I 've been in this waiting room for ages. A kid fidgeting like he's got the worms distracts my attention for a moment, but I feel the languor weighing down my eyes. I let them close.

By association of idea, comes to me the image of another little boy. He was standing here, in the place I occupy. To deceive the wait, I let my mind wander...

At school, nothing is going well for Leopold.

He's not even happy to go home because at home, things aren't going well either. His mother, since the father left, has a closed face and hardly speaks to him. Given the incessant arguments that broke out, this departure seemed to him to be a good thing, but he quickly became disillusioned because for a yes for a no, it is now up to him that she blames it. However, sensing her unease, he tries to be patient and caring.
Not having the means to dress like his comrades and never inviting anyone home, he's left out. As a result, he has no friends to talk to. What an idea also to be called Leopold!

“ Ah, I can't wait for me to be an adult! I will be autonomous, and then I will be able to impose myself. »

Éopold walks in a wood. This wood is called "the wood of the Hanged". How does he know? Mystery. In any case, it's exactly the kind of place he looks for when he needs to isolate himself from the rest of the world. There is even a stream! And...oh!
At the edge of the water there is a young girl. Strangely decked out, sitting on a mossy stone, her legs wrapped in her arms.
She didn't hear him; rocked by the song of the small waterfall upstream, she is absorbed in her thoughts. He sits not far from her, so as not to lose anything of the enchanting image of this profile cut out by the scintillating reflections.
No doubt feeling observed, the young girl turns her head and lets out a little cry of surprise. Coming out of who-knows-where, two men then appear, a heavy sword in their hands. Leopold, bewildered, doesn't even have the reflex to get up. Moreover, the gaze shared with this young girl froze him. The Past surprise, something, he can't doubt, happened in this brief exchange.
Seized by the arm, he turns around and throws his fist at random. A veil is torn, and the chiaroscuro of the undergrowth gives way to the raw light of a neon.

His arm springs from the coolness of the sheets and cuts through the overheated air of the room.

- Well, you have a restless sleep! scolds the nurse who only had time to dodge. You will take your temperature.

* *

Haunted by his vision, every evening and at every nap now, the boy tries, against all logic, to return to his dream.
Faced with repeated failures, he tries to condition himself: with his eyes closed, he visualizes the foliage, the stream, lets himself be lulled by its song and that of the birds... But nothing helps, and that annoys him so much that if during a dream he realizes that he is not at the edge of the stream, he wakes up.

* *

It was the anesthesia of his first intervention who finally sends Leopold back to the middle of his beloved vegetation.

With his eyes wide open, he immediately recognizes the Bois des Pendus. Overjoyed, he rushes to the stream without hesitation and his heart leaps when he sees the small waterfall.
The lady is here! Curiously enough, her soft oval face framed by her jet-black pigtails is not turned towards the stream but towards the wood. As if she was expecting something from there...

And now his eyes light up when she sees him! The boy's heart races. How is it possible ? A lady can't pay any attention to a boorish! However, no doubt about it, it's on him that the so gentle gaze rests. Moreover, at his (delicate) approach , she makes no move to flee. A few steps away, he sits down, gently, without taking his eyes off her. Trembling for fear of waking up, he says in a whisper:
- Hello... My name is Leopold.
"It's a bit silly, isn't it? he adds
- No, it's a beautiful name (God, what a pretty voice).
- Oh? he says, feeling his heart drop.
- Do you come here often?
- Not... sometimes. The lord of Olincourt rents us the farm of Hauts Prés, on the other side of this wood (Leopold wonders how he knows all this).

Having described his modest condition, the boy lowers his eyes, and falls in admiration on the hands of the young lady.

- And... you, what's your name?

A heavy gallop of horses answers him. Time to get up to locate their source, he is surrounded by four men-at-arms.
- Who are you, you scoundrel? and what are you doing in the king's woods? barks the first.
- Do you know the fate of poachers? chains the second.

The sword held out to his chest leaves Leopold speechless.

- But... I've seen you before. And now you dare to speak to Princess Sonia!
- Leave D'Agantière, this young man was lost; he was just asking me for directions.
- His path ! Princess, your father would be…
- Enough. Go my brave, and don't get lost again.

As the young boy stammers, the tip of the strong sword touches his plexus. Leopold backs away quickly, stumbles, and…everything rocks.

