A loud deafening sound; the birds, the crows following and observing me, fly away, flapping their wings into the night, and a warm sirupy pond caresses my groin. I stumble, I graze skin, I get back up, I hurtle down, I hang, I whimper, I look back, I see, I fear, I scratch the earth, I grab some, I throw some, I run on all four, I run on all two, I suffer, I touch my stomach, I notice, I see red, I learn, I realize, I weaken, I hear, I spin, I collide, I crawl, I lose my mind, I don't intellige anymore, I absurdate, I obscenate, I obscurate, I nauseate, and [[je crève.|Je crève]]

\t*Left and right, blurriness as far as the eye can see, and up ahead, the immensity of life, stretched in a single path. This path might branch out, forking and changing according to one's choices, but will always appear endless, mysterious, unknown, vague, like a simple line running across time.\n\n\t*Highs and lows, like sailing on the unbridled seas. In the trough of the wave, it always seems impossible to get back on one's feet; once on the crest, in the grip of vertigo, it is easy to fall back into the depths of despair. But that is indeed what life is, to-ing and fro-ing. The path doesn't move right and left, but up and down, wavering between efforts, raptures and relapses.\n\n\t*And one day, everything riddles, everything petrifies, everything strafes. We crystallize, we scratch the walls, the arms, the faces, we don't want to, but there is no other way. We wither away, we grind to a halt, we wage war against ourselves, against the inside, the putrid, the foul. [[We want purification.|Animadversion]] \n\t\n\t*And when we manage to do so, it is the end. When finally comes a time for apotheosis, nothing moves behind the walls, built one after the other, to protect us from harm, one day, everyday, always, nothing moves, nothing moves. And everything explodes. Like a bullet right in the heart, we explode, we implode, and it is the end.\n\n\t*After the end, it's not all over. At first, we survive, in someone's memory, someone's spirit, we survivre. We materialise, in the shape of monuments, of urns, of graves, of crypts, of piles of earth "to the memory of [[Charlotte|I]]." Delusions. Soon enough, these catalysts, these heaps of stone, steel or marble, stop surviving as well. Those who would remember give way to many lines of graves, and those who now remember don't remember the ones those they remember used to remember. After the end, after our end's end, we end up forgotten, invaded, left behind. Matter remains but the symbol disappears. And we stay there, on each side of the path of life, like many ghosts in the dark blurriness of the woods.

But we forgot to consider the solidarity of matter. Some might call it fate, others karma; I simply thought every thing had a soul, I thought stones and plants and manufactured goods had a memory; I believed they would remember, physically, they would tell their story, would take revenge. Back in your studio, you, infanticidal father, modern-times Chronos, you died as well. Maybe did you end up alone, lost, bitter, assaulted by grief and remorse, maybe did you start seeing my face, everywhere, all the time, in this statue, this sculpture, this pile of clay, I haunted you, I followed you, I withered you away, I vanished you and you disappeared. Maybe were your creations, worthy representations of your artistic descendants, possessed by wrath, by revenge, and by bloodlust, maybe did they smash down onto you, maybe did they crash, did they crush, did they destroy.\n\nMy body was later found on the beach. I was erected a monument, a sepulcher of marble and stone, decorated with your creations, my peers, my sisters.\n\nI do not care about what happened to you. If I had a say, I would have fed you to the pigs, and I would have made it so that no one would ever be able to remember you anywhere. \n\n[[I killed my father.|Epitaphs]]\n\nThe king is dead - long live the king.\n

