Vaisseaux et mondes
The hollow planet
Une longue marche d’approche dans le malpais, un sol torturé, une superposition de débris de roches en fusion, de la noirceur à l’infini.
La pente devient de plus en plus raide.
Je suis seul.e depuis bien trop longtemps.
Mon vaisseau a crashé là il y a un nombre incalculable, d’heures ou de jours. Le temps s’efface et tous mes repères s’évaporent
J’espère que l’ascension va me faire du bien. J’ai de plus en plus de mal à respirer. L’oxygène se raréfie et mes bouteilles semblent insuffisantes. Le souffle court, je m’approche de ce qui ressemble à un col, un sommet peut-être. La brume se dégage. C’est un cratère.
Mon sang se glace. Un effroi. S’approcher d’un cratère, c’est aller contempler un gouffre, un précipice. Je me rappelle des consignes de sécurités. Garder un périmètre de sécurité. Prévenir le vertige.
C’est plus fort que moi. Une force, ou une voix, me pousse à voir ce qu’il y a dans ce gouffre.
Je me mets à quatre pattes. J’avance sur les genoux, les coudes. Le vertige me saisis les chevilles et les avant bras. Une masse glaçante qui me retient en même temps qu’elle m’attire.
Border l’abîme.
Je trace un cordon de sécurité imaginaire.
J’imagine un filet orange qui va me retenir.
Je rampe.
Le gouffre commence à apparaître, immense.
Sans fond.
Je veux voire le fond du gouffre.
Je m’agrippe aux touffes, aux branches. Je ne sais pas trop ce qui est stable.
Je crois que si tout mon corps s’étale au sol, ma tête ne sera fera pas le poids, pas assez pour plonger dans le vide.
J’avance, et au fur et à mesure que j’avance, c’est le vide.
Un vertige immense me saisit.
Ce gouffre est de la taille de planète.
Elle s’est vidée, de toute ses forces.
Une explosion qui a projeté toute la rage du monde à sa surface.
La planète sans gravité
Dans le vaisseau, les voyants avaient commencé à cligner, incertains de leur polarité. Un nuage gris traversé de quelques phosphorescences embrasse les corps célestes qui flottent autour de moi, et se déploie, de plus en plus dense. Peu à peu, le sol magnétique cesse de fonctionner, mes pieds adhèrent moins, l’attraction devient lâche. Retrouver ce flottement, que j’aimais pour sa totale liberté, fait ici monter une angoisse. Le vaisseau aussi, se met à dériver de sa trajectoire. La notion même de trajectoire sans perdre sens.
Quelle était la raison d’être de mon parcours par ici ? Quel était mon espoir en m’approchant des sporosités d’Akouphéa ? Et si je n’avais rien choisi? Je me demande si l’absence de gravité de la planète n’est pas traversée d’une force gravitationnelle, qui appelle, irrésistible, de très loin. Et si, cette poussière phosphorescente, était un essaimage, une sporulation galactique?
Je me rappelle de mes cours de radio amateur, et des épisodes de diffusion E-sporadique, ces interférences qu’on cherchait à maîtriser, en s’appuyant sur des nuages de gaz atmosphérique inhabituellement ionisés. Dans la région inférieure E , située à des altitudes d’environ 90 à 160 km, de la ionosphère terrestre, des « nuages » courbaient les signaux radio les faisant circuler plus loin, plus vites, plus longtemps. L’E-sporadique se passait plus souvent aux équinoxes, en particulier juste après Noël, amenant les téléspectateurs à voir apparaître des images fantômes, à entendre des émissions inconnues
Mon équipe étudiait les origines ‘d’un chant de sirène’ intergalactique, qu’on s’était mis à appeler ‘champs’, parce qu’il se géolocalisait comme une zone parsemée de nuages, à la périphérie si largement dispersée qu’on y voyait une sorte de plantation. Un champ parsemé de parcelles concentrant des échos, des canaux sonores et visuels venant de loin, tourbillonnant.
Je ne sais plus très bien comment la recherche avait commencé, un enchaînement, d’enthousiasme, des projections, multidimensionnelles. Plusieurs éléments avaient cessés de fonctionner, mais c’est comme si c’était toujours sans importance, nous avancions toujours.
