There was a time…
There was a time. I don't remember it anymore.
I am dead.
Now, in this world—so similar to ours, and yet—there are only bubbles. They murmur, endlessly, their own stories. Their lived moments. The voices inside the mind. There is nothing else.
I can't even feel my body anymore. I've destroyed it so many times. Burned it. Torn it apart. It makes no difference.
You cannot kill death.
For some time now, I've felt watched. From the very beginning, actually.
And then, that day, everything shifted.
A figure approached. Slender. A tuft of gold at the top of her head.
"I won't stay," she said. "You've been here a long time. You should have found some kind of peace. Acceptance. Something to let you leave."
She sighed. Her irritation was obvious.
"It bores me to watch over little things like you."
She walked through this world—the world of men—for a single stray.
She bent over my clumps of dried mud, flipped through my scattered books. They don't rot here. Nothing changes.
A disdainful "Hm?"—then she left. With each step, her body grew more transparent, until she vanished completely.
I remember.
Not long after I arrived, there were whispers. Different from the bubbles. Rougher. More continuous. Like honey sliding between rocks.
"Someone will come to see you, one day."
How long have I been here? Centuries? Hours? Millennia?
I've walked every continent. Read every book.
Days and nights follow one another, identical. I don't understand what is expected of me.
Alone.
They say solitude develops the self. No. It dissolves it.
Because even in solitude, there are others. The mere idea of them.
But her... she reminds me of what a human being was. Life. Sensation.
She's no longer here.
So I rediscover the cold.
I move toward a bubble, warm. It's the mother's.
I linger there. I want to sleep, to drift, to escape. Impossible. I want to drink. Impossible.
Nothing to be done. How do you act when there is only nothingness?
The bubble complains about her two little daughters. Its color is still vivid: the woman is alive, somewhere.
I imagine the scene.
And yet, I no longer know what a human being is.
I see only her. That blonde girl.
She is everywhere. She haunts me. Infects every shattered memory.
Days have passed.
In every book, a word would bring her back.
Every life I imagined—it was her.
A dolphin in existence: smooth, fast, untouchable.
But there was nothing. No future. A stranded dolphin.
So I rebuilt her.
As a statue.
Like a song stuck in your head—seeing her would give me rest.
Above all, losing her was impossible. Not her. Not yet.
I was walking through Europe. Maps were scattered everywhere. It must have been Austria. What did it matter?
Always circling the statue, like a bird. Every city block became just another stop.
One morning, she came back.
"Still not," she said. "Too bad for you."
She examined my books, my wounds that closed as soon as they opened.
I was a fool, without knowing why.
She moved toward the outskirts. She saw the statue.
For the first time, I spoke. She listened.
My voice surprised both of us.
"I'm sorry. It's just... I could only think of you. I don't know who you are. What you are. Whether you're above me, below me—"
It didn't make sense anymore.
"I couldn't think of anything else."
She looked at me. Astonished. Breathless. Speechless.
Then she sat down on a block of marble, taken from a warehouse on Two Wolves Street.
She studied the statue for a long time. Measured it, rather.
And then she left, walking toward the horizon.
The world sank back into its usual silence.
Afterward, the absurdity of it all was complete.
In eternity, I could think of myself. Rejected.
And yet, in front of her, I thought only of that existence.
I searched for my words. Anything. Anything to make her stop staring at me, to make her stop those back-and-forth glances between the statue and me.
It was complete stupidity.
I was that stupidity.
Eternity must have given me back what I truly was: unsteady.
So I said:
— Sorry, madam.
Her identity was unknown to me. Her true identity was unknown to me.
That's why her eyes were blue, I suppose. I imagined. I don't know.
As I spoke, I met her gaze.
Her eyes.
Deep temples. Those of the azuli rabbit.
They yielded to me.
I held her gaze, then looked away.
Once again, I had failed.
Suddenly, she let out, like a young girl:
— Why?
I collapsed. In any case, wounds don't exist here. Or not for long.
Do you understand, madam?