-When I saw it, at the beginning of our interview, I thought it was a family portrait. This is only almost true. It is, in fact, a portrait of Jordan and his best friends, Charles, Stephany and Aurelia, drawn by Aurelia herself. \n-This drawing was a Christmas gift, three years ago. "It was a total surprise." The four of them were present when he opened the package.\n-Jordan met Aurelia first, through a common friend. She welcomed him into her home while he was visiting Paris, and they then became friends when he moved there to go to college.\n-Stephany and Charles went to the same high-school as Aurelia. Jordan became their friend little by little. Stephany studies art and literature and is trying to enter l'école de Louvre. Charles studies statistics and financial mathematics. \n-Aurelia's style is a bit peculiar. "It's a little bit of everything." Half anime, half realistic. She often draws with plenty of small lines and with watercolor. She is studying in a national art school. Nowadays, she paints abstract landscapes and architecture.\n-The portrait is displayed on top of a shelf.\n-This portrait is one of the last memories he has of their first years being friends. He doesn't take a lot of pictures anymore, because it prevents people from actually enjoying the moment.\n-The four of them are really close because they share the same hobbies and sense of humor. They joke a lot together and can spend entire days together without really talking to each other, but they still feel happy and contempt together. They are like a second family.\n-Jordan is the only one of them who went to university, right after high-school when he was 17, to study literary translation. He went to Paris 8, after having spent two weeks in Paris 3. When talking about his experience in the French school system, he stated: "if you want to succeed in France, you have to put up with the jealousy of others. When you are good at what you are doing, people want to drag you down."\n-He left Pau when he was 17 to go live in Paris. It was really hard at first, because he had been living alone with his mom for quite a while. He had to get used to it. During his first semester, he was always alone and didn't have a lot of activities or hobbies. A lot of people were questioning his choice of living alone in the capital city and didn't think a 17-year old could be responsible and independant enough to live on their own. "When I arrived in Paris, there was only Aurelia." Then, a group dynamic appeared between him and Aurelia's friends during a New Year's Eve party. \n-When asked about his family, he said that for vacations and holidays, he always have to choose: his mom lives in the south-west of France, but everyone else lives in Alsace. He has a very good relationship with his mother.\nWhen asked about his education, he sais that he was able to thrive and grow through the act of translation. He is currently translation the autobiography of an American trans woman, Jennifer Finney Boylan. This is part of his Master's thesis because he is extremely interested in gender issues and trans questions.

[[Here Lies|See Life]] [[Charlotte Louise Giot|I]]\nOctober 7, 1930 – November 26, 1952\nForever In Our Hearts\n\n[[Here Lies Raoul Adolphe Giot|Infanticide]] \nApril 19, 1896 – November 26, 1952\nFornever In Our Hearts\n\n

//Charlotte// is all, //Charlotte// is none.\n\nKnow that in this lair, you might be disoriented; lost among many spirits of Charlottes and non-Charlottes; harassed by so many "I"s. Repetition is here a desirable and desired phenomenon. Feel free to be free and never submit to any whims nor rules. I hope you will appreciate your time in our company.\n\n[[Three Days|First]] \n\n[[Infanticide]]\n\n[[Sentinel]]\n\n[[Animadversion]]\n\n[[Toys and Dolls]]\n\n[[Flûte]]\n\n<html><strike>Eye</strike></html>\n\n[[See|Life or life?]]\n\n[[A hunter that knows how to hunt...|When?]]

When the sun rose, I heard the silence in the air and thought I was done for, thought everything was done for. A part of me was exulting, I am free, finally, after all this time, I am free, it's all over, everything is gonna be ok, I am free, while another one was despairing, [[I am lost|Warrior]], I am going to be killed, slaughtered like a beast, it's all over, I am dead, here, in the middle of the woods, and my corpse will be left to rot under the soft cold earth, I am lost.\n

