One-act

F.'s evening seemed to involve jumping from one setting for a one-act play to another. They all involved a few characters in sparesely furnished surroundings waiting. (As indeed all Western drama since the 50's has been just that: waiting for something; conflict leading to change. In this case (our case, one would imagine) the conflict is plain human impatience, and change may or may not come. Dramatic turns are little vignettes and resolutions are point of low energy. I generalize, but this is a neccessary evil if we are to talk of anything.) F's first place of dramatic importance was the little middle eastern food shop. His food was too spicy and he complained to himself about the spice's unpleasant effects on the sores juts inside his mouth. He saw a poster on the wall: it was the Buddha's birthday. That gave him pause and made him feel slightly ashamed. He decided to order another spicy shawarma and finish it. He walked on after he had finished and eventually reached his second destination: a metal fence in front of a cocenert hall. He leaned against this one, soliloquizing to himself (and to the sparse audience, of course). The only other character here is the savvy scalper who hit him up several times, trying to squereze a profit from him. F. wondered what mde him so forgettable. This act lasts for another twenty minutes. The lighting cues are off, but the transition from red to intense filter light in the only thing keeping the audience's attention at this point. Eventually, F.'s friend arrives and they enter the hall to listen to sea shanties and forget their troubles. They emerge, and in a postscript to the act heatedly discuss musical instruments: lutes, marimbas, accordions, wind chimes and what arrangements lend or do not lend themselves to those particular timbres. Exeunt. We find them in front of a brick wall in a garbage-strewn back alley, pretending to be intoxicated. They watch fireworks and toast their imaginary booze to the Buddha's birthday. They encounter a vagrant who gives the required nonsensical soliloquy, ellipsis and all, and moves on. In more dramatic turns, childhood friends come and go, actually intoxicated, singing patriotic songs. F. gets the last word, wondering if he can ever make the bricks of the alley shine with an inner light. The evening peters out.

Eritrea, foot fetish, pink glasses, ileo-colic reflex, cone

John was watching television the way a boorish man watches the opera. Without interest and without any understanding of what is going on around him. John didn't like the hour. It was six o'clock and every channel was diffusing news stories about places and things that were of no consequence to him. Channel six was running a piece on a dog that had saved a life the day before. Apparently this qualified as news. The World of Medicine show on channel fourteen was talking about different responses in the body. They were presently talking about the ileocolic reflex, which slightly disturbed John enough to switch the channel to the BBC. The BBC was running a documentary on one of their correspondants who had just retired. Crazy bastard. Went all over the world. Started off as a war correspondant. That's enough to fuck you up. Imagine your job: hoping some poor bastard dies so that you can capture it on film and make a story out of it. He had started out covering the conflict, four decades ago, that saw Eritrea split from Ethiopia. Not that it received much news at home.

John didn't care about Ethiopia, Eritrea or any other fucking country that ended with an a. All he cared about was himself and his self image. But he was bored. He tried to do things that would capture his own imagination. But the truth was John was not a man of imagination. He wasn't even a man of science. He had no mind of his own and the problem wa that he knew it.

He spent his days trying to make himself creative. To make himself an inovator. If he hadn't inherited a fortune from his pornographer father who speciallised in foot fetishes. He didn't even have to break any of the new indecency laws.... There's nothing naughty about feet, unless you have a foot fetish. This market had grown exponentially since the last civil war in England where many had lost their feet steping on small scale land mines. Everyone became obsessed with feet, especially beautiful feet. They didn't even have to be in sexually explicit situations.

John got up from his chair, in front of the TV. He didn't care about Winston Lavigne (for that was the name of the correspondant). He wasn't feeling well. He got headaches front watching TV because TV was such a bore to him. He would have gotten headaches watching paint dry. He was bored and there was no solution to his boredom. Except perhaps one, that he wasn't sure he wanted to attempt.

He thought a bit, which only hurt his head even more. Finally he decided to end it all. He opened a box with three objects in it. The first were a pair of pink glasses, made out of plastic that once apon a time, when he was extremely young a girl had given to him. It was the only person that John had managed to care about, and now he didn't know where she was. This brought tears to his eyes since it was the only object he loved so much. The only object he was able to care about. The second was a large cone, from a huge sequoia-like tree he had seen in California when he was nine. It had fallen from the tree and hit him over the head. Since then he couldn't feel anything but indifference. The cone was the only object he could hate. The only object he detested. These two objects made up the only things that mattered, one of love and one of hate. The third object, lying between the two in the box was a revolver that he had to use, when the cone won it over the pair of glasses.