Half out of bed, beating his arms, he barely catches up with the clock surmounted by a happy Mickey. It says 5 o'clock. The sun is not up. In the light of the night light that bathes the room, the young boy inspects his chest, expecting to find a pearl of blood there. There is nothing.

" It was only a dream. A mere dream! A stupid dream!
"And here I am again in the nightmare," he moaned, looking around.

Princess Sonia - at least he knows her name now... - how she stood up for him! Leopold is overwhelmed with gratitude… and love.

“Ah, I MUST find her! As quickly as possible ! »

But the captain of the guards, this D'Agantière, has seen him sitting beside her. And when she stepped in, there was jealousy and even hatred in her eyes.
“If he sees me again he will kill me, that's for sure.

- I'M NOT SCARED!

The boy leans against the door.
- Here, before hitting the road, swallow this pill for your head. Be careful though, don't walk away. I'll put the thermometer on your bedside table, you'll remember to take your temperature.
- ♫ Yes mom ♬ , he simpers.

Leopold consults the corridor. Turning right? to the left ?

"Come on, the waiting room!" »

To left, then. Along the way, he mechanically looks at the paintings. The portraits follow him with their eyes as he walks down the long corridor.

To sitting in the big waiting room when no one is there is a diversion he offers himself from time to time. The boy takes the poses of a visitor, simply visiting. He sits down, gets up, pretends to wait his turn. From the window he observes the parking lot two floors below, and the city in the distance. The streetlights, wisely spaced, the eyes of cars exploring the night.
People start work early, others finally go home... It doesn't matter, they live.

In the corridor leading him back to "his apartments", Leopold notices something unusual. At this hour, the bedroom doors are closed. That of 14 is ajar.

It must have been emptied , he thought, risking his head inside.

- Between !

Surprised, the boy bumps into the doorframe, which has the effect of triggering a clear chuckle. So it's a girl who's here. His mouse face protrudes from the neatly tucked sheets. She is pale and emaciated.

- Come on, come in! she repeats with an air of complicity.

Disturbed by this voice, Leopold approaches. Suddenly his knuckles turn white as they squeeze the footboard.
Those big blue eyes watching her... though haloed with gray circles... That gaze, though burning with fever... Those slender fingers modestly pulling up the sheet...

A name quivers on his lips.

- What are you doing here, young man?

- Uh, nothing...

The head nurse gently pushes him out while the eyes of the two young people cling to each other. When the door closes, he thinks he hears behind him: "The bridge..."

“Hou there, I'm not getting any better, me. I'm going completely crazy, he worries, walking away from the bedroom. Now I see Sonia in the hospital! The fever ? My evolving disease?
"That headache...I'm going to take my pill."

From now on, Leopold often passes in front of the young girl's door... But without ever again finding the opportunity to have a bit of a chat. When his door is not closed, there is so much bustle and coming and going that the room evokes a beehive.

" It must be serious what she has...

- You have visitors, sings Annie.
Right behind her, her mother is there.

- So, are you better my Leo?

The tone evokes more a prayer, a plea, than a question. Besides, his radiant smile cannot hide his tired eyes. Doctor Renzo, faithful to his principles, doesn't give her much hope about the chemotherapy started. The tumor has migrated to the kidneys “...But let's wait for the next intervention. »

- Yes, Mom. Do not worry.

After an exchange of small talk and the usual batch of recommendations, the mother leaves, broken by her impotence.

The father also comes to see him from time to time. Under mocking airs, his suffering becomes perceptible. Sometimes their visits collide. The man and the woman then try to tolerate each other. The first few minutes, then inevitably a clash occurs.

“ Stop tiring him with your questions! What have you been bringing him there; you've been told a hundred times that he shouldn't eat just anything. You always have to… ” etc. etc

Today he has not come, and Léopold accompanies his mother to the reception. She's all smiles, but he knows it's just a facade, and when he goes back to his room, he's destroyed from the inside. His mother's despair breaks the poor courage he manages to forge between two visits. Leopold doesn't care about the doctor's opinion, nor the confidence he displays. He knows he's going to die, but he shrugs.
“They scare me with their low masses; I am sure that death is not so terrible. When the other day I felt myself leaving, it was great! I didn't feel anything anymore... I was fine. »

Returning to his room, Leopold walks around the corridor to pass that of his companion in misfortune. A nurse comes out, leaving the door ajar. He glances at it.
The unfortunate woman has disappeared under the tubes and the tangle of infusions.