Or at least I try to. My shirt and my skin are merging, and at each and every one of my strides, the pain gets stronger, my weapon gets heavier, my spirit gets slower. I wander and wobble among the trees. In the muggy mist, shadows are dancing, haunting. I see you, I see your smile when we first met, our passion when we began, the hate around us, the love within us. Nothing mattered; only your eyes, only your happiness, only you. We had given up everything, we had left everything, and we thought we could live together, just the two of us, we thought no one would come and encloud our little earthly paradise. But we were wrong. Soon enough, war came around, its macabre shadow looming over our entwined bodies, and a moment later, we were enlisted.\n\nIt was long after the first shell rains on the tin roofs, long after the first conquered sleepy towns, long after the first food shortage.\n\nI see you float in the air before me, but you're not here. Your voice is echoing through the woods, I see you, I hear you, I feel you, everywhere, all the time. Sometimes, you are a stump, sometimes a bush, sometimes the putrid corpse of a soldier I do not know but [[for whom I cried as if it were you|See my life]]. Warm tears and cold sweat now drip together. I am nothing but a heap of salt, glistening, shining, glimmering, thirsty, shaky, empty, fevered, tired, injured, wandering, staggering, teetering, drained, stained, scatterbrained, thoughtless, powerless, aimless, frozen, fallen, storm-beaten, hurt, lost, finished, worn out, passed out, blacked out.\n\n

Boris is my pillar. My sine qua non. My necessary, my indispensable, my husband.

But I was wrong. A completely different path was chosen: the path of the warrior. I thus transformed and morphed [[into a wolf, a predator|Deadly Waltz]], [[into a stag, a piece of game|Deathly Waltz]], and I started running, and running, and running, for my life and my spirit emptied, empty, amp, tee, am, am.

[[A Legendary Past|Run]]\n\n[[A Legendless Present|Run]]

When the trunk opened, I saw the blueness of the sky and thought I was done for, thought everything was done for. A part of me was exulting, I am free, finally, after all this time, I am free, it's all over, I am free, everything is gonna be ok, I am free, but another part was despairing, [[I am dead|Hunter]], I am going to be killed, slaughtered like a beast, it's all over, I am dead, here, in the middle of the woods, and my corpse will be left to rot under the soft cold earth, I am dead.

I am lost. As far as the eye can see, trees are moving around me. I run. I flee. I pray. [[I am |Challenge]] [[not alone.|Man]] I can hear the branches and their foliage whispering in the wind, sighing, the dead leaves rustling under each stride. I don't think, not anymore; instinct took over.\n

There is a clearing, or rather what is left of it. Once flat, it is now scattered with craters, with muddy holes, full of rain and debris. I see you everywhere; in my eyes, your body is multiplied; your pain, and mine, tenfold... I see you, I see you, everywhere, everytime; each corpse carries your face, carries my memories, carries our lost hopes. But you're nowhere to be seen.\n\nI may be a deserter, but I won't abandon you, I won't desert you, I won't leave you, ever. When you vanished, I vanished as well, I went away and searched for you; and now, they are searching for me as well. I might wander around for eternity doing so, but [[I will find you, my love.|See my life]]

There is a forest path, drowned by darkness and mist; you are lying across it, in the mud, in the leaves. I see them feasting on your body; talons and claws deep within your entrails, beaks covered in glistening blood, wings spread wide and far, eyes glaring with vice, reveling in your life. The closer I come, the farther you go. I try to run, I try to scream, but the crows hurting you, the crows devouring you, are not moving, they are not fleeing, not disappearing. Then, you suddenly vanish and fade away. And my body hits the cold wet earth.\n\nI wake up in a damp freezing ditch. Gunshots echo in the sky above and I violently remember. We're at war and [[you are dead.|See my life]]

But I was wrong. A completely different path was chosen: the path of the hunter. I thus transformed and morphed [[into a deer, a prey|Deathly Waltz]], [[into a wolf, a wild animal|Deadly Waltz]], and I started running, and running, and running, for my life, and my spirit emptied, empty, amp, tee, am, am.

