Someday Somewhere!

Anxiety gives way to total confusion. I rack my brains for a coherent clue that would explain what I'm doing here, while I woke up in the middle of a field of flowers as far as the eye can see.

The sky is strangely clear, warmed by an amber-lit sun. In other circumstances, I would have found the place very idyllic. A place conducive to relaxation and idleness; the dream for a perfect vacation, but at this moment, this plethora of small, colorful and fragrant flowers leaves me neither hot nor cold, and even tends to horrify me.

I feel the urge to massacre with a stick all this display of poppies, daisies and other snapdragons that thrive in abundance among the butterflies and dragonflies.

It looks a little too much like Little House on the Prairie, with Laura and Marie Ingalls running and sprawling in the middle of the tall wild grass… To add a little more to the sweet, enchanting, too weird and creepy atmosphere of the moment, I think I see a blue rabbit sneaking into the middle of a tuft of lavender.

A movement of recoil… A state of advanced stupor… All that’s missing is the Cheshire cat to complete the picture. I’m seeing things, it’s getting worse and worse… But no, everything’s fine, everything’s fine!

Since the Coué method isn’t helping much, I immediately try another automatic reflex that’s just as ineffective as the first, but linked to the reptilian brain: intensive scratching of the eyes, practically leading to a retina detachment, with no more results. All the surrounding fuss is still there and sways in a light breeze…

I give up for a moment trying to find a coherent answer to this anachronistic fairy tale picture and continue on my way.

An hour passes, surveying an ocean of pestilential plants that come out of my nostrils: I literally can't see them in paintings anymore, and their intoxicating smells end up making me sick.

And then, suddenly, a few notes of music, at first distant, reach my ears. I stop dead and activate my hearing system to maximum listening position. I practically lift my head off to try to catch where this incongruous melody could be coming from.

At first, it seems to me that my hearing is playing tricks on me because I can't hear anything anymore, but quickly, the sound becomes more precise and the volume increases. Chamber music in the middle of nowhere… A grandiose symphony with all the right equipment: piano, drums and trumpets.

Of course, what could be more normal! This idyllic world necessarily has music that matches the picture!

I am exasperated by this whole context of the nutty enchanted country. It is pathetic.

I violently crush as many of these damn wildflowers as I go, to let off steam and try to come to my senses.

Let's say that I have gone crazy and that I am swimming in the middle of a manic crisis. In any case, if it is not yet the case, I am bound to become so.

And that's when I see it: someone is approaching in the distance. At first I tell myself that it is certainly only a mirage, a hallucination from sniffing all this flowery perfume and hearing philharmonic music that puts the nerves to the test. Paranoia is stalking me. Realizing that I'm on the verge of psychotic delirium, I play the distrust card.

The other one, too, saw me, and quickly advanced towards me. Panic. Anything can happen in this absurd world where I don't know which saint to turn to.

"Hello, did you find any?"

What's he talking about? I notice that he's wearing exactly the same ridiculous metallic blue clothes as me. Something shapeless, between a jumpsuit and a long dress. I try:

"No, not really."

"What do you mean, not really?" He retorts, frowning.

"Well, I don't really know, I'm a bit lost actually."

As he does so, the man suddenly takes on an authoritarian tone, pointing at me:

"I see, stay where you are."

The stranger then takes out of his bag a huge and ridiculous thing that looks like a walkie-talkie and dials a number while giving me inquisitive looks.

“Carlos? We still have one here. What's going on, have they bugged out again in the center?”

At the other end, I hear, hallucinating:

“Okay, don't panic. Bring it to us. We'll take care of it.”

“What the hell is this? Without a more detailed explanation, I'm going nowhere.”

Suddenly, I think I finally have a theory that's taking shape and I exclaim:

“An accident, I had a car accident and I have amnesia, is that it?”

But the other one doesn't let himself finish and nails me with an obscure answer:

“I don't know, I'm not the one who sorts out this kind of thing.”

“Excuse me, but you seem to find people; you have an idea of ​​what's going on.

"No, not at all. It's not my job to answer questions. You have to follow me to the center and you'll see it with them there."

"In the center? What is this center?"

"The officials' office!"

On this answer that doesn't enlighten me any more, he turns on his heels and adds in a dry tone that sounds more like an injunction than a question:

"So, what are you waiting for? We're not going to spend New Year's Eve there, come on!"

Do I really have a choice? If I want to get answers I have to follow this guy who came out of nowhere.

So there we go, and the same landscape of horrifying little flowers continues to parade tirelessly.

Suddenly, a monumental structure appears in the distance. A cubic block of icy stone erected with high walls without any opening except for a colossal entrance, which seems to have been designed to accommodate giants.

This rocky monument placed there in the middle of an endless field of flowers must have been carved by a superhuman army.

My travel companion takes up his post, without saying a word, in front of the entrance and - in a crash of cracking and screeching to tear the ears and freeze the blood - the enormous door opens onto a dark, uninviting darkness.

"Come", he says without blinking.

My companion enters the building without hesitation. I follow him with a hesitant step. A cathedral corridor, punctuated by a few points of light, filters the path that opens up before us. He begins to go back up the gallery and almost completely disappears from my sight. I then quicken my pace so as not to lose sight of him.