- How is she ? he asks the returning nurse.
- Don't worry, my little one, she's fine, she lies to him, gently pushing the door open.

The young boy has only the number of the door to observe. But he is sure of it, despite his beribboned head and his pipes in his nose, the blue eyes smiled at him.

5 p.m.

The evening begins. She is long. Like every evening here for months.

Leopold paces in front of the window. He can no longer read, the vice in his head squeezes his eyes. He can only wait for the night, the best moment of the day. During the day, he dozes off, but it is at night that he is most likely to have deep dreams... Those that project him into the woods at the enchanting stream.

6 p.m.

His eyes quietly closed tirelessly see the look of the girl from number 14 as they parted ways.

“ Why did she mention a bridge?!”

✩ ✩

“ Why do we call this wood the wood of the Hanged? the boy wonders, watching his peasant clogs crush the scorched ferns and cracked chestnuts.

ut... but I am in my wood!

The last ocher leaves stand out against the blue sky.

"So we changed the season...?! "

Leopold heads for a gap in the vegetation. He hears the stream! Feverishly his gaze seeks Sonia. The creek is there. Yes, but not the princess.

"Because you think she has nothing to do but wait for you, you barefoot peasant !"

Slowly, Leopold goes up the stream.

"Yet it was here..." he said to himself, recognizing the small waterfall.

A voice behind him startles him.

- Finally, here you are!

He turns around all at once and is greeted by an enchanting vision. Sonia is there. She smiles at him. Curiously, she is not dressed as a princess but draped in a kind of white nightgown. "Never mind, she's the most beautiful!"

- I couldn't come, I... couldn't make it, he replies, glancing around. Oh, I would so like to stay here, near you.

- It will come.

- It's true ? stammers the young boy.

- The bridge, she starts to say while approaching him.

His hand, his gentle hand brushes hers.

But at this contact, Leopold wakes up abruptly.

The days are endless. And impossible to return to the dream!

"She must be waiting for me!" Leopold tortures himself. She must not have understood anything when she saw me disappear! »

To snatch his thoughts from the infernal turnstile, he directs them towards Laëtitia, the girl of number 14 (her first name appeared on the care sheet at the foot of the bed).

In the terminal phase, in her private room, the young girl also thinks of him. Suddenly she winces and stops. A new wave of pain washes over her. Eyelids pressed, she waits for her to pass.
His vision blurs from time to time. Will she go blind? But it's her shaved head, which she modestly covers with a light shawl, that bothers her the most. Finally, especially when this young man comes to see her... She would like to offer him the most beautiful of faces...

If she could speak to him, she would tell him of the happiness she feels when she finds him in a dream.

"If you want to cover yourself with ridicule..."

Indeed, curiously, for two weeks, she has had a recurring dream. It seems to be very rare...

"Pfff, an effect of narcotics that they make me swallow!"

She sees herself as a princess, of great beauty, endowed with endless hair. A princess who drives her good father to despair because she rejects all the young people he offers her (starting with the fiery captain of the guard), while she thinks of this young peasant who has he looked so nice and immediately made his heart beat... But reveal his father such a choice is unthinkable.

Until then, she could tell herself that this dream - recurring or not - was simply drawing inspiration from the stories that rocked her as a child. But what keeps her incomprehension alive today and lets her heart wander is that the young boy who came to see her after her first dream (he therefore did not influence her), has the face and the restraint of this peasant.

"My poor, your treatment makes you confuse your dreams, days and reality. You must have passed him long before in a hallway without noticing..." his subconscious slips treacherously.

The young girl presses her eyelids a little more, to crush a tear of annoyance. But she lets the following flow freely as she replays for the umpteenth time the end of the marvelous dream, as it appeared to her last week:

With her lover, she crosses a bridge.
On the other side, anything is possible. There is no more princess or peasant, no more hospital or suffering; just two young people in love. She talks to him, takes his hand, and hopping, leads him through immense meadows covered with flowers...

his night Leopold found the princess. Their happiness is immense. At the edge of the stream, hand in hand, they watch the water pass as it skips and sings. Time has stopped.

Suddenly they heard the guards. D'Agantière was going to surprise them, so with a heavy heart, they had to separate.

Leopold's cancer is no longer operable. For doctors, every day of life is a day gained. Over the weeks, by dint of crossing paths, united in the same pain, imperceptibly, her parents get closer.