It's not that you are an addition to my life. Nor an encounter. Nor a watcher.
Even if you wish me harm, you have become my life.
It's strange. I've never acted like this.
Truth be told, I'm trying to reassure you.
— Perhaps it isn't you, in the end. But the fact that there is someone.
My voice trembled.
— You know, before all this, I had never... I had never seen this. Never felt this.
She stood up.
We talked.
At first reluctant, we came to know each other. She was there to watch me. A routine.
— I had been ordered to... I had been instructed to watch those who do not accept their humanity. If that even means anything.
For me, no word meant anything anymore.
I had to move to the next stage.
But it had been... I didn't keep the number.
— Are you Death?
— No. A mere attendant. A servant, at most.
She seemed intrigued. Why that question?
And yet, I wondered whether she thought that...
That it was possible I was dead.
That it was possible I had existed.
— So you are Death's attendant.
— If you like. Just a cog, if you prefer.
Truth be told, she shouldn't say more.
— And if you changed roles, what would happen to you?
Always thinking of oneself first, of others after.
I added:
— You are in this world, madam. Is it possible for a living person to be part of it?
She looked at her split knees.
— No. It's simply that... the rare ones like me, we never live. We never die. We are ghosts.
One day, we make the mistake. Like this one. And we disappear.
— And in dying, would you come to this desolate world?
She moved me. I had judged her. Out of selfishness.
— We will leave together, madam. If that suits you.
I took on her certainty, because I could see she wanted it.
— When I said disappear, I meant it literally. We do not die.
Otherwise—no, that's absurd. That doesn't happen.
Why stay in this void, anyway, sir?
No one had ever spoken to her.
She was only meant to see others. To listen.
— How could I be expected to act according to a mode I cannot know? That of Humans I kept at a distance.
Truth be told, that's secondary, madam.
Perhaps it was too presumptuous...
I stepped forward, sensing her scent—a concentrate of spring.
— But I think I can help life.
Yes, it's narcissistic, madam.
— You will live. Your heart will be content to beat with it. The world would shine.
Whatever happens: you will know the scent of roses. You will hear birds sing. You will see a light other than that of this star or these bubbles.
It was in her chest.
That surprised me.
In this world, a wound, a pain—apart from those of the mind—does not exist.
And yet, she had one.
She muttered, her words broken by silences:
— My heart... or what you call that. What I was given. What feeds this body...
A pause.
— I feel as though something is eating it away.
I wanted to conclude, like a thread.
A golden thread, like her hair.
— Is that it, madam, what causes you such pain? Does your organ seem encircled by all the evils of the Universe?
— Yes.
And at that, I felt it.
For the first time, I did too.
We talked. We told each other our lives.
It's unfortunate.
She only ever spoke of herself through others.
That young shoot had been stillborn and spoke only of magnificent oaks.
I think it comforted us.
What a pure ingrate I was.
She spent her life moving from one vision to another. From one frightened face to the next. Nothing else.
So we talked.
We laughed.
It lasted... I don't know. A few days, perhaps.
I saw the moon pass several times.
We couldn't count time. The temperature was always the same.
And my eyes were fixed only on her.
It was nothing more than two souls talking.
After silences spent thinking about the future—something she didn't even understand—she said:
— It's impossible to leave, you know.
— Soon, they'll erase me. They'll kill me. And we'll be far from each other.
— I will think of you through another statue. And you, you will think of me through this one.
It would only be a profane act.
Not an idol. Love is nothing but an idol of you, madam. It insults you.
Then, more quietly, she muttered:
— With all those words you've said to me... I know you will reach whatever comes after.
— What is there after?
— Whatever there is...
A pause.
— If I am promised mountains of gold, madam, I will refuse them. If I am promised eternal happiness...
Her voice broke.
— You would have to be there.
She was resigned. Tired.
Her eyes hung low. Hung low.
And then:
— I might as well tell you now. I no longer belong to them.
A breath.
— When one is dead, one must learn to accept one's humanity. Even for me, after so many passages...
Her fingers tightened.
