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Nonfiction

The Stations of the Cry

By Olivier Salon
Translated from French by Chris Clarke
Oulipo member Olivier Salon travels through a gradually dwindling alphabet in this short, experimental piece.

This is the tale of a lengthy journey. A step-by-step journey, one inspired by a misfortune that took place in the court of the Hungarian Prince Esterházy, in November 1772, in the city of Esterháza. A kind of voyage. An esoteric and maiden voyage whose steps I will attempt to recount for you. So what is it? An itinerary. An itinerary of the twenty-six stations. As we approach the starting line, all is possible, all is permitted: is this freedom or is it permissiveness? This departure fills me with enthusiasm and I am rather moved by all of the possibilities, all of the potential. Potential is what you can say when you take into account all that has been said before you by your friends who have since been excused by decease (who have taken leave of their once potent shells), but also by your friends who are still alive or by you yourself. An infinite potential, likely too great. The enormity, the infinite spreads out before us, giving its potential over to me. How easy it seems! I am amazed by the opportunity it offers up, a rare enough occurrence in my universe. Bzzzzzz, turn your gaze, use your ears, localize your eyezies on the housefly who zips, zigzagging, one last lazy cruise past and there goes his last Z.

Too large a universe? I may have spoken too soon. It’s as if some supernatural power heard me the very moment that I announced the all-free all-permitted all-possible. Soon, and from this moment, the universe seems to contract. Just a little bit. Barely. The tiniest bit . . . Oh, they’re going to rationali . . . no, they’re going to tell me it’s not that difficult, and they will be right, but I’m not claiming to be a hero. I close my eyes, inhale the scent of ylang-ylang, and find myself in a yurt near a river, at its delta, one in the shape of a Y rather than a delta, and, impassive, I head back upriver, pursued by a handful of redskins hammering away on their xylophones, as well as by a few joyful ichthyosaurs singing their song of styrene. I move away from the delta, still impassive. And there is the first station. A soul departs, and now its cry is all that can be heard. For the soul bellows, the soul cries out in despair: these are the Stations of the Cry. Hear Haydn’s cry at the court of the Prince, and his symphony. And so from the river vanishes the Y.

Next another bifurcation appears, a crossroads, an intersection in the shape of an X. A cross is a choice, a selection: an axe’s sudden slicing through the air, a choice of direction at this intersection. The cross is not to be borne, just cut out. Cut out the cross along the dotted line. With an X-Acto knife. Apprehensive, even anxious, I look: which direction am I to go? Who will explain the exact, exhausting direction I am to follow? With exhaustive attention I examine the surrounding expanse and set out on the side with open fields, leaving this last X junction behind me. Never again shall we part with kisses, just with hugs. A more restrained example of affection. Adieu to all, adieu to that which is most profound in each of us, an excess of adieux to the nexus of our choice. Adieu to the souls. Adieu to the crosses. The farewell song of our adieux. Exit the cross, our ex-crucifix.

I swing open a door and there I am waist-deep in a western. Some people are in the middle of a poker game in front of me, while some have chosen whist; the whiskies are flowing à gogo, and the washrooms are never vacant. The women, without a doubt, have remained at the wigwam. It seems like I’m in a Marco Ferreri film, that pastiche of good westerns, Don’t Touch the White Woman! And so we leave this whole universe behind. And then forevermore we leave the wagons and Georges Perec’s memories of childhood and we turn the page. It’s true, isn’t it? If I whisper wagon, what does it bring to mind? Me, I think of W.

Marching, marching. So long I have marched, as the soldier told us in a Tale from a Russian composer—his name, though pronounceable, is impossible to put to paper. Taking our leave, the universe seems simpler, not unlike a small village in our provinces, perhaps Volvic, containing the H2O that springs forth (although the heavier of these elements is used in composing neither Evian nor Vittel), perhaps Valvins, provenance of the vino and a peaceful retreat Mallarmé used to savor, or perhaps that municipal hub in Lorraine, homeland of the Vologne and the sinking place of little Grégor (never did he develop into a man). This bucolic universe and its pleasures (and even its dramas) delight me. People find me delighted, people find me delightful. Is there a better reverie? And I greet one and all in the Latin manner: Vale vale as someone enters, ave, ave, as someone leaves, thinking, the entire time that this usage of the dead idiom must at last fade into oblivion!

