Et ces inscriptions, là devant lui: crevez.
crevez.
A meter in two. Ce sont bien des moucherons que l'on avait écrasés sur le mur pour y inscribe ces lettres immensees. Insects par insects. Un return primatif, celui du sang comme pigment. This matière visqueuse, violacée et cramoisie. The fallut s'approcher et constater les aplats blacks des cadavres, éclatés et collés à jamais. Des centaines d'entre eux. The petits amas de mucus pâteux, pareils à des taches d'encre. De sang et de moucherons, donc, c'est ainsi que l'on pourrait plus tard résumer son séjour dans ce taudis.
Les cellules, elles, n'avaient jamais si bien porté leur nom. Et encore, this is a peine si ce lieu méritait une definition. A tas de boue. A cénotaphe où flinguer ce qu'il vous reste d'odorat. Vraiment, ce genre d'endroit qui vous donne une raison de passer le nœud coulant. Comment dire? Sept mètres carrés de jaunisse – the air asphyxié d'urine. Et les toilettes bouchées bien entendu. Les toilettes où flottent deux vieilles chaussettes dépareillées. Des briques vides de jus d'orange, cells des petits déjeuners que les anciens détenus ont abandonnées. Un fameux graillon, c'est cela ; le sordide spectacle d'une civilization défaite. The remainder of repas micro-ondés, planqués derrière a siphon troué, and où se joue a péplum à taille réduite de larves et d'asticots. Jules César, au milieu, c'est-à-dire a mouche deux fois plus grosse que ses semblables. Homme ou insecte, ici, all the world rests cloué au sol.
Ratatinés. Détruits.
And there are human traces, all in one car. Copeaux d'ongles rongés and cheveux orphelins. Les traces de ceux passés avant vous. Des condamnations dérisoires pour la plupart, morceaux de shit et vols de téléphones. Les cartes bleues soustraites aux distributors et les coups de genoux dans les côtes d'un videur. Des condamnations de pacotille et, au milieu de this foire, les hommes muets. Ceux qui s'attendent à être transférés vers les cours d'assises ; ceux qui saved qu'ils n'en sortiront pas demain. Ils restent souvent debout devant la porte, le regard droit et vague, fixé vers le néant, et ne répondent à aucune provocation des toxicomanes ou des uniformes. Ils n'en sortiront pas. Ni lundi ni dans six mois. Quelque chose d'autre – un temps violent. In the years before, you can say that the world is accomplished with the avant-garde salt. C'est quelque chose d'inscrit dans leurs yeux, regardez, ces décennies de silence qui les attendent, toutes ces magouilles à négocier et la bonne conduite à prétendre. Les hommes muets sont pleins de larmes retenues ; ils attendent l'isolement derrière les portes de metal des prisons, les vraies. Matthieu Peck, Déjà les mouches (Gallimard, 2023)
You can see it – the ports are in plexiglass. C'est ainsi que l'on garde les justiciables et la vermine, derrière des plaques à demi transparentes. Les architectes qui ont imaginé cela sont des surdoués du mal. The virtuoso of the agony. Ce n'est pas derrière de vulgaires barreaux qu'ils vous enferment – non. Ils vous séquestrent in les odeurs de vos semblables, mendiants et violeurs ; ils vous force à humer les sauces d'existences insoupçonnées. This is exact, this putréfaction précise et raffinée: the musc de ceux prêts à être enterrés. If you can find all the coins, there will be no airing in these boxes. Vous y êtes convié, asseyez-vous, cordialement ou tire de force ; Escorté parmi les chemins de trainees brunes et vicieuses – les intestins des villes.
And those inscriptions there in front of him: dead.
died.
One by two meters. They really were mosquitoes that someone had squashed against the wall to write those enormous letters. Insect by insect. A return to the primitive, with blood as the pigment. That viscous, violet and crimson substance. You had to get closer to see the black, flat carcasses, ruptured and stuck together forever. Hundreds of them. Small clumps of gooey mucus that looked like inkblots. Blood and mosquitoes—that's how you might later sum up your stay in that filthy hole.
The cells had never lived up to their name so well. And even then, there was hardly a definition for this place. A pile of mud. A shrine to the dead, where you can ruin what little sense of smell you have left. Truly, the kind of place that gives you a reason to drop the noose. How can I put it? Seven square meters of jaundice—the air suffocating with urine. And the toilet, of course, clogged. The toilet, in which two old, mismatched socks float. Empty orange juice cartons, the breakfast boxes, left behind by former inmates. A rancid stench of grease, that's it; the squalid spectacle of a fallen civilization. The remains of microwave meals hidden behind a leaky drain, in which a miniature epic film of larvae and maggots is playing out. Julius Caesar in the middle, that is, a fly twice the size of its kin. Whether human or insect, all remain pinned to the ground here. Things no longer happen in the air, but are stuck fast to the cold, damp concrete.
Annihilated. Destroyed.
And then the human traces all around. Nail clippings and stray hairs. The marks of those who came before you. Most of them were given ridiculous sentences for hashish and stolen phones. Blue cards snatched from ATMs and knees to a bouncer's ribs. Petty crime and, amidst this commotion, the silent men. Those waiting to be transferred to the jury court; those who know they won't get out tomorrow. They often stand by the door, staring blankly into the void, unresponsive to any provocation from the drug addicts or the uniformed officers. They won't get out. Not on Monday, not in six months. But something else will—a time of violence. Perhaps in years, who knows, but not before the world has taken its somersault forward. It's something written in their eyes, look, these decades of silence that await them, all the machinations that have to be negotiated here, and the good manners that have to be feigned. The silent men are filled with held-back tears; they are waiting for solitary confinement behind the metal doors of prisons, the real kind.
But there's nothing to see—the doors are made of Plexiglas. This is how prisoners and vermin are kept behind semi-transparent panels. The architects who conceived this are highly gifted in evil. Virtuosos of agony. They don't lock you behind ordinary bars—no. They keep you imprisoned in the smells of your own kind, beggars and rapists; they force you to sniff the stench of unknown existences. That's precisely it, this precise and refined decay: the musk of those ready to be buried. You can search every nook and cranny, but there's no ventilation in these boxes. You're shown in, you sit down, willingly or by force; escorted along the paths by brown, malevolent streaks—the entrails of the cities. 1
This article is written in German and can be found at https://rentree.de. Automatic translations into English and French are available. English, French.
Notes- "Wealthy businessman Gilles Krafft, embroiled in a power struggle, confesses the darker aspects of his existence to his best friend. For one night, the two men are drawn into a spiral of jealousy and resentment. They relive the most important episodes of their lives and try to convince each other of their decisions. What path did Gilles Krafft have to take to rise to his position? What role did Janice, with whom they were both in love, play in their shared downfall?" Déjà les mouches "Lets us immerse ourselves in a world where everyone reaches their limits, where loneliness clashes and fates are dangerously thrown into turmoil." (Translation of the publisher's announcement.)>>>
