Franketienne - Ready to Burst

Without any specific objective, he wanders. Covered in sweat. Feeling in his bones the forceps of anxiety. Fever in his gut. Suddenly, his hairs stand on end. Who could be calling to Raynand in this humid night? His nerves, his senses warn him. What chattering birds scream in the night? What evil beasts flap their featherless wings in the corners of the invertebrate town?

Who is calling to Raynand in the tentacled darkness? Jungle of invisible arms. Sharp edges of flattened voices. Viscosity of hairy hands. Forest of vines and glutinous intestines. Piles of ripped-out fingernails. Emaciated faces. His nerves, his senses on high alert.

The call persists in the suffocating heat of the night. Overheating of his intestines. Bursting of his glands. The sky covers the town with a thick, mysterious form. Someone still calls out to Raynand. Could it be a prostitute in the darkness? No … more like the sound of metal-tipped shoes. Frightened, Raynand turns around. He looks around. Turns in circles around himself. Can’t make anything out. Can’t see anything anymore. He walks a little faster. Who would want to interrupt his peaceful stroll? Someone follows more and more closely on his heels. He crosses Alexandre Pétion Place, just in front of the cathedral. Then, unable to hold back any longer, he takes off as fast as he can toward Bonne-Foi Street. He charges toward Jean-Jacques Dessalines Boulevard, where he hopes to come across some insomniac night owls.

Should he scream? Call for help? His mouth full of saliva. His tongue heavy … The breath and the spittle of his pursuers hot on his neck. Their foul breath, like burning vapor, smolders in his ears, dries out his skin. Smell of sulfur. Acidic little bites. Their forked claws are already tearing at his back.

If only he can reach Saint Joseph’s Gate in time. There’ll be people there. Help. Oh swift feet of my turbulent childhood! Have I ever eaten anything without giving you the biggest share? Have I ever drunk anything without offering you the most delicious portion? Nimble feet, languishing in the sweet, slow music of yesteryear, run faster! If anything happens to me, I shall blame you … My mother will be so sorry … If I die … And my beloved Solange? To never see her again?

It’s as if I’ve lost a piece of myself … Oh swift feet of my adolescence! Don’t even stop to catch your breath! Sports competitions. Long-distance races. Bitter races. The old high-school courtyard. Vincent Stadium. Sylvio Cator Stadium. Marathon. A rowdy crowd. Bravo for the champion — three laps in three minutes, ten seconds! Unbeatable record … Champ de Mars of my teenage years! Fields marked with quicklime. One hundred meters flat. Just let me keep my lead. Reach Saint Joseph’s Gate. Get there before them. Safe and sound … To once again see the sun shine on my country, on the hills, the rooftops, the streets …

Raynand feels them on his heels. Close. Far too close. Stumbling against a piece of broken concrete, he falls down at the intersection of Jean-Jacques Dessalines Boulevard and Fronts-Forts Street. Face-first. He keeps rolling. Then comes to a complete stop. On his back. His body, a blazing torch. His limbs, bursts of flames. His head on fire, a flaming mass filled with exploding shells. Eyes open, he looks at the corner of the street whizzing by like wagons jam-packed together, mounted on rails like a high-speed train, an express train to the sea. It’s funny … I’m taking the midnight express. It’s beautiful, this aboveground landscape of neon signs! The sky chopped into ragged pieces. Neon flowers light up … shut off … light up again … Blue … red … green … yellow. How quickly it goes by, this silent, freewheeling train to the dock! Blue-green … blue-red … deep yellow. Stereophonic surge in the middle of the night. The street lets out a long trumpet blast between the two rows of sealed-up houses. Brains crushed. Head aflame. Torchlight tattoo. Carnival. Mask. Fear … dead silence … Is this what it’s like to die?

Rapid fluttering of eyelids. Little by little, Raynand comes to. He vaguely recognizes the few objects that pass into his line of sight and lash at his memory.

A half dream in which, still blurry, the various things in his little room slowly begin to take shape. His vision floats in the oppressive space. A vast, viscous sea! Each wave turns up innumerable pink fish. Raynand’s room looks to him like an immense aquarium filled with blond octopuses wrapped around hundreds of swimming arms. But then in the next second, he sees himself on the edge of a lake. He’s skipping stones along the water’s surface; the waves send a circular message toward the sandy shore.

From his bed, Raynand looks around confusedly. Looks out from the depths. He tries to bring the contents of the modest room into focus. In the center, four mahogany chairs surrounding a gueridon. In the south corner, a shaky table. Near the open door, a hanging wardrobe propped up against the wall. Seated, arms crossed, a brown-haired chap he doesn’t recognize, a stranger. At the foot of his bed, standing, an older woman on whom Raynand’s glance rests affectionately.

— Mama Marguerite, I’d like a little water.

— Right away, Raynand.

A minute later, the stranger slowly raises Raynand’s head. He takes little sips of the cold water from the glass held to his lips by his mother, wilted, suddenly grown old. Once he has finished drinking, he smiles faintly and looks with curiosity on the stranger seated near his bed.

— And who is this?

— This is Monsieur Paulin. He found you at the intersection of Jean-Jacques Dessalines Boulevard and Fronts-Forts Street yesterday, in terrible shape.

— What?

— He found you stretched out on the ground, unconscious. He was able to get your address and to bring you home in a taxi, thanks to the little notebook you had in the pocket of your shirt.

Raynand, grateful, thanks Paulin by squeezing his hand. After a long silence, in a worried tone, he questions his mother.

— Where is Solange, Mama? Has she not come to see me? Tell me, Mama, does she know. Does Solange know?

Raynand had met Solange some months earlier at a birthday party at a friend’s house. From the moment they met, he’d been struck by the captivating gaze of this girl with summer in her eyes, spring in her smile. Irresistible magic spell of a tropical princess who wears the two great seasons of the Caribbean islands on her face. At first he’d thought it was merely a physical attraction and that he’d never really get caught up in such an affair. But love planted its hooks in him. Deeply. Indelible tattoo.

On their first date he realized that any attempt to fight that feeling of love at first sight would have been in vain; all resistance futile; any effort to escape the viselike grip of fate could only fail. So he spoke with her at length about his feelings. Seated on marble chairs at Pigeon Place, they chatted, at a distance from all passersby.

— I’ve thought of you constantly, Solange.

— Me too, I’ve been thinking of you.

— Ever since we met, I’ve been caught up in a whirl of dizzying thoughts and crazy obsessions. On the very first night I saw you, I was turned inside out by your gaze. Where do you live, Solange?

— Saint Antoine district.

— I’ll come see you.

— No, you mustn’t come. My home is like a prison. My father, a tyrant. And my mother can do nothing about it. No, you mustn’t come.

— I understand, I suppose. We’re all trapped in a dark well, heads thrown back, bodies sucked violently toward a bottomless abyss.