— It's a vague concept. Perhaps because I have never been human.
She looked into the distance, toward the bubbles.
— And so it is. You will join God. All the spirits of men. The accumulation of all those bubbles you see...
A wide gesture.
— The most enlightened. Those still living. Those that fade. The oldest ones.
It was confirmed.
Her voice grew lower.
— All of that forms only one. All spirits inform...
A final glance.
— What you call God.
— Can they believe that blood, speech, or even mortality would make me a Man?
She became attentive again.
At that very moment, I felt something like a corridor of warm air pulling me in.
A blinding light hid her gentle face.
Smoke was rising from her.
— It's time, she said, for both of us.
More than vapor, they were sobs coming out of her.
— Never! I shouted so loudly that I finally felt my body again.
Against the pull, I moved forward.
On the ground, the stonecutter's tool I had used.
I drove it through her before she could disappear.
Everything stopped.
— What would I go do in Paradise? She is my world!
My sight returned. She was there.
Her wound closed—her lips did not.
No one understood.
She remained.
The murmurs of the bubbles grew louder.
With her slender fingers, the lady pointed above my shoulder.
Me.
A bubble had my shape.
— You're going back, that ersatz scoffed.
— Who are you?
— You.
I collapsed.
No logic.
— This makes no fucking sense!
I tore at my hair, my skin. Everything sealed itself instantly.
A draft pulled again, cold this time.
— Back to the living, idiot. Off you go.
— And her?
— She's dead. And you don't leave this world, even if it's idiosyncratic. Go on, get out.
Then every wound I inflicted came back a hundredfold.
Until I blacked out.
Abnormal.
When I opened my eyes again:
— Where am I? This shack... no!
The noose was around my neck, like a convict's weight.
With my nails, I clawed at my skin. Blood.
Back.
A dream?
No. No, no, no.
I bolted for the kitchen. Fell. Got back up.
One sharp stroke with a knife—everything went black again.
The same house.
No, not again!
The same thing, then. A break.
The knife shattered.
Outside, I ran.
— Where are you? Of course—the town center.
They were there. The bubbles.
I heard a voice. A man. Calling me.
It didn't matter.
I rushed downhill, hurling myself toward the place where I had been torn from my idyll.
The voice grew louder.
I never turned back.
Across hundreds of kilometers.
I had to reach Austria.
If this world is idiosyncratic and she remains in mine, then she must still be there.
Everything. Every stone—I knew it.
— Get out of there! I thought I heard.
After thousands of moons in the sky, I was still missing my star.
I reached the village.
It was surrounded by statues.
— There, I said. A puddle.
Yes. Yes.
They were of me.
On my shoulder, a weight. Me.
— Get off, I said. You are nothing.
At the bend of Sainte-Marie alley, I saw plains of gold—her hair.
She was reading.
— Madam! I shouted, overjoyed.
She froze, stunned, then threw her book aside and stepped forward.
— It's you! she cried back.
Before we could embrace, I felt a chill at the back of my neck.
Then unbearable pain.
Total darkness.
The shack. Again.
Again, the same.
The answers would be the same.
Death, God—whatever—none of it will ever stop me from seeing her blue eyes again.
Two. Three. Four. Countless.
Always the same.
Often, I never even managed to leave the country before returning to that house.
Once, my fingers barely brushed hers.
Encouraging me.
It became too slow, running to the kitchen.
— The chair!
With one blow, it broke.
A leg became a true spear.
And I ended it.
In the world of the dead, my bubble was waiting:
— One thousand three hundred and seventeen, pff.
It grabbed me. Crushed my head like volcanic rock.
The thing is, every time we have to focus on you. You block everything.
So she became human. And you—you go back.
May that make you change, you bastard.
On the ground, still trapped, I slid.
Nothing.
My head felt disjointed. I saw myself in its eyes.
— If this is just a trick to kill her, to separate us...
I would destroy everything.
No soul will live anymore. Those behind all this will no longer feed on Man.
I saw nothing.
Not a trace of her reaction.
Because very quickly, I blacked out.