A loud deafening sound; the birds, the crows following and observing me, fly away, flapping their wings into the night, and a warm sirupy pond caresses my groin. I stumble, I graze skin, I get back up, I hurtle down, I hang, I whimper, I look back, I see, I fear, I scratch the earth, I grab some, I throw some, I run on all four, I run on all two, I suffer, I touch my stomach, I notice, I see red, I learn, I realize, I weaken, I hear, I spin, I collide, I crawl, I lose my mind, I don't intellige anymore, I absurdate, I obscenate, I obscurate, I nauseate, ''I slice, I kill'', and [[je crève.|Je crève]]

Among the ruins, roots are tripping me, stones are grazing me. Blind with fever and pain, I grope around, clinging, shivering, looking. I don't understand, I don't get it anymore, I don't know, where I am, who I am, I do not know anymore. The only thing obsessing me, haunting me, is you. I despair of seeing you again. How am I supposed to find you, among the chaos, in the shapeless world around us, up hill and down dale? How am I supposed to keep my promise, when I lost knowing, I lost seeing, I lost hearing? I don't want to stop, but I cannot take it anymore.\n\nOut of breath and out of strength, I sit down and lean against the pedestal of a sculpture. From the top of a horse, a knight looks down on me, judging. Witness of the surrounding disaster and only figure still standing among the eviscerated walls and slaughtered columns, he doesn't blink, does not flinch. Suddenly, something draws my attenion, like a slick of color in the mist. A crimson stain in the brownish-green of the woods. Triggered: inside, everything blazes up, gushes out, blows off. This crimson stain is my handkerchief. The one I gave you before you vanished, the one I gifted to you so that you could always think of me, come what may. \n\nI crawl as fast as I can to reach you, to reach your body; your collapsed, slumped over, sagging body. Lifeless. Your fist is clenching my crimson handkerchief, the symbol of our love, trying to convince you I was there for you, with you, next to you. I come too late, I am here now. I hug you, I hug your cold body, hold it tight against mine, and cry, cry, cry. You are gone, you are not anymore, and I wasn't there. I will never see you again, I will never see you how you were, full of life, full of joy, full of love. I stroke your sunken eyes, I kiss your wrinkled lips, and I curse myself.\n\nI feel guilty. I am guilty, guilty of the worst of crimes: abandonment. I abandoned you, I didn't keep my promise, and you died alone, in fear and doubt, alone, when I promised you, I promised we were going to be together forever, that you would never be alone ever again. Driven by a newfound strength, I start digging, clawing the loose earth. There is a throbbing, shooting pain in my shoulder, but I ignore it. For a long while, only the light sound of my crazy undertaking breaks the sylvan silence. At twilight, the hole is finally big enough for the both of us. I lie down inside it and pull your body towards mine, on mine, close against mine. I cover our bodies with the dirt I had just turned over, trying my best to cover us entirely.\n\nI hug your cold lifeless body, clutch it, wrap it, embrace it, so that we merge and only make one, I stroke your hair, I touch your scent, I taste your skin and I cry. My love is not, my love is no more, our love is no more, and soon your love will be no more. We were not able to die together, but at least we'll rot together, and soon [[our decomposing corpses will be at one|See my life]].\n\n[[I am a man who loved another man|I]] and war, unbiased and impartial, tore us apart.

Charlotte

Silky Cindy tells me mean things, swear words, [[insults them and laughs at them.|Toys]]\nLily-white Lilly tells me I am not pure anymore; I have changed, I have aged.\nRosy-cheeked Rosy tells me I should have remained flat, I shouldn't have grown, it shouldn't have grown; so I tie her, burn her, melt her. \nCha cha Marina tells me I was looking for it, with my curves, I am only a temptress; he only succumbed to my delights, I can't blame him for it.\nGolden-haired Grace tells me I need to shut up, silence is gold; nobody needs to know, nobody needs to know I'm a whore.\nCallous Alice tells me being raped is being loved, she repeats it, repeat, repeat; so I beat her and beat her and eat her and off with her head.\nMischievous Mia tells me I can't complain: I enjoy it; so I rape her, I kick her, I choke her, I bite her and do to her what he does to me.\n\n\n[[But...|Mine]]

I am only obsessed by the scream: "Be a man."\nAn enemy. I am but an enemy, an enemy whose existence means nothing. Against the life following me, against this life, I am worth nothing. I am only here for my country; I need to run through the woods, avoid the bullets lacerating my flesh; for my country, I need to [[last|War]].

