paul: je crois qu’on sous-estime énormément notre tristesse en général. on meurt toujours de tristesse en fait.
alice: tu veux dire que la tristesse est installée en nous dès notre naissance ?
paul: oui.
alice: comme la couleur des yeux ?
paul: oui, exactement. et c’est pour ca qu’il faut en prendre soin. et pour ce soin, les autres ne peuvent rien. personne ne peut rien contre ou pour notre couleur des yeux.
- dans paris, c. honoré (2006)
rien de secret,
tout se perd
- de quoi avons-nous l’air
à l’heure de l’inventaire ?
- a. beaupain
…it is then that I lie
in the lean hours awake…
- r. s. thomas
once I woke up in the middle of the night with a stinging question burning beneath my eyelids. even though the blankets were thick enough, I trembled. why, I asked the darkness. the silence’s truth pierced my ears. fatigued, I was able to see coherence in the incoherent, purpose in the chaos. I couldn’t help but give in. the certainty that this why would be muffled, shut down by (and turned into) the dark silence itself, appeased me – and I fell soundly asleep again.
your golden wings couldn’t resist the sun rays. you fell, and I didn’t see it: my eyes weren’t turned to the ocean. strangely, I didn’t resist the stiff(ened) pome myself, its hard flesh broke my teeth, and no previous advice was heard – one that could’ve made me have a second thought before the shameful bite. yet your bones rot on the bottom of the sea, despite every intention of yours, and no other generation will ever know the stories of your vain errands. despite every trial of ours, those years, short years, anesthetized, deaf and blind, didn’t really happen in the end.
yesterday evening I had dinner with Pierre. as usual, he was talkative and piercing-eyed, and, as usual, we laughed loudly in the quiet French restaurant, which always made some people stare at us. he’d been a week or so without shaving, and was wearing the same musk-and-ginger perfume and a checked shirt. we talked about the same ordinary topics and everything was alright until the moment when, after swallowing a sip of our house red wine, he lowered his voice and told me he had to share with me something very uncommon that had happened to him the night before.
- Charley wasn’t home, so I went to the roof to smoke a cigarette – he began. you know it bothers her a lot when I smoke inside. when I was outside, I heard a loud crack noise right beside me. I almost fell from the roof when I saw an extremely strange creature floating on the air, five feet above the roof tiles, looking at me. it was an elf, and it talked to me. it said it had a gift it wanted to give me, and it showed me two books it was holding in each hand, one had a golden cover and the other, a silver one. in very flourished letters, I could read on them, “the Book of the Sun” and “the Book of the Moon”.
Pierre loved telling me fantastic stories, and I was a good listener. not rarely he came up with all sorts of stories about how he had seen witches or ghosts in the fringes of the forest at the backyard of his house. of course I let him continue, I appreciated his creativity. I had told him he should write children’s short stories based on them, but he was too busy a man for that kind of thing, as he replied. it isn’t, though, without feeling somehow guilty, that I am narrating this one, instead of leaving it for him to do it himself, which would surely make it a much more ensnaring tale. finishing his salad, he went on:
- the elf said the books were very valuable but they hadn’t been published on Earth yet. I still was, of course, barely being able to concentrate on the words it spoke. it wouldn’t reveal to me what was written in each book, but it could tell me the aftermaths which would befall if I chose either of them to be of my own authorship. I could choose only one of the books. if I chose the Book of the Sun, the elf told me, I would become a very famous author in less than a year. if I chose the Book of the Moon, people would start to hear my name in about a century. the Book of the Sun is what the current inhabitants of the globe are desiring to read in this exact moment. the Book of the Moon, on the other hand, is what humanity needs to read, but is still not very capable of deciphering.
the rabbits had arrived and we started eating them. an accordionist started to play at the back of the large room, and everyone else was focused on their own plates and cutlery. under the low and appeasing music, an even lower and calmer sound of the people’s chatting arrived at our table. Pierre chewed, and so did I, not willing to interrupt the unwinding of the storyline. he looked at me and I pretended I was more interested in the dish in front of me than in the end of his fable. I waited, and he resumed speaking.
