My friend

I'm sitting at a table in this restaurant, looking sheepishly at the solid wood on which lies my glass. My wooden chair hurts me with discomfort. I am totally alone. The bartender disappeared into the back room a few dozen minutes ago. As if the apocalypse had occurred outside, making me the only survivor on Earth, I contemplate the greenish walls of the restaurant.

To be fair, this place doesn't really correspond to a restaurant, given the fact that its menu boils down to a choice of three sandwiches. The people I see here rarely come for food. For a long time now, the only customers of this miserable bistro are zombies. The vital, essential, tyrannical need to get their fix lifts them from their filthy blankets and brings them up to here, where they can refuel with ethanol.

It seems that tonight I'm the only one to have had the courage to move. On the other hand, the weather isn't perfect for it: my boots are covered with mud and my coat is soaked. It won't even be dry when I'll leave in a few hours. Outside, I hear the sky roar, sending flashes of light through the building’s windows. The sound of rain drops crashing on the roof tiles alienates me.

Wind squalls collide violently against the walls. Here I am, naked in the dark, paralyzed in frigid air, blinded by the mist that invades the place. Walking through the unknown landscape in which I find myself, I begin to distinguish certain details. Under the thick and asphyxiating fog, the graves appear one after the other. The smell of death finally reaches my nostrils. My hair bristles.

The cold does not bother me anymore, now. It's as if the company of these people from the other world was warming me up. The humidity of air creates a soft cocoon whose comfort makes me forget the absence of clothes on my body. No longer able to resist the call of ancients, I crawl into a pit, closing its slab carefully. Here, even the starlight cannot burn my eyes. Like a child in need of comforting, I embrace the coffin on which I lie, nourishing myself with the reassuring presence of the deceased person which lies in it. 

A door slam finally pulls me out of my dream. Martin, the owner, just came back. He yells at me but I can't hear anything. His mouth, although moving frantically, emits no mechanical wave that could be translated into sound by my eardrums. I go to the bar and ask for another bottle of rum. Martin suddenly stops shouting, looking extremely surprised. He gives me what I asked him.

I am standing in front of the mirror, cutting myself. I’m having fun with my body, using a knife I took from the scabbard in which it was, in the kitchen. Lost in the reflective glass, I let the stainless steel enter the fat of my belly. My reflection becomes gradually imperceptible, to the rhythm of the accumulation of blood splashes on the glass and the fog produced by my breathing, jerkier and more intense.

Once again, the bitterness of reality takes over, refusing to let me imagine my paradise. Yet I am fully responsible for this unwanted awakening. What was to happen, happened. Flowing abundantly from my mouth and nostrils, the vomit spreads over the entire table. Martin, who was probably dreaming too, regains consciousness and enters into an unspeakable fury. That's it, I'm going to be entitled to the blows of stick to drive me out of the sad tavern.

My body is bathed in mud. My delusions are immense. The disappointment is unbearable. For the umpteenth time, my friend let me down. He just gave me time to dream, and to hope that this dream was real, that is to say that I don't exist. Then, he pressed my stomach, ending my dreams and ending this evening that was going so well. I remember our first encounter.

At that time, I wasn't already dreaming of cemetaries and self-mutilation yet. It was during the summer of my thirteen years. The first time, he was hiding in a green bottle. The way he was burning on my tongue and in my throat immediately attracted me. The first love stories, the curiosity of the surrounding world, the meanders of adolescence; everything was happening to the rhythm of bottles, carafes and shot glasses that I was filling with alcohol. My taste became more mature. Feeling like the prince of the manure pile on which I lived, I was relishing cheap liquor, found where I had the courage to go, annoying my companions with nonsensical comments that were supposed to make me seem refined. 

My existence became more complicated once I entered the terrifying universe of adulthood. My daily life was now unstable, like that of a prisoner on the run, trying to escape by all means to his responsibilities, and the life of a normal person. Needing neither empathy nor the help of passersby who looked at me with disgust, I dug my little tunnel of life, before being trapped under the ocean.

Since then, I'm like a rat in the open country. My friend is still here, by my side, in old bottles with seemingly prestigious names. He controls me, tells me what to do, corrupts me, deforms me. Time marches on, betrayals follow each other, but it's too late. I am no longer the owner of myself. I live through him.

(2017)