Marching, marching, so far did I march, as the soldier has told us, and then all of a sudden the skies go dark, for this is almost the point that an essential link is to be lost, one of those indispensable links that permit unambiguous sounds, and bereft of these links, sounds become abstruse. Henceforth, it’ll be crucial to make do cut off from the fifth, albeit the feeblest link, the least common. And so I declare adieu, adieu, don’t shed a tear; it is most important that no tears be shed. Adieu to tears. Doubtless the song is about to be heard, the song of stations that succeed each other, and their particular cries. And I must state this one last time: toodle-oo. Is that loud enough? Toodle-oo! And adieu to adieu!

Marching, endless marching, and, at this moment, farmland presents itself before me. This fetching French farmland, and its golden fields and its adorable criminis and portabellos and its ocher grass, and its dense thickets, and its golden reeds, and its earth after the heat has passed, dark earth, an earth of toasted, tanned tints, the farmland and this gentle, ailment-stricken little animal . . . Let’s make a toast! It is no longer time for tea!

And so on and on did I march, marched and marched along said roads, considering aimless meanderings, farmland roads, rambling lanes of passage, roads of happiness, roads lacking lines from A for B, considering hairpin corners along said roads. See, people ramble along like Monarchs or some similar kind of Papilionidae. Like Papilionidae, marching on (I adore seeing Papilionidae march), marching on, free from looking back, since an odor of long-gone essences loses all sense. Eh! Hence essence is senseless.

On and on, marching, more marching, nearing a cardinal land, a land of commerce, a land of reading, a land of recording in pen and ink, a land of magic, of an effable, performable magic, of a challenging performance, a land of image, a land of film, a land of idea, a land of idea formed of image. An idea molded here from an idiom, for an idiom can engender an idea, an abridged idea, a clear idea, a deep idea. An idea fired off, like a famed cock-a-doodle-doo fired off from a cockerel, like a roar from a free animal: free, free, free! In a homeroom pad / On a big bench and a maple / In a golden flake of ice / Her name I cried, like Pol Élard once marked in ink. Here, being near freedom cried from afar, I face a problem inhaling clean air: rarefied air, meager air, rare air. End of an era, no heir for R.

Each idea half-baked in flame, an idea held in check like a niqab cloaking a face. And a niqab can hide a look, a glance. A niqab made of qiana, concealing a dimpled chin, a long black mane, enfolding a bold confidence. An idea . . . a niqab can conceal a face like an idiom can hide an idea, like an idea can cloak a being.

A keen idea, gleaming, appealing, a model idea, all pomp. A fine, honed edge, a model idea, an idea I can dig, man. Chomp on an idea like a pipe. Leaping pope! Poke a pin in each papillae! Pffff . . .  Leaking, leaking and POP! Hence flooded P.

Hello, hello? O, faded home globe. No, oh no, an O denied. End of a globe? A gagged globe. End of a minim of a globe? A mélange of blood and bone high and lo on a mollified globe. No, oh no. A damaged globe. A failing globe like a balloon de-filled, like a fallen beach ball. A link abandoned me again. Done in, old O, ol’ O done gone.

I imagine I’m nimble, I imagine I’m likeable. Cain liking me made me lack calm. I lack calm? I ebb and begin failing. Feeble. A line lacking an end. A cable, a fine indefinable cilia. A fine linen cilia. Ending an end.

I fade. Like, I add, all mileage did fade. All malice faded. Alike, Alice faded. Alice chilled me: imbecile, idle cad! All did file ahead. Dame Amélie half-mimed. Dame Amélie held me back. Amicable bee-made milk. Famed gem, I beamed. Alice blabbed: “Lame gem, embalm ‘em!”

I hail a beddable, giggle-filled gal. Balladable bee! Ah, able alibi, ah, fabled facile bee babble. Gal hailed a half-baked badge. He fled, a hack, jellified, addled. Badge bailed. Gelded badge, bail liable. I defaced Babel. I called L’Ile à Hélice: a gabled, gilded cache, a khalif cache. A chalice I did deblack: a glad cache, falbala bedecked, cabled lace. Ill, I beheld a hacked Achilleal heel, a fell acidic lack; licked, I beheld a lack. Lack did feeble. Did flag. Hell! Elided, failed, fell.

Ah, Kafka! I faced Kafka, jaded. Kafka, effigied. Kafka faced, khaki-faced, face effaced. Kafka effaced, k?