Et me voici, tournoyant, attirée mais sans ground, en suspension, en lévitation. Cet état est presque plaisant mais je rester sans prise. Je ne veux pas paniquer. Je réalise en fait, que je n’en ai pas les moyens. Mon systeme nerveux est presque déconnecté et je ne peux pas paniquer.
The blank planet
When we landed there, an immense fog imediatly took over. I knew the feeling, but not on the scale of a whole planet. As soon as we let the vaissel, we loose sight of each other. Sound became distorted too, present but somehow, out of of reach of my eardrums. Afar, something was singing, a song that reminded me of the mourning dove. But I was not feeling the sadness of the song, barely noticing it’s melody. All I could see was the presence of a lake. The fog was possibly emanating from its water. Was it water? The surface of the lake was as blank as the rest and most of the time, it was not a surface, more of a porous zone of encounter between a liquid state and a misty one.
Sometimes, I could see the shores of the lake, the glimpse of a reminder that a solid world existed, On
the shore, some possible creatures : a giant white beaver? Three tiny dinosaures coming here to drink joyfully, some reptilian birds flying off and gliding for a while and landing again. I think I also saw kind of easal, or a martin, zigzaging and jumping shapes of black and blue.
But the fog was always coming back, mesmerizing, so powerful, controling most of my senses, forcing them to numb, and yield,.
I was completly taken by it’s massive influence and any fight would quickly leak into a surrendering.
It can be so pleasant not to feel anything, and to just let the sensation expend, into blank landscapes of nothingness.
I remembered that, somehow, I collapsed, disappeared and came back.
I’m here again.
I can still feel a pulse under my eyes, in my thoraic cage and I know I’m breathing, narrowly, but breathing.
It is almost a wonderful exprience, except that, a very buried part of me, it is not.
It’s like a charm, operating without my consent.
It’s really good and also, very alarming not to feel.
Something is keeping me numb and I want it and a little region without geography, being my heart wants to burst the bubble. My nerves sense the threat and as soon as I get aware of it, a deeply numbing liquid pulses back to its center.
This is how i discover that it is impossible to fight the fog, because she knows, at the second, everything, all the possible sources of rebellions, and numbs them back.
So what? What should I do?
Surrender? She wants me to.
It’s her delight and her queendom.
The fog is a dominatric and resistance is futile.
It sat for days with this powerlessness, remembering, slowly, that none of this was new.
Drifting in and out of the blank.
Realising that it happened, whitout a fight!
How did I got out?
Was it me?
Was it her?
In those small moment of clarity, I could see the landscapes, the lake, its shores and its possible lives.
And if there are forms of life around, how do they do it? Are they not affected the way I am?
!
And how is Mia doing? How can I only remember her now? It’s been a week that we’ve lost sight and touch and any form of contact. Is she fighting the same struggle?
A wave of reality check knocked me back after those thirty second of thinking about her.
I have to deal with my life thirst. Can’t think for two. Can’t even think for one. Thinking is not a choice anymore. It has become a skill, a capacity almost out of reach, I can’t fight for my mind, for my sanity, for thinking stragith. Resistance is futile
I think that after some times, I found a way to maintain a little space, almost like a fire place, around wich, I could stay a bit more warm and a bit more clear.
The fog around was still all-powerful and did’nt seems to mind my little fire.
It allowed me to contemplate how impressive she was. How deep and almighty she has developped,
I started to wonder if there were a reason for that.
Why the fog? Why thig fog? A physical emanation of this large body of liquid transmutating into gaz? A magnification? Any metaphysical explanations? Does the fog has any desire? Purposes? Needs? Missions? Is the fog conscious? Is she the perfect manifestation of consciouslessnes? What for? Is it really like this on the entire planet? Is it a twist of my perception? Is it a door of non perception? Is it about the fog or about how I react to her?
Slowly, i came to understand that the fog was a glorious protection.
Does it protect the planet from a mercyless sun?
From visitors? From forms of colonizations ?
Is it a way to wrap the planet into mystery? To protect some kind of treasure? Some deep deep vunerability? Or is there something boiling from inside the planet?
