Coming back to France has been weird. So much changes! Hearing French all around, for one thing – I’ve been getting so used to Spanish and English, and mixing up the two, and forgetting in what I speak and in which language the other thinks and laugh and share ambiguities with gestures and laugh again and give up talking to just share a smile, a look, a moment.

I love strangers.

Maybe because I feel so much like a stranger myself.

It is also weird to think in terms of “I”, since “I” am not. I is just a body perceived by others, reacting to others, and it means nothing, since without them I am no one. Not that I don’t exist physically, mind you, or that I shut off like a machine with an on/off button – it’s just that I’m an empty vase waiting to be filled and take shape. Right now, I’m alone, and I’m very much active. I’m making balloon shapes, see.

Why did I come back, really? I loved being lost in moving sensations, never really knowing what is going on and where I’m heading next.

Oh. Muzenn, right.

I wonder if I’ll see my parents here.

Oh, well. They probably won’t recognize me, since they don’t want to.

Seriously, why is there no one outside when it rains? Rain is beautiful, and that one isn’t that cold. Is it? Everything looks weird in the rain – it’s false to say everything is gray, although that’s what people always feel when the sky fills with shadows. The truth is, Muzenn is very green, with all the forest around and the parks and the trees, and the houses are very colorful too, with yellow walls and red tiles, although not as orangish as the ones in Spain. Even the chapel behind me, despite its gray stones and bluish-gray, smooth tiles, looks very rooted and more reassuring than sad. I also am a lighthouse for colors – full of spots of red and green and blue and yellow and pink and purple and orange and even white and black, because of my clown’s clothes, and of course, my balloons. I did a dog, that I’m holding with a leash made up with a colorful (of course) string, and I also did a bird, and a cat, and a turtle, and I’m now working desperately on a monkey.

The Clown with the blue dog.

What a wonderful sight.

A girl, suddenly, comes up at the corner.

The Clown keeps playing with his balloons with weird sounds, looks up at the teenage girl, and puts up his arm towards her, with the yellow bird in his hand, flying as a gift to her.

- Say, girl, do you believe in God?

There was a clown down there.

Like, a regular one. Painted face, floppy garments and all. Water pouring his once-curly hair down to his neck. Weird, the makeup won't collapse. But his smile still stayed on. Anyway, that's the face a clown is supposed to have. Dude ! Does he looks terrific in that wet suit of his, crooking creepy balloons the rain plays with (pow, ow, ow, beat the drops on the plastic skin.

What a suspicious sight.

- Who's Gad ?

They say in Brittany it only rains on assholes. That wasn't quite the truth, to be honest, except if you consider doesn't minding a little downpour as being a real breton. Real bretons don't even see it has been raining. So it hasn't. They won't start running yelling unfolding umbrellas when the drops kiss their body. They're not disturbed by clouds and muds and wearing hoodies.
He isn't.
Does that make him an asshole ?

- Oh. Dis one. Thanks ?

She has stopped before him. His voice was one promising miracles and top-hats spitting blackbirds. Carefully she held the bird balloon, glancing at it with the most polite look she could mould. Then looked back at his hands, his face. Colorless eyes. Sure Lou said something about a guy like this last week, or was that about a juggler ? Random Luskans everywhere, except you don't know if they're real Luskans til they toss some garish stuff like walking on air or firing puppets. It has long become a game. Goofy Lou was gifted in it. «Look at this Prederi.» «He's not.» «You may be mistaken.» «Just some crafty talkeround.» «You may be so mistaken.» «'kay, I'm gonna ask him.» Of course he was. You can find out a Dorn by the skill their shops show in not closing despite the lack of customers in the country ; Tresadenns often looked like lordly cunts, and Lou sweared "I can spot a Prederi from a Sonnen by the shape of its hands and this trickery in their brows." Luskans were the kind of people you shouldn't meet in a godforsaken breton village.

That's what you did with Muzenn kids. They need to know who they are talking to ; the very first thing they never utter is this question they may dare to say, because those who don't know could think the emphasized word has no capital.
Innocents.

- Uh. Are ya the kind of clawn they'v got in England, following people with axes to.. to scare ?

She stepped back and took a glance in the chapel. The lock has been missing for such decades anybody could enter and hide. On her shoulders the bag was quite heavy, and she may have planned to rest a little inside the not-so-church, on the old benches. Before turning the corner. Didn't she look very much like a Protestant in her dark mannerly clothing, reasonable haircut, light eyes and skin and tone- may prove a bait to religious nuts -or old pervy, what was his age anyway- Her hair glued on her cheeks as well. She stared at his gaze and procedeed:


- Not a go'd idea, talk to strangers. You could kill me or kidnap me or rape me. She paused. Do you intend to ? I mean, you wan't tell me if you're going to. Still..

She wrinkled her nose and spoke up to smother the rain.

- My Mam. Actually. She'd say I have to tawk with strangers. 'm'not such a fool. So are ya a Jehovah's minion ? Thought they were all clad in black, not a single balloon. She paused. I do believe in sometrick. Since I don't know ya, I won't tell more. Who's your god ?




[#1 - Doyoubilivingod ?]

- God is the one who lives there, I answered, showing with my hand holding the dog the chapel behind us.

She had taken the bird, but politely, without the interest of smaller kids. She was very bold, talking to him with a proud accent in her voice, and yet childish at the same time. She couldn't really think what she was saying – else she wouldn't stay there, she would just go and wouldn't even have come close to him. Scared people don't come up front to spit out things at the face of their assailant. Yet it amused her, it seemed, to take me for some barbarous monster. Maybe the setting helped a bit. Anyway, she didn't look like she really wanted to be assaulted. She just wanted a good talk that would change from the ordinary, I guessed. And to sound smart. Likely.

- He's quite a nice fellow, you know. Contrarily to you, he ain't afraid of strangers… He thinks of everyone as brothers and sisters and always invite them in. I think I'll take advantage of his hospitality – I like the rain, mind you, but it's starting to get cold. Well, it probably won't be much warmer inside, but at least it will be dry. Will you come too ?

I looked at the chapel's door – looked so old. No one had been praying in this place for a long time now, and there were tags all around. Most likely high school students used the abandoned building to meet up between friends without parents snirking at them.

- He ain't here anyway, so he won't mind.

Most likely a Jehovah minion would not have uttered such a statement – God was always everywhere and the sky never empty. Right ? But the chapel did look empty, and I doubted God or anyone else would come to bother us. I was curious, though – what was left inside ? Any altar, any objects of adoration ? Or had everything long been snatched away ? I looked at her again.

- But maybe you too scared for that. Following strangers and all, after talking to them despite all your principles…

I smiled, playing a bit. How bold was she, exactly ? How much was fake ? I didn't think she was really afraid, but prudent maybe. I shall see.

- Although if it can reassure you, I'm not at all from England. Rather the other way around, same distance south of France… You ever been to Spain ? Beautiful country it is. God bless… Ah, no, wrong country. Well, anyway, there clowns blow balloons and bring out the laughter from people's chests. No axes, just a little bit of humour, words and self-ridiculousness. Seriously, who would dress like that ?

Most likely not her. She was so well dressed, very clean, very blendy too. Most likely coming from a middle-class family… Yet she said herself that her family was more open than her. Was she usually cold and haughty with strangers ? Did she avoid contacts ? What was so wrong with outsiders, in her cold, blue eyes ?