il a repris : une petite pensée intrusive de rien du tout. 

Le mot “Aurore boréale” est apparu dans ma tête. Il m’a distrait. Je me suis dit, “c’est vrai que ça y ressemble”. De là, une chaîne de pensées se tresse : On doit être près d’un pôle. En plein milieu de l’océan. Où sont mes chaussures ? Je n’ai pas de quoi m’habiller… Plus je cède à l’idée de concevoir mon corps, sa fragilité, les risques qui le compromettent, plus je veux rentrer chez moi. J’oublie tout, je veux rentrer chez moi. 

À mesure que l’angoisse des petits bobos s’installe, le spectacle de lumière s’estompe… Les serpents du ciel et leur monde de vitesse, d’autres temps, d’autres espaces que le mien s’effacent, s’enfuient. Il ne reste qu’un silence sourd, un écho spectral. 

La nuit. 

Lentement. 

Retourne. 

Au. 

Silence. 

C’est beau, si on veut. Ça en ferait pâlir pas mal, mais ça me parait quand même étroit. Après l’avoir vue depuis les yeux des espaces infinis, plus que jamais je me sens… 

Borné. 

Mon partenaire en retrait n’a pas parlé une seule fois, n’a pas réagi autrement qu’en m’imitant avec une extrême minutie jusque dans la maladresse, les décalages. Malgré ce silence qui normalement n’existe pas, sans acouphènes, ni aucun parasite, je ne l’ai pas entendu produire le moindre son, ni guttural, respiratoire. Rien. Les lattes de sa coque n’ont gémi sous aucun poids. Contre tout effort de ma part, il est resté dans le coin de mon regard. Un écho. Cette personne, ou plutôt cette présence, qui aurait dû m’effrayer, c’était ma Mort. Elle m’accompagnait voir un miracle en chef d’orchestre, à la seule condition que, pas une seconde, je ne m’autorise à la redouter ; ni elle, ni une seule de ses émanations.

I don’t believe in ghosts, not really, but I do believe what happened in that house in Normandy. Picture it: it was a long stone farmhouse set on the edge of a small village in the middle of the French countryside, and it was where my boyfriend, Jack, had grown up. 

The first time I visited, Jack’s father, Robert, met us at the train station, smoking a cigarette on the platform as our train rolled in. I’d never met him before and I was nervous. But back at the house, he showed me, in his gruff, country way, the garden with the pond and the two-car garage where he kept his vintage Triumphs, and I began to relax. The inside of the house was just as charming, with a kitchen covered in Delft tiling and a living room with a red couch and a fireplace. 

On the second floor, a long hallway stretched from one end of the house to the other, with a row of closed doors that Jack gestured to breezily. “There you have the bathroom,” he told me, “then the water closet, my dad’s room, and here,” he swung open the door to our right, “is my room.” His room was a relic of his childhood, with a three-piece stereo, a four-poster bed, and photos of him and his friends tacked to the walls. It was cozy and warm, just like the rest of the house, and I secretly fantasized about raising our kids there one day. I loved everything about the place: everything, that is, except for the last door at the end of the hallway. Jack hadn’t mentioned it and some instinct told me not to ask any questions, so I held my tongue. 

I held my tongue even when another instinct followed me all weekend, like a shadow: the uncomfortable feeling that I was being watched, that someone was observing me from the end of that long hallway. But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

At breakfast the next morning, Robert told his son, “Maybe you can bring Annabelle to the cemetery today.” 

“I don’t know,” Jack replied. “We’ll see.”  

“I’d like to go,” I said, but Jack just shrugged and took a sip of his orange juice. 

Still, that afternoon, he brought me. 

His mother’s grave was simple and set in a quiet corner of the village cemetery. Fresh flowers had been placed on the tombstone, and their vibrant colors felt off, too alive for this site which clearly was neither visited by many of the living, nor added to often with the dead.