As I was contemplating all the possibles beauty of the fog, I started to love her deeply, her cotton wool texture, her tongues, her far reaching arms, her caressing gestures, the soft pleasures she was giving to all that she touches, the sensuality of her orbs, her danses, her large and embrassing body, her moistured lightness, her sensory mist.
If she’s everywhere, maybe it is because she’s acting as a godess, nullifying any form of dissent and at the same time, keeping everyone alive, breathing and sensing, even if, breathing very little and sensing almost nothing.
I decided to be at peace with her way of doing.
If she’s a local godess, let her be.
Now, how can I be present to her immense presence, without intending to fight?
While I was meditating on this question, a ray of sun touched my face.
I surprise myself to hope the fog would stay around, so that possible sun would not burn me.
But the fog seemed to trust the sun, and perhaps, to trust me. This possible trust agitated my heart.
Is Mia here?
Is Mia feeling the sun?
Can I see her ?
Are we ready to meet under the sun?
After that long time in the limbos?
Did she traveled the same journey?
Is she tired?
Am I tired?
I am tired and maybe not ready yet.
I want to drink.
I want to pee.
I want to breath again largely and see how it feels to be me, in the company of the fog, in the company of the sun, in my own company, to it’s possible extents.
And with Mia, we’ll meet again soon.
This, I still trust.
The phantom fists
I woke up realizing that my right hand had been eaten, probably several times, and for a long time. I had many other memories but nothing related to the right hand.
The vague memory of a tongue, precious and slightly purplish, and of a constant but now absent human presence.
An agonizing thought. Without the tongue, the pain.
I’m not in pain yet, but I know the pain is coming.
Nails scratch at the door. The human with the tongue? My memories are hazy but I’m sure he never warned. The scratching becomes tapping. Something cheerful.
« Yes? »
I had never seen this human before, or even this type of human. Or maybe it was a long time ago.
She is a thin, almost puny human. She has a bandaged foot. And she also has a badly cut right hand, down to the hilt. Neither of us can raise our fist, but it is exactly this gesture that comes to us. In silence. Our phantom fists, our first form of rallying.
« I think he’s dead
I found his tongue
I preserved it in aloe juice
We’ll need it. »
She knows
We have the same condition.
But it feels like she woke up longer ago than I did.
So she tells me our story:
« When Stupefaction blew up our nervous systems
some of us started subjugating others in order to survive.
To keep going, my master sucked on my fingers.
For a long time, it was delicious.
I remember electrons of pain and that his tongue, however cold and bluish, flooded the pain with pleasure and awe.
Sometimes, it was me who put my fingers in his mouth. He smiled of our complicity. And I asked for more. I don’t know how many serfs survived their master. I don’t know much.
I knew that you were there and that we had to leave.
Together.
I don’t know how we will hold on.
I have a tongue with me. »
As we listened to him, memories and islands of meaning docked very slowly.
The amazement touched us differently.
Chasms of anguish
Calls for help
Offers of remission
Little by little, mutual aid mutated into dependence.
Short-circuiting the reference points, the memories of the past.
« What is left of love when everything is gone?
Can we help each other without getting caught up?
I want to shout yes,
but a tingling in my lips, my fingers, those of my left hand and those even more lively of my absent right hand
reminds me that it is my body that will know from now on.
My throat is knotted
it pulses,
and catches its breath
« I don’t know
We’ll try.
We’ll tell each other everything that we sense
We’ll dive into listening, often.
To the zone of emergence.
Everything that rises.
What we think we see, want and feel coming.
Two to three times a day.
« Right now? »
« Right now. »
The Vaccum Vortex
There is a strong wind, that come from within.
it s more of an absorbtion than a push.
It takes everything
It want everything
It wants to get it all
Just does not have the capacities to store anything
it create a black hole
where my thoughts go howling,
and sometimes
i can feel, a little black flag
at the very back
that can feel
a few thoughts
going up
getting up
like bubbles
in a sky
of infinite ligthness
but most
of the mass
of thoughts
black out
and curl
and hoard
in there
somewhere
below
the scope of my vision
i can only feel it
an invisible mass
that take on weight
into the
my reptilien reflexes
are getting caught
and caught
in tensions
pressures
and glued