More and more often, to the delight of their child, they talk to each other without clinging. Sometimes with gentleness, and even a certain tenderness.

One evening in January, Leopold told his mother "that he is finally going to be freed." Not daring to understand, she asks from what.

- I would like to leave, mom.

The father and the mother look at each other, hoping to have misunderstood. But their son insists.

- Could you let me go?

The mother sighs, raises her head and looks at him for a long time. Her eyes fill with tears. She goes to tell him that anything is still possible, that a miracle can still happen.
But does she believe it? But during this time, his son suffers; of his illness, to be there. She understands this need, her desire to... "leave".
In silence, he takes her hand, squeezes it. She consents by an interminable lowering of the eyelids.

- Don't be sad, I'll be happy on the other side. I know it, I promise you .

With the other hand, he takes his father's, then closes his eyes. They stay like that for a long time. The man and the woman feel the warmth of their child's hands. A kind of current passes from one to the other through them.

The moment is unique. At one point they look at each other, surprised. Their eyes say to each other:

“How stupid we may have been. Life is fleeting. We must love ourselves. Now and always. Love is everything. »

What strange sleep seizes Leopold as he held his parents' hands? He has the impression of being there... without being there. At the same time melted into them, and detaching from them.
He takes his hands away but... they don't move. He gets up from the bed, but his body remains still. Like a light vapor, he moves away looking at him.

t the entrance to the room, he sees Hanged Man's Wood, bathed in light, and the stream... As if they had always been there. And also, just a little further, a bridge shrouded in mist.

"I never noticed it..."

Leopold happily heads for it, then stops short. He suddenly knows, with certainty, that if he crosses it he will not be able to go back.

He turns. His body is still there, motionless, as if dead. Dead ? How would his mother bear it?
His parents' hands are still in his. In their hearts he perceives a budding love, made up of solicitude, attention, patience, concessions. A love that has nothing to do with the distant and selfish relationship they had. A close event is revealed to him: a child is coming.
Smiling with pleasure, the boy turns back to the wood. Laëtitia appeared on the other side of the bridge. Her long chestnut hair frames her fresh complexion and her big blue eyes that radiate happiness.

- You were Sonia... I knew it.

Léopold crosses the bridge and joins her by leaping. Their gaze is an endless exchange of love. No words are needed. Suddenly, laughing, the girl pulls him by the hand. The boy hesitates, looks at his parents again.

The nurse who entered the room stops. She understood. As she discreetly withdraws, she searches for the flowers. There is none, and yet a subtle perfume fills the room.

* *

Leopold can move away, he knows that his parents will never leave each other. They will live in the love and memory of this child they never understood, but who forgave them. This perfume is proof of that.

- 351!

- What??

I open my eyes and hurriedly check my ticket. My number is352, it's almost my turn. I check my watch: I've slept for a quarter of an hour.
No more ? Strange dream... I get up, to walk a little, to shake off my confusion.

In fact, I didn't feel like I was dreaming. It was rather... Well, weird...Passing in front of the reception, seeing that no one is waiting, I impulsively ask the hostess:

- You... haven't recently had a little boy in intensive care? Leopold...

As soon as I asked my question, I measured how ridiculous it was. Good God, what came over me?!

- Leopold... It's not a common first name. We treated a Leopold for a tumor last month. Unfortunately, he...
"Are you family?" asks the young woman abruptly, pulling herself together.

- A friend, a colleague of… Thank you miss, excuse me.

“Leopold! holy rascal, you must have a good laugh, it's as if I saw you!

"So you really existed... and suffered... right here...

I caress the room with a slightly sad gaze.

“Perhaps I dozed off on one of the seats where you spent your endless evenings. Perhaps you have slipped yourself into the permeability of my half-sleep...

But why ?

"To tell your story! For parents who have lost a child !?...

“But Leopold, no one will believe her! And then how could I... ?

Disturbed and surprised to be, I get up to go again to survey the corridor. It's the young boy watching me now. I must look quite agitated.

Suddenly I stop. But... I walk without limping!! What's the point of having an X-ray for a sprain that I no longer feel?! My foot regained all its mobility; it's incredible !

As I slowly descend the steps of the hospital, the noise of the traffic, the bustle, bring me back to reality. I have to go back to work. Where is the bus stop ? What time is it ?

“ What was I dreaming there, me??

"In fact, my ankle only needed two hours of rest!..."