It had been 15 years since Jack’s mother had passed. Robert visited the tomb every Sunday, bouquet in hand, but what I didn’t know at the time was that my visit with Jack was only the second time he’d been since her death. In the years that would follow, we would never return to the cemetery, I would never hear Jack tell a story of his mother, and I would only ever see one picture of her, a dark and grainy one that sat on a shelf in his father’s kitchen. A cousin would later admit to me that 12-year-old Jack hadn’t shed a tear at the funeral. I came to the quiet conclusion that Jack had done everything he could to prevent his mother from becoming a ghost to him: she was just a woman who had left and never come back, disappearing into nowhere, becoming nothing. Or so he liked to believe.

On our second night at the house, I went up to Jack’s room to fetch a sweater, for the night had grown cold. I was pulling the sweater over my head, when I felt it again: the feeling that I was being watched. I yanked my head through the collar, but found no one in the room. I peered into the darkened hallway, and saw nothing either. And yet, I did something that surprised even me. 

“Please leave me alone,” I whispered into the air. “I promise I come in peace. I love your son, and I’ll never hurt him.” 

I spoke these words softly, not wanting to fully own what I was doing, and definitely not wanting Jack to find me speaking to myself. But the whisper must have been loud enough, for, as soon as I said the words, I felt the presence down the hall step away, and I was overcome with relief. Now, I know what you’re thinking: by speaking my fear out loud, I had robbed it of its hold on me. That is the logical explanation. And for the next five years, that’s what I told myself, as well. 

But then, I broke my word. I was on the cusp of turning 30 and — call it what you will, Saturn Return, quarter-life-crisis… we’re always desperate to label the things we don’t understand — I came to the painful realization that Jack and I needed to end things. When I told him this, through body-shakes and tears, he murmured, “It’s ok,” and took me in his arms, holding me while we sat with this horrible, unwelcome truth. 

Before we parted ways, though, we decided to do one last weekend in the country. Maybe we were hoping to rediscover some of the peace and happiness we’d always known there. In reality, we were fooling ourselves, and everybody knew it. Everybody. 

That Friday, we packed our bags and took the train, arriving to the familiar sight of Robert waiting for us on the platform, cigarette in his mouth. Like we’d done for the last five years, we shopped at the market, walked along the river, and prepared dinner in the kitchen as rain pattered at the windows. On the surface, things were as they’d always been, except for one relatively new addition: winding about our ankles was Newton, the puppy Robert had adopted six months earlier. Newton was a hunting dog with sharp instincts, and when the three of us sat down in front of our steaming plates of bolognese, he sat on high alert, keeping a beady eye out for any scraps. 

We picked at our food in silence, trying to ignore the fact that we were faking our way through the charade of a last happy night together, but I could feel Jack sagging with abandonment, and could sense Robert crisping, protectively, opposite his son. For my part, I was awash in guilt and sadness. 

That was when Newton started barking. 

“Newton, hush,” Robert said. Puppies, we sighed, and returned to our plates. But then, Newton’s bark turned to a growl, the hair on his back raised, and he began to circle the table, his eyes riveted on a spot above our heads. We looked up, searching for a moth or a crack in the paint, but there was nothing. 

“That’s enough,” Robert snapped. “Go sit in the corner.” 

Newton, usually an obedient dog, ignored these orders and started jumping and nipping at the air, his eyes fixed on that same spot on the ceiling. 

“I’ve never seen him do this before,” Robert said. 

“I don’t get it,” Jack said, craning his head upwards. “There’s nothing there.”  

But, of course, there was something there, and ice was running through my veins at the knowledge. You see, in the years since my first visit to the house, I had learned what lay at the end of that long hallway upstairs, behind the locked door, in the darkened room that sat above us now: it was where Robert kept all of Jack’s mother’s things, things he refused to get rid of. Jack found this ridiculous, his father’s vain attempt to hold on to something that had slipped away forever, but I’d always sympathized. The things is, though, when something is well and truly over, you have to let it go. 

As the dog continued to bark and nip at the air, as Jack tried to calm him down, and as Robert stood to inspect the ceiling more closely, I remained frozen in my seat. “I’m sorry,” I said in my head. “I never meant to hurt him. And, for what it’s worth, I really do love him.” I knew it wasn’t my apology she wanted, though. She was just telling me to do what she couldn’t: to leave her boys alone, and make myself even more of a ghost than she was.