Next ?
agape, grease, filibuster, sugar-free, blasphemy

Red sandals, ostrich, spiral, nipple ring, electropop

The trees bent under the weight of God’s majestic red sandals. Red filled the world, crushing everything, but leaving the flawless ostriches intact to show future generations that true natural selection favors the most awkward, inelegant, biggest egg laying species. Also the fastest. The day after the giant red step, the grass began to grow again, spiraling upward from the trodden earth, as though in defiance of God, I carefully got to my knees and removed every individual blade, because revolution and revolt makes me nervous, and when I get nervous all the blood rushes to my pectoralis major and my nipple ring begins to throb, a most unpleasant experience. The day after the great grass genocide, the God and the ostriches grew tired of each other’s company and decided to repopulate the earth. Orgasmic bird cries and electropop music from above filled the atmosphere, and I fell shaking to the earth, where I discovered a secret rebellion of dandelions armed with spores. I was injured in the calf making my escape. The day after, I shot God and ended the world, proving that to undo creation is easy, but to combine six seemingly unremarkable words into a series of successive events takes 10 whole minutes.

-D.Stubbs

Jubilation, momentous, spontaneous, crucifixion, porous, sheep

Every spontaneous moment ended up confined in a half-desolate room. We, in momentous jubilation, fingers intertwined and minds in chemical resonance, observed the all-too-familiar green colored walls in their four-cornered sweet embrace, trying desperately to redeem their fading beauty despite the shit yellow rims drawing out of the ceiling due to years of abuse from the cheap smoke of Chinese cigarettes and the bitter aroma of Columbian Coffee. On those walls, I remembered the plastered kitsch pop-French poster art, the photograph of Einstein riding a bike like a 4-year-old, and some Persian poetry randomly scribbled in crimson ink. I could never sleep in that green walled box; even when you slept as quietly as a half-dead sheep. I should have perhaps been comforted by your presence and the way you resembled a cold white cloud or a medicinal cotton ball, but your porous skin always exhumed the dizzying scent of methadone that made my own pores filled with burning sweat. It made me wonder foolishly whether Christ felt his flesh during crucifixion and whether you were really the silent mass sleeping on that empty bed.

-Ynès

Esmé

Musique de fond: Jacques Brel- Amsterdam

Esmé était mal aimée. Elle avait un nez trop gros, des yeux tordus, et une bouche de crapaud. Mais personne ne s’élançait dans l’univers comme Esmé. Doté de ce visage parsemé d’imperfections, elle prenait le ciel entre ses mains rugueuses et galopait la terre comme une jument envoûtée.
Depuis qu’elle avait un an six mois trois jours et vingt-trois heures, elle rêvait d’aller se baigner nue dans le lac Titicaca. Mais, la vie l’étourdissait par des zigzags, et bien qu’elle patientait, elle commençait à sentir son rêve brûler et grandir comme une boule de feu entre ses cuisses de sainte vierge.
Esmé comprenait bien que rien ne lui résistait. Elle avait un cœur de fer, une tête de lama et une foi de Catholique. Elle savait que son destin était à elle et que le courage coulait ses veines depuis cette soirée en sa septième année d’existence, quand son oncle posa sa main répugnante sur son sein gauche qui commençait à peine de germer. C’est alors qu’une colère bouleversante l’empara : elle avait pris la main de cet oncle hideux et lui décapita le pouce de la main droite par ses dents tachées de jeunesse. Elle avait adoré voir l’eau rouge sortir du pécheur et elle s’était rendue compte à ce moment-là qu’elle serait à tout jamais froide aux caresses du soleil, à la chaleur de l’herbe et aux voix andalouses. À tout. À tout jamais. Sauf au lac Titicaca.

La vallée m’a avalée ou Récit de Xiu et Esmé

Chanson de fond : Sigur Ros- Agaetis Byrjun

C’est un monde doré. Une journée paisible au Pérou et le soleil illumine le petit village de Peica à 1.5degré nord-est de la capitale Lima. La lumière tape sur la vallée Cuzca alors qu’une petite camionnette rouge roule sur un de ces sentiers désertés en soulevant pierre et sable sur son passage. Sur un siège poussiéreux dans la dernière rangée de la camionnette rouge, Xiu regarde ses orteils grossiers que son cœur a écrasé en forme de spatule. Devant lui, c’est Ésmé. Il écoute le mouvement de ces longs cheveux noirs qui danse avec le courant d’air qui pénètre les vitres ouvertes. Et à travers des battements de pouls qui risquent de faire éclater ses veines, sa respiration commence à siffler «Si seulement une bouchée de café paradiso noir et trois milligrammes d’une confiture de pissanlit suffisait pour que je puisse me lever et relever chaque jour pour croquer notre délicieuse galette de soleil. Pourtant il y a toujours quelque chose qui me démange, une petite coccinelle inoffensive qui me dérange… malgré la douceur des rayons de lumière, l’odeur enivrante de l’air des bois et le son des oiseaux printaniers. J’ai ma peau qui me gratte, je ne suis qu’un rapace vert à la peau sèche et lasse.»
Esmé …
À suivre…

She has tangled hair, broken shoes and worn out shirts. She carries a bagful of sunshine and handful of seashells. All there is in her mind is the rusty voice of Henri Salvador scratching the grooves of her grey matter.