A cabbage-headed babe, a faded chic! Baggage I daffed. A beige babe I hid. Chaff, chaff. Beige babe, jade. I edified, I defied, I deified beige babe. Ah gee, I . . . babe. A jiff . . . jagged J gagged.

Fie! A begged deed! A chief-chided deed! A chief-decided deed! A fief-chief-decided deed! A fief-high-chief-decided deed! A faded chief ahead. A bad, acidic, effigiac fief-chief-decided deed! Faded chief, a gagged edifice-big-chief. I, faded chief, gagged chief, headached chief. I died.

Face hedged. A chafed edge, a hagged edge. Ah! Eh! Bagged H. Edged H. Hedged H. Beheaded!

Gaff! Gaff! A dead adage! A de-gagged face. Gage! A cage. Aged cage, a baggage cage. Efface a G, gaga gab effaced. Gee!

Cede a bad faded decaf, baff a feeb, efface a deaf F, a facade effaced, face a beaded abba, deface a fee, eff effaced.

Be. Ebb. Add DeeDee. Abbe. Abbe ceded, abbe deceded. DeeDee deceded. Baccae, accede, accede. Acceded, dead! A bad decade. A ceded E, deceded e.

Add a dad, add dada. Abacadaba, A.C. Dada? 

A cab, ABC B.A., CB: baa, baa, baa.

A baba, A=AB-B.

Aaa!!!!!! Aaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Les stations du cri.” First published in Nouvelle Revue Moderne 16 (2006). © Olivier Salon. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2013 by Chris Clarke. All rights reserved.

English French (Original)

This is the tale of a lengthy journey. A step-by-step journey, one inspired by a misfortune that took place in the court of the Hungarian Prince Esterházy, in November 1772, in the city of Esterháza. A kind of voyage. An esoteric and maiden voyage whose steps I will attempt to recount for you. So what is it? An itinerary. An itinerary of the twenty-six stations. As we approach the starting line, all is possible, all is permitted: is this freedom or is it permissiveness? This departure fills me with enthusiasm and I am rather moved by all of the possibilities, all of the potential. Potential is what you can say when you take into account all that has been said before you by your friends who have since been excused by decease (who have taken leave of their once potent shells), but also by your friends who are still alive or by you yourself. An infinite potential, likely too great. The enormity, the infinite spreads out before us, giving its potential over to me. How easy it seems! I am amazed by the opportunity it offers up, a rare enough occurrence in my universe. Bzzzzzz, turn your gaze, use your ears, localize your eyezies on the housefly who zips, zigzagging, one last lazy cruise past and there goes his last Z.

Too large a universe? I may have spoken too soon. It’s as if some supernatural power heard me the very moment that I announced the all-free all-permitted all-possible. Soon, and from this moment, the universe seems to contract. Just a little bit. Barely. The tiniest bit . . . Oh, they’re going to rationali . . . no, they’re going to tell me it’s not that difficult, and they will be right, but I’m not claiming to be a hero. I close my eyes, inhale the scent of ylang-ylang, and find myself in a yurt near a river, at its delta, one in the shape of a Y rather than a delta, and, impassive, I head back upriver, pursued by a handful of redskins hammering away on their xylophones, as well as by a few joyful ichthyosaurs singing their song of styrene. I move away from the delta, still impassive. And there is the first station. A soul departs, and now its cry is all that can be heard. For the soul bellows, the soul cries out in despair: these are the Stations of the Cry. Hear Haydn’s cry at the court of the Prince, and his symphony. And so from the river vanishes the Y.

Next another bifurcation appears, a crossroads, an intersection in the shape of an X. A cross is a choice, a selection: an axe’s sudden slicing through the air, a choice of direction at this intersection. The cross is not to be borne, just cut out. Cut out the cross along the dotted line. With an X-Acto knife. Apprehensive, even anxious, I look: which direction am I to go? Who will explain the exact, exhausting direction I am to follow? With exhaustive attention I examine the surrounding expanse and set out on the side with open fields, leaving this last X junction behind me. Never again shall we part with kisses, just with hugs. A more restrained example of affection. Adieu to all, adieu to that which is most profound in each of us, an excess of adieux to the nexus of our choice. Adieu to the souls. Adieu to the crosses. The farewell song of our adieux. Exit the cross, our ex-crucifix.

