I'll be back
“Literators go looking for the fantastic outside of reality, in the clouds. They only bring back a by-product. The fantastic must be torn from the bowels of the earth, from the real. »
Barely in the sheets, Victor closes his eyes. He is happy at the idea of going back to the world of dreams, far from the boarding school. This evening, he is preparing for it by visualizing a valley, mountains... He walks on a large plateau. He feels the wind in his hair, the ears of wheat slipping between his fingers. As he follows the eyes of small white clouds that come towards him, he sinks gently into sleep.
However, it is not a restful dream that awaits him.
The child's eyes take a moment to adjust to the darkness. He is in a large room. In the center, a dozen candles on high copper feet give off an orange light. Between these candelabra, an open black lacquered coffin irresistibly attracts his attention.
A face with an emaciated profile stands out from the satin lining. The man is rather tall, he must be around seventy years old. Although he is extended, pride, even nobility, emanates from him.
Dizziness seized Victor.
- But it's me! he exclaims.
The certainty of being this man, whom he sees for the first time, comes to him from the depths of his being. There is no doubting that. But he can't understand why he's lying in that coffin.
- What am I doing here?
Seeking an explanation, he casts a bewildered look around. He then spotted a group of people standing in front of the coffin. Only emerge from the darkness the face, pale of a young woman, the cuffs and the white collars of three men. But he doesn't need to see any more to know that there are here… his children.
So his gaze does not linger on them and returns, as if magnetized, to this body from which life has withdrawn. This body which plunges the child into the most unfathomable perplexity.
Finally, while he is looking at him – while he is looking at himself – the evidence, the improbable evidence, gain ground within him. Until imposing himself on his reason: “ I am dead! »
The oppressive emotional density that saturates the room and petrifies everything, reinforces this mind-blowing assertion.
« No way!he protests finally, I can move, I see, I reason!... »
These arguments, unassailable, had the effect of a beneficent wave on the paralyzing terror that infiltrated his mind. He breathes again, his limbs come back to life.
« Pff, it's a joke! or something like that. »
The relief makes him want to laugh. Magnanimously, before turning on his heels, he gives the room a last radiant look. The people are still there, frozen in deep meditation. The child's smile hesitates, then lights up with mischief:
« But by the way, they also believe that I am dead! It's funny, I'm very close to them and they haven't seen me! Come on, I'll reassure them. »
As if coming out of a hiding place, he goes towards them, waving his hands:
- Hey, I'm here! Don't be sad anymore! Ho, ho!
But as he approaches, the child's joy yields to doubt, then to evidence. To finally give way to an anguish from the depths of time.
He must admit the inadmissible, believe the incredible: no one sees it. Nobody hears it!
Devastated, the boy stops. He is now very close to them, touching them. But their gaze does not blink. They do not perceive his presence, yet so close. Faced with such a formidable enigma, the child's brain, incapable of advancing even the beginning of an explanation, spins on empty.
His strength abandons him, his arms fall back, slowly. This single movement in the room absently diverts his attention. His stupor then reaches its climax because, first incredulous, then terrified, he realizes that through his right arm, he continues to distinguish the motionless characters! His arm, his body has no materiality, it is transparent!
Nothing and no one moved when he approached, nor reacted to his agitation. Not even the halo of a candle. Everything in this room is petrified in a gangue of silence. Victor has no control over this hallucinating scene; fixed, immutable, as if carried away in the glacier of time. And he, although he is the central character, has no place there!
V ictor wakes up. A cold sweat beaded on his forehead and in the hollow of his neck.
« I saw myself as old! I saw myself dead! How is it possible ?
« It's only a dream!
"
« Oh, no! replies Victor to himself, his mind on fire.
« But where was I? How could I recognize myself in the guise of an old man I've never seen, and dead on top of that?! And those kids!? Are these my future children??
The boy sits up on his bed, wiping his frozen neck.
« It's a premonitory vision! I will die !
« It's good, you have time, have you seen the age of the man?
« Ah yes, that's true. But by the way... he doesn't look like me! He looks nothing like me, even in a century! He has a hooked nose, chin forward...
- FABIAN! Fabien, are you sleeping?
- Mhmmm…! What ? Well yes I sleep. What is it?
- I had a dream…
- Shit, you wake me up for that? I'm gonna hit you.
- Look, this is crazy. I saw myself dead!
- Pfft! It happens to everyone, all the time.
- Ah good ? You also ? breathes Victor full of hope.
- Obviously !! Hey, the last time it was a sea monster that swallowed me! I went fishing with...
Victor interrupts her, shaking his head.
- I have lots of dreams like that.
- So what did you dream, clever?
- Well… I saw myself in a coffin!
- In a coffin? That's funny.
Antoine , the mono enters the dormitory and opens the windows, yelling: « Everybody on their feet! »
Victor sat down on the bed; his eyes stare at the black-and-white tiled floor as his classmate buttons up his shorts.
“ It wasn't a dream. It's like... a memory. Yes, a memory... But it can't be mine... ”
His eyes suddenly light up, he takes Fabien by the shoulders.
- Is it possible, do you think, to recover the memory of another? I don't know, someone who died around here...
- Pfft! You're talking rubbish. You're ill !
- Yeah, that didn't seem possible to me either. But you know what?
- I don't give a damn ! We're going to be stuck. And then I don't like these stories. It's bad luck to talk about it...
- I had children! People, in front of the coffin...
- OH you two! If you're not out in a minute, you don't have to go to the refectory!
- The cow, you're really not well say so! Fabien say as he ran off.
The children go two by two in silence towards the refectory. Fabien put himself in front to avoid Victor. This one observes the sad building all in length, the young boys around him. He knows them all well, they are part of his universe.
Fabien must be being recounting his dream to the others, because several boys turn to him giggling. It is therefore that they have never had, nor heard of a dream of this kind. But a question torments Victor: this vision, because it is one and it concerns him, does it belong to the past or to the future?