He has tangled thoughts, a worn out soul and a broken heart. He carries a handful of worms and a bagful of worries. All there is in his mind are a psychotic Russian mother’s chants and murders stroking the inside of his brains.

We are tangled, broken and worn out. We carry bagful of moments and handful of sadness. All of me and all of you are tangled in our minds.
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Tangled hair, dirty, oily face and a smell that could wake up the dead. If you're into bad and clichéd metaphores. Just walked into town after being dropped off by Father John Quincy. He was driving towards the village anyway, and saw me on the side of the road. If I wasn't so young, maybe he wouldn't have bothered. I was dirty but so was he. It didn't seem to bother him none. I bet he had taken a shower that very morning too.

There are some people, you wonder why they take up the oath. And you can tell too, they wash their clothes too much. Their collars so white and thick from the starch.

He hadn't brushed his teeth and his breath smelled of old cabage. He let me sit up front in an old GMC truck that looked like it dated from 1949. As if the muffler didn't make enough smoke, the roads weren't paved in the area and the exhaust mixed with thick dust to create a wall behind the pickup.

I knew what he wanted. Everyone always know what these men want. That doesn't mean anyone'll just sit up front. But one more Father or another, reading from his book from Genesis 20. The Story of Abraham and Sarah. Always reading that book with the same contempt at certain passages...Leviticus 18 was largely ignored, but Genesis 20, remained a marvel in his heart. And he was a shepherd and like all pastoral stories, he led me like he would his sister, down the path of righteousness.

I did what I had to do to get out of town. Laws of man and book can't stop the laws of survival and I needed to get out of that dirty brown town, colours washed away. . . Confessionals always make me eerily scared, and I can no longer enter God's house, so much he has abandoned me.

#1=> Write a short piece of fiction with a first sentence that contains the word TANGLE.

Happy imagination!

C’était lui… je sentais son cœur palpiter dans le creux de sa main. Et moi, comme une petite fille de cinq ans qui s’accroche à son papa avant sa toute première compétition de danse, je m’appuyais sur ce garçon que je voulais tant aimer. On dévalait la rue et on s’enfuyait dans la foule de personne. On courrait à cent à l’heure avec les images du passage qui nous sautaient aux yeux. Hopla! un gros businessman en train de manger un jambon pourri sur la place du Dinant, une vielle femme tordu sur elle-même en train d’étirer sa robe de crinoline mauve qui se coince entre ses jambes, des couples qui s’embrassent comme des fous dans le coins de la rue avec leurs mains enfoncées dans les jeans de l’un de l’autre alors que du coin de mon œil j’apercevais une jolie fille adolescente vêtue de rouge aux seins rebondissants perchés sur une taille fine à craquer…
On reprend notre souffle, je le regarde dans les yeux, je ne suis déjà plus là. Il me parle et je vois sa bouche qui se tort en des mots amorphes, mais je ne les entends pas. Je le vois là, la peau inondée par les rayons de soleil, et ces yeux d’une noirceur qui me coupe le souffle et je me vois fondre en une petite goutte de cire qui faufile sensuellement le long de ses entrailles. Je glisse à travers sa gorge et je tombe inconsciente dans le chaudron acidifiant de son estomac.

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It's a dark dark trainride to the West. God damn, he said as he opened fire in the diner car. Slack-jawed with a machine gun proped against his back, Timothy looked back enthusiastically at his act. It was done. The storm-tropper of a goddam policeman was dead. Right between the temple he got shot with the pistol now cooling off in Tim's pocket.

Tim lit a cigarette. He didn't like it. Too fuckin european. What the fuck happened to some good homegrown. Some good working class herb. Fucking French. The train stoped at Winnipeg... The junction to the West. Ukranians and Poles came aboard. The fuckers were invading the country. And the policeman was no longer there to protect them.

Four years ago they'd started this bullshit with their Russian associations. The police were good then. Shot down the crowd. Now they were acting like citizens. Infiltrating. The French had the good idea, out there in Quebec. Goddam Gospel according to Adrian.

Dark night. Gun pulled out of his pocket and thrown out the window. Bang Bang. Policemen, or whoever, knocking at the door of the compartment. Damn, For Godless sake and all that is culturally sound with this world. he thought. Sliced lemons in his glass of water in the lavatory, he felt like its bitter juices. He kept the door locked. Pulled out the wallet from the policeman's pants and ripped the id card. Took his firearm and shot the corpse in the face before reloading as the door began to crash open.