I swing open a door and there I am waist-deep in a western. Some people are in the middle of a poker game in front of me, while some have chosen whist; the whiskies are flowing à gogo, and the washrooms are never vacant. The women, without a doubt, have remained at the wigwam. It seems like I’m in a Marco Ferreri film, that pastiche of good westerns, Don’t Touch the White Woman! And so we leave this whole universe behind. And then forevermore we leave the wagons and Georges Perec’s memories of childhood and we turn the page. It’s true, isn’t it? If I whisper wagon, what does it bring to mind? Me, I think of W.

Marching, marching. So long I have marched, as the soldier told us in a Tale from a Russian composer—his name, though pronounceable, is impossible to put to paper. Taking our leave, the universe seems simpler, not unlike a small village in our provinces, perhaps Volvic, containing the H2O that springs forth (although the heavier of these elements is used in composing neither Evian nor Vittel), perhaps Valvins, provenance of the vino and a peaceful retreat Mallarmé used to savor, or perhaps that municipal hub in Lorraine, homeland of the Vologne and the sinking place of little Grégor (never did he develop into a man). This bucolic universe and its pleasures (and even its dramas) delight me. People find me delighted, people find me delightful. Is there a better reverie? And I greet one and all in the Latin manner: Vale vale as someone enters, ave, ave, as someone leaves, thinking, the entire time that this usage of the dead idiom must at last fade into oblivion!

Marching, marching, so far did I march, as the soldier has told us, and then all of a sudden the skies go dark, for this is almost the point that an essential link is to be lost, one of those indispensable links that permit unambiguous sounds, and bereft of these links, sounds become abstruse. Henceforth, it’ll be crucial to make do cut off from the fifth, albeit the feeblest link, the least common. And so I declare adieu, adieu, don’t shed a tear; it is most important that no tears be shed. Adieu to tears. Doubtless the song is about to be heard, the song of stations that succeed each other, and their particular cries. And I must state this one last time: toodle-oo. Is that loud enough? Toodle-oo! And adieu to adieu!

Marching, endless marching, and, at this moment, farmland presents itself before me. This fetching French farmland, and its golden fields and its adorable criminis and portabellos and its ocher grass, and its dense thickets, and its golden reeds, and its earth after the heat has passed, dark earth, an earth of toasted, tanned tints, the farmland and this gentle, ailment-stricken little animal . . . Let’s make a toast! It is no longer time for tea!

And so on and on did I march, marched and marched along said roads, considering aimless meanderings, farmland roads, rambling lanes of passage, roads of happiness, roads lacking lines from A for B, considering hairpin corners along said roads. See, people ramble along like Monarchs or some similar kind of Papilionidae. Like Papilionidae, marching on (I adore seeing Papilionidae march), marching on, free from looking back, since an odor of long-gone essences loses all sense. Eh! Hence essence is senseless.

On and on, marching, more marching, nearing a cardinal land, a land of commerce, a land of reading, a land of recording in pen and ink, a land of magic, of an effable, performable magic, of a challenging performance, a land of image, a land of film, a land of idea, a land of idea formed of image. An idea molded here from an idiom, for an idiom can engender an idea, an abridged idea, a clear idea, a deep idea. An idea fired off, like a famed cock-a-doodle-doo fired off from a cockerel, like a roar from a free animal: free, free, free! In a homeroom pad / On a big bench and a maple / In a golden flake of ice / Her name I cried, like Pol Élard once marked in ink. Here, being near freedom cried from afar, I face a problem inhaling clean air: rarefied air, meager air, rare air. End of an era, no heir for R.

Each idea half-baked in flame, an idea held in check like a niqab cloaking a face. And a niqab can hide a look, a glance. A niqab made of qiana, concealing a dimpled chin, a long black mane, enfolding a bold confidence. An idea . . . a niqab can conceal a face like an idiom can hide an idea, like an idea can cloak a being.

A keen idea, gleaming, appealing, a model idea, all pomp. A fine, honed edge, a model idea, an idea I can dig, man. Chomp on an idea like a pipe. Leaping pope! Poke a pin in each papillae! Pffff . . .  Leaking, leaking and POP! Hence flooded P.

Hello, hello? O, faded home globe. No, oh no, an O denied. End of a globe? A gagged globe. End of a minim of a globe? A mélange of blood and bone high and lo on a mollified globe. No, oh no. A damaged globe. A failing globe like a balloon de-filled, like a fallen beach ball. A link abandoned me again. Done in, old O, ol’ O done gone.