- the elf explained me quite in details what would come to pass after my decision. I could be exceedingly wealthy, get to know many different places and people, and live a very pleasing life thanks to the Book of the Sun. however, this book would be forgotten by everyone before this same decade is ended. my richness would endure during all my life and my son’s life, though. at the same time – his voice was deep as he spoke -, there still was the opportunity of writing the Book of the Moon. by doing it I would change the most influential thinkers’ minds in the following century and my name would be the symbol of an important philosophical movement. yet, I wouldn’t be here to see any of that.
we asked for the bill, paid for it and went out of the restaurant. the chilly evening breeze brushed my cheeks and made me shiver a little, while it disarranged his hair. the streets were nearly desert. he stared up at the stars with his hands in his pockets as he walked. I tried to do the same but the effect of the red wine blurred my sight and I felt as though I could lose my balance, so I just closed the topmost button of my coat and followed Pierre. we sat on a bench in the middle of a yellow-illuminated square, he lit a cigarette and asked me if he could tell me a secret. intrigued, I consented.
- actually I do not want to simply tell you a secret. I want to show you one – as I nodded, starting to feel sort of nervous, he started slowly cuffing up the left leg of his pants. tied to his leg was a small, green, humanoid creature. it blinked many times, and its eyes, which were astonishingly human, seemed to ask me for help. its mouth was gagged. it hid the books with its magical powers – Pierre explained. it was harder than it might appear, my friend, to decide whether to have the Book of the Sun or the Book of the Moon. I’m just afraid I’m going to have to live my entire life with… it… attached to my leg.
one of life’s many contradictions: 1) go out there and make nice memories so that you’ll have them hunt you all along down to your deathbed; or 2) don’t make any and bitterly regret this during all the years you live.
- sou por delicados alfinetes de prata crucificada. banida do ritual de libação do hidromel cálido, licor que a todos arrebata. fadada a suportar os firmamentos opacos sobre os quais sombras e luzes informes movem-se continuamente, em círculos e espirais, ora desaparecendo à esquerda, ora retornando à direita, desprovidas de informação a respeito da direção certa a seguir. para mim não são mais reservados, sob o sol, tronos dourados forrados pelo veludo suculento que toma emprestado o esplendor daquele. para mim não há mais manhãs ou madrugadas, não há mais o repouso dos vales, nem o despertar das cores-aromas imensuráveis do alvorecer. o limbo ao meu redor é frio, seco e áspero, porém serei-lhe eternamente grata por não me abandonar a um destino tal como o destas almas perdidas que observo.
depoimento de papilio demoleus #1504B8-0.
- je suis par délicates épingles argentées crucifiée. bannie du rituel de libation de l’hydromel chaud, liqueur qui nous fait tous nous envoler. destinée à supporter les firmaments opaques sur lesquels des ombres et des lumières informes se meuvent continuellement, en cercles et en spirales, un coup en disparaissant par la gauche, un coup en retournant par la droite, mal équipées de toute l’information à propos de la direction correcte à suivre. pour moi ne sont plus réservés, en plein air, les trônes dorés couverts par le velours succulent qui emprunte la splendeur solaire. pour moi il n’y a plus de matins ni de nuits, il n’y a plus le repos des vallées, ni le réveil des couleurs-arômes incommensurables de l’aube. les limbes autour de moi sont froids, secs et revêches, pourtant je leur serai éternellement reconnaissante de ne pas m’avoir abandonnée à un hasard tel que celui de ces âmes perdues que j’observe.
témoignage de papilio demoleus #1504B8-0.
you pour into me your inner universe, without asking for permission. you’re a frozen ocean, the elliptical orbit of my own wishes, anything but the missing copper breast of the statue we’re never looking at. not the missing breast. nor the soft fur of your airedale terrier hiding your fingertips. both of us did our best to explain our blamed fingers, but we knew from the beginning that your intentions and my harsh dreams would continue being in a distance which is inversely proportional to the amount of foretold shooting stars.
you’re a melting ocean, and i’m a teacup.