After passing through a series of doors, we arrive in a large room in front of an altar decorated with precious stones. A multitude of tiny lights illuminate the room. This shower of stars that invades all the walls and the vaulted ceiling is enough to make it shine as a whole.

My guide is as if surrounded by a halo of light above his head and all around his body like a holy apparition:

– I'll leave you. Someone will come and take care of you.

There he is, disappearing without further ado behind a small hidden door, bending over to pass through it without hindrance. Immediately after he passes, it slams shut violently, as if blown by a draft from nowhere.

Terrified by what awaits me, this noise resonates in me like the drum roll of a macabre announcement. Alone in the center of this tragicomic scene, I feel my entire future hanging by a thread. My cortisol level must have reached new heights and my heart is beating…

No, strangely enough, my heart seems rather calm. Strange.

Yet circumstances would have it resonate in my temples and make my whole body tremble. But that is not the case.

It is at this moment, in the middle of my disturbed thoughts racing through my head at a thousand miles an hour, that a small man immersed in an enormous manuscript appears. He trots to a lectern that suddenly lights up in front of me. The pulpit is much too big for him, so he has to climb onto a step to get to the right height.

Once seated, he grabs a pair of enormous glasses and balances them precariously on his nose, in gestures full of elegance and slowness. Then, ever so gracefully, he opens his black book screen-printed with the gold title: Arrival.

He patiently flips through it, looking for the right page, for what seems like hours. While I am dying to know what will become of me.

“Ah, there you go,” he finally says, “Samuel Potin?”

He stares at me over his thick glasses, and I watch him, dumbfounded, as he plunges his nose back into the pages of his mysterious notebook.

“Well, that’s what it says here: Samuel Potin. Is that you?” he asks, annoyed.

Suddenly, I hear myself reply:

“Maybe.”

“Oh, is it that bad? You don’t even remember your name. This is even worse than the previous cases.”

He frowns and twists his mouth into a thoughtful pout, which makes him look even more ridiculous.

Horror grips me. What will become of me if my memory has completely abandoned me?

– Gus, come here.

Gus limps in. He's a kind of deformed gnome with arms strangely longer than his legs and an enormous head, disproportionate to the rest of his body. As soon as he arrives, the other one scolds him without mercy.

– Are you sure of the name on the register? It wouldn't be the first time you've made a mistake in your reports, you know I hate that. It takes rigor, damn it, rigor.

– No, there's no doubt about it, he's the last to arrive, the henchman asserts with aplomb.

His boss gives him a suspicious look followed by a long, heavy breath:

– Well, let's continue.

Why do I suddenly feel very unhappy impression of being in the middle of a court, in the middle of a psychodrama, in an unsolved case.

- On this day, the 21st of May in the year 2021, you have arrived among us.

I am in agony, hanging on the lips of this burlesque character, who reels off incomprehensible words in enigmatic sentences.

- Welcome.

The intentions seem rather good. Slightly reassured, I try:

- Where?

- Yes, exactly, sorry. You have joined the world after.

- After what?

- Well, after, let's see, he says visibly annoyed, on his promontory.

At these words he violently closes the enormous book of judgments, with a dull noise.

The strange little individual seems so fierce that I no longer dare to intervene.

– Your passage in the world before was, admittedly, punctuated by a few breaches of the rules, but, despite everything, you were deemed fit to join us.

– You see I am flattered, I say ironically.

Without being distracted, he continues by prolonging the suspense:

– However, in view of all your past errors, you will nevertheless have to undergo a period of upgrading before being able to claim eternal rest.

ETERNAL REST… I feel like I am in a bad Sunday afternoon soap opera.

– What do you mean by eternal rest?

– It means what it means, damn it.

And, at that moment, he shouts a thunderous:

Guuuuuus.

Immediately the other one who had gone off to his obscure activities reappears.

– Is it an E.A.? He asks, trying to hide his mouth.

“No, no. No worries, he’s supposed to have good cognitive potential. He’s not one of the absent minds.”

At that moment, exasperated by the turn the situation is taking and feeling completely excluded from the conversation even though I’m the main person concerned, I shout in turn:

“That’s enough now. Are you going to tell me what the hell I’m doing here?”

“I think the shock of arriving must have seriously damaged his neural system,” Gus explains to his boss.

Here they go again in their delirium. The character who seems to be playing the role of the judge ends up letting go without further ceremony:

“You’ve passed into the world after, the second life. Do you understand or not?”

He breathes exasperatedly and I feel myself turning pale; my blood freezes.

– The aftermath… I’m dead, is that what you’re trying to tell me?

– That’s the term you men use. Here, it’s not used because we find it inappropriate.

– Inappropriate? Yet it’s the most appropriate in this case.

– No, I assure you. Here it’s not an end as that word might signify. Here, it’s a beginning; a new life offered to you because you’ve earned it.

– But what the hell happened?

– Oh, yes, of course. Wait!

With these words, he opens another of those enormous catalogues placed on the desk in front of him, entitled: “Mode de passage” in carmine red letters.

– Come on, Samuel… Samuel Potin, he says with a nonchalance devoid of any empathy.

As he does so, he slides an ungainly index finger over the pages detailing all the abominations that had allowed each "lucky one" to enter this privileged circle.

- There you go. Samuel Potin: heart attack.

The already disturbing indigestible news of my death, suddenly accompanied by this cold information delivered like a punch, leaves me inert and speechless. Technical KO.