I imagine I’m nimble, I imagine I’m likeable. Cain liking me made me lack calm. I lack calm? I ebb and begin failing. Feeble. A line lacking an end. A cable, a fine indefinable cilia. A fine linen cilia. Ending an end.

I fade. Like, I add, all mileage did fade. All malice faded. Alike, Alice faded. Alice chilled me: imbecile, idle cad! All did file ahead. Dame Amélie half-mimed. Dame Amélie held me back. Amicable bee-made milk. Famed gem, I beamed. Alice blabbed: “Lame gem, embalm ‘em!”

I hail a beddable, giggle-filled gal. Balladable bee! Ah, able alibi, ah, fabled facile bee babble. Gal hailed a half-baked badge. He fled, a hack, jellified, addled. Badge bailed. Gelded badge, bail liable. I defaced Babel. I called L’Ile à Hélice: a gabled, gilded cache, a khalif cache. A chalice I did deblack: a glad cache, falbala bedecked, cabled lace. Ill, I beheld a hacked Achilleal heel, a fell acidic lack; licked, I beheld a lack. Lack did feeble. Did flag. Hell! Elided, failed, fell.

Ah, Kafka! I faced Kafka, jaded. Kafka, effigied. Kafka faced, khaki-faced, face effaced. Kafka effaced, k?

A cabbage-headed babe, a faded chic! Baggage I daffed. A beige babe I hid. Chaff, chaff. Beige babe, jade. I edified, I defied, I deified beige babe. Ah gee, I . . . babe. A jiff . . . jagged J gagged.

Fie! A begged deed! A chief-chided deed! A chief-decided deed! A fief-chief-decided deed! A fief-high-chief-decided deed! A faded chief ahead. A bad, acidic, effigiac fief-chief-decided deed! Faded chief, a gagged edifice-big-chief. I, faded chief, gagged chief, headached chief. I died.

Face hedged. A chafed edge, a hagged edge. Ah! Eh! Bagged H. Edged H. Hedged H. Beheaded!

Gaff! Gaff! A dead adage! A de-gagged face. Gage! A cage. Aged cage, a baggage cage. Efface a G, gaga gab effaced. Gee!

Cede a bad faded decaf, baff a feeb, efface a deaf F, a facade effaced, face a beaded abba, deface a fee, eff effaced.

Be. Ebb. Add DeeDee. Abbe. Abbe ceded, abbe deceded. DeeDee deceded. Baccae, accede, accede. Acceded, dead! A bad decade. A ceded E, deceded e.

Add a dad, add dada. Abacadaba, A.C. Dada? 

A cab, ABC B.A., CB: baa, baa, baa.

A baba, A=AB-B.

Aaa!!!!!! Aaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Les stations du cri

Voici l’histoire d’un long cheminement. Un cheminement inspiré par cette mésaventure à la cour du Prince hongrois Estherazy, en novembre 1772, dans la ville d’Estheraza. Une sorte de voyage. Un voyage initiatique et ésotérique dont je vais tâcher de vous conter les étapes. De quoi s’agit-il donc ? D’un parcours. D’un parcours aux vingt-six stations. À l’approche du départ, tout est possible, tout est permis : est-ce la liberté ou la permissivité ?  Ce départ me remplit d’allégresse et je suis assez ému de tous ces possibles, de tous ces potentiels. Le potentiel est ce que vous pouvez dire en tenant compte de ce qui a été dit avant vous par vos amis excusés pour cause de décès (pote en ciel) mais également par vos amis vivants ou par vous-même. Un potentiel infini, sans doute trop large. L’immensité, l’infini devant nous s’étale, qui me livre son potentiel. Comme cela semble facile ! Je m’étonne de la facilité ainsi offerte, assez inhabituelle de mon univers. Bzzzzzz, regardez, entendez, zieutez cette mouche qui volette en zigzaguant, encore un virage et voilà son dernier Z.

Un univers trop large ? Que n’avais-je dit ! Comme si une puissance occulte venait de m’entendre à peine avais-je annoncé le tout-libre tout-permis tout-possible. Bientôt, et dès maintenant, l’univers semble se rétrécir. Un tout petit peu. À peine. Si peu… Oh, vous me dire… non, on va me dire que ce n’est pas difficile, et on aura raison, mais je ne prétends faire dans l’exploit. Je ferme les yeux, respire ce parfum d’ylang-ylang et me retrouve dans une yourte près d’un fleuve, à son delta, en forme de Y plutôt que de delta, et impassible, je remonte le fleuve, poursuivi par quelques peaux-rouges qui martèlent leurs xylophones et par quelques joyeux ichtyosaures qui chantent comme des styrènes.  Je m’éloigne toujours impassible du delta. Et voilà la première station. Une âme disparaît, et l’on entend désormais le cri de cette âme. Car l’âme brame, l’âme crie son désespoir : ce sont les Stations du Cri. Entendons le cri de Haydn à la cour du Prince, et sa symphonie. Ainsi du fleuve disparaît l’Y.

Alors apparaît une autre bifurcation, une croix. Une croix, c’est un choix : trancher l’air à la hache, et faire son choix dans cette croix. La croix n’est pas à porter, à découper seulement. Découpons la croix suivant les pointillés. Aux ciseaux. Soucieux et même anxieux, je regarde : par où aller ? Qui m’indiquera mon laborieux itinéraire ? J’examine avec attention l’alentour et pars sur le côté en plein champ, laissant derrière moi ce dernier carrefour en X. On ne dira plus désormais les adieux, mais seulement l’adieu. Comme cela est singulier !  Adieu à tous, adieu à ce qui est le plus profond en chacun de nous, adieux aux lieux de notre choix. Adieu aux âmes. Adieu aux croix. Adieu aux adieux. Exit la croix.

Je pousse une porte et me retrouve en plein western, les gens jouent au poker devant moi, certains au whist, les whiskies coulent à gogo et les WC ne désemplissent pas. Les femmes, visiblement, sont restées au wigwam. On se croirait dans un film de Marco Ferreri pastichant les bons westerns. Alors on laisse là tout cet univers, ces femmes blanches. Et puis on laisse à jamais les wagons et le souvenir d’enfance de Georges Perec et l’on tourne la page. C’est vrai, n’est-ce pas ? Si je dis wagon, à quoi pense-t-on ? Pour ma part, je pense à W.

On a marché, marché. Beaucoup marché, comme dit le soldat d’un compositeur russe dont le nom, bien que prononçable, est impossible à écrire. En ressortant l’univers paraît plus simple, ressemble à un petit village de nos contrées, peut-être Volvic où coule l’O (alors que l’O ne coule ni à Évian ni à Vittel), ou bien encore Valvins où coule le vin et où Mallarmé coule de paisibles jours, ou bien encore cette ville de Lorraine où coule la Vologne et où coule le petit Grégor qui ne fut jamais bien grand ? Cet univers champêtre avec ses joies (et même avec ses drames) me ravit. On me voit ravi, on me trouve ravi. Que rêver de plus ? Et je salue tout un chacun de façon latine : Vale vale à celui qui entre, ave, ave, à celui qui sort, tout en songeant soudain que cet a pourrait être maintenant privatif !

On a marché, marché, beaucoup marché, comme dit le soldat, et puis soudain, le ciel s’assombrit, car on est sur le point de perdre un maillon essentiel, ces indispensables maillons qui permettent les sons clairs et sans lesquels les sons seraient abscons. Désormais, il faudra faire sans le cinquième maillon, lequel n’est pas le plus faible, c’est-à-dire le plus rare. Alors je dis adieu, adieu, ne pleurons pas, surtout ne pleurons pas. Adieu à la larme. Sans doute maintenant entendra-t-on le chant des stations qui se succèdent et leurs cris respectifs. Et je le dis une dernière fois : turlututu, l’entend-on suffisamment ?  Turlututu ! Et adieu à adieu !

On a marché, sans cesse marché et maintenant, la campagne s’offre à mon regard. Cette jolie campagne française, et ses églises et ses clochers, et ses champs dorés et ses champignons mignons, et son herbe ocre, et ses bois épais, et ses joncs d’or, et sa terre de fin d’été, terre sombre, terre de reflets marron, la campagne et ses mares et ses canards, la campagne et ce gentil petit animal pris maintenant en grippe… C’est le moment de dire enfin : santé !

Alors on a marché, on a marché dans les chemins, on pense à ces méandres, à ces chemins  de campagne, à ces chemins d’errance, à ces chemins de plaisir, ces chemins sans ligne de A à B, on pense à ces épingles dans les chemins. Bref, on chemine comme des papillons. Comme les papillons, on marche (j’adore regarder les papillons marcher) on marche sans regarder en arrière car la fragrance des essences passées perd de son sens. Eh ! Essence sans sens.

On a marché, marché, encore marché, on approche de ce monde principal, monde d’échange, monde de lire, monde d’écrire, monde de la magie, de la magie de ce dicible, de ce difficile dicible, monde de l’image, monde de film, monde de l’idée, monde de l’idée par l’image. L’idée régie par l’image. L’idée régie ici même par le langage, car le langage engendre l’idée, l’idée rapide, l’idée éclair, l’idée profonde. L’idée lancée, comme le coq lance le célèbre cocorico, comme l’animal libre lance le cri : libre, libre, libre ! En mon cahier d’écolier / En mon grand banc en mon arbre / En le grain d’or en la neige / Je crie ce nom, <comme  a imprimé Pol Élard. Là malgré ce libre crié, difficile de prendre l’air : air raréfié, air maigre, air rare. Fin de l’air. Fin de l’ère de l’air.

On a manié l’idée, l’idée de ce coq. Là, ce coq coi. On place le coq en plein champ, champ de blé, on a l’idée de ce champ de coq. L’idée… le coq piaille comme la limande, comme l’animal de l’océan.

L’idée déliée, polie, jolie, l’idée défile. Fine, effilée, l’idée défile, on a le fil de l’idée. On mâche l’idée comme la pipe. Nom de la pipe ! Place à la papille ! Pfffff… Échappe le P.

Allo, allo ? Le monde fane. Non, non, d’O nenni. La fin de ce monde ?  de ce monde bâillonné.  La fin de ce monde infime ? Méli-mélo de la moelle de ce monde amolli. Non, non. Ce monde a mal. Le monde engoncé comme ballon dégonflé, comme balle molle. Le maillon lâche. Gomme l’O, dégomme l’O.

Je m’imagine malin, je m’imagine aimable. Je me méfie de câlin de Caïn. Je me méfie ? Je fane. Minable.  Ligne infinie. Filin, fin fil infini. Fin fil de lin. Fin de fin.

Je bâille. Même l’émail bâille. La malice bâille. Même Alice bâille. Elle me glace : imbécile, limace ! La gamme défile. Dame Amélie mime à demi. Dame Amélie me lie. Miel amical. J’aime, j’aime, j’aime. Alice mâche : « Dégage j’M ! »

Je hèle la belle fille décalée.  Belle abeille ! Ah, l’habile alibi, babil de la belle abeille facile. Elle hèle le flic débile. Il file, difficile, lâche. Le flic gicle. Ça gicle facile, ici, le flic. J’affale le ciel. Je hèle l’Île à hélice : délice, délice de calife. Je lèche le calice : gai délice habillé de falbala, de falbala de fil, de ficelle. Là, je décèle la faille, la faille acide ; accablé, je décèle la faille. Elle faible. Diable ! Elle a failli.

Ah, Kafka ! Face à face figé. Effigie de Kafka. Face à Kafka, face kaki, face effacée. Kafka effacé.

Fade biche, biche affadie ! Je dégage ce bagage.  Biche beige, je bâche. Gabegie, gabegie. Biche beige, jade. Je chiade, je défie, je biche beige biche. Ci J… biche. Ci J… J biffé.

Fi ! Défi ! Défi de chef ! Défi de chef décidé ! Défi de fief de chef décidé ! Défi de fief de fieffé chef décidé ! Chef affadi, ici. Effigie acide de défi de fief de chef décidé !  Chef affadi, caïd biffé. Chef affadi, chef biffé, chef figé.

Face cachée. Hache fâchée, hache agacée. Ah ! Eh ! H gâché. H haché. H caché. Dèche !

Gaffe ! Gaffe ! Adage, dégage ! Dégage ce gag. Gage ! Cage. Cage à badge, cage à bagage. Efface ce ga, ga effacé.

Efface ce café fade, baffe ce fada, efface ce fa, façade effacée, face-à-face fée, efface ça, fée effacée.

Ce. Ça. Ce Dédé. Abbé. Abbé cédé, abbé décédé. Dédé décédé. Aède, accède, accède. Accède à ça. Décade baba. E cède, e décède.

À dad, à dada. Abacadaba, d’ac Dada ? 

Cab, bac ABC, ça, ça, ça.

Baba, B.A.-BA.

Aaa !!!!!! Âââââââââ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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