[[Fathers are so much more fascinating than music to me and I do not work on my notes.|Interviewer]]\n\nFlûte, flûte, flûte, flûte de flûte et re-re-flûte.\n\nThis is not ok. At. All. [[My ears are bleeding|Bloody]]. My brain is melting. My fingers are digging in the fold-up seat's red armrests. My musical sense is bristling. My jaws are shut tight. My entire being convulses, wants to flee, to run away. I try to remember the relaxation classes Susan made me attend, but to no avail, I try to breathe, breathe in, breathe out, deep breaths, and I try to see myself on a deserted island, in a luxuriant jungle, floating away peacefully in the vastness of the sea, and whatnot, but nothing works. Although I try, again and again, to close my eyes, the sound always brings me back to reality.\n\nThis horrible sound. This cacophony, this disharmony, this shindig, this hubbub; this torture. This is a sound able to make every dog howl to the moon, every cat spit and hiss, every bird fly away, and every terrestrial, celestial or marine animal panic and die. This music has nothing musical to it and almost possesses a demonic, luciferian power. It is a nightmare.\n\nMy daughter is playing with all her heart, with all her might. I think she realises the horror she and the other "musicians" are creating, I don't think she's taken in by their "performance" or at least, I hope so. I cannot dare imagine she hasn't inherited my musical genes, I cannot dare imagine she actually enjoys the music she's playing. She must be suffering as well, suffering from not being able to play real music, suffering from having to put up with her teacher's stupidity. The more I think about it, the sicker I feel. Out of dignity, I come to wish for my daughter to suffer. How can a father desire his daughter's suffering? How can a father hope his daughter is ashamed of what she's doing? A child should always feel proud and should never have to feel ashamed or beaten down.\n\nBut I can see my daughter isn't happy about what she's doing. Gradually, shrill sounds, screeches and dysharmonies fade and stop. The racket is followed by a deafening silence. None of the parents move, still too stunned by the sonorous violence of the show they've just witnessed. The air is heavy, as if the musical particles remained on hold, stuck in the air. And this silence is almost as painful as the fiendish noise that just stopped playing. I can see the hopeful eyes of all the children, hungry for validation and recognition. I can see them, I can see them, I can see them! All they ever wish for is to make their parents happy. And all I ever wish for [[is to make my daughter happy|First]].\n\nWithout a word, without a thought, I stand up, I look my daughter right in the eyes, and I clap, I clap, I clap as hard as I can, I clap and clap and clap, until my hands are sore, until my hands are bleeding, I clap, and I clap, and I clap.\n\nI am [[a father|I]], and at the exact moment when my daughter's face lights up, I am the happiest of fathers.

I am afraid.\nThis morning, the bell rang several times and woke me up. I just stayed there, playing dead on my mattress, not knowing what to do. I didn't want to open, I didn't want someone, anyone, to see the conditions in which I am living. I am ashamed. I want others to still think I'm normal; I don't wish for their pity.\n[…]\nThe doorbell is ringing again. It is Mr Rollet, I think. What am I gonna do, what am I gonna say?\n[…]\nThe sentence has been pronounced: by tonight, I need to be gone. I was expecting it. But deep down, I hoped I would be forgotten, I thought I would have more time. I tried to tell him I had found a job, I was helping an old lady in her daily chores, I was being paid for it. To no avail: he didn't even want to hear about it. He needs the money and I can't give it to him. He agreed to keep renting the parking spot to me. 100€ a month... I should be able to afford it. I made him promise not to tell anyone in the neighborhood. I don't want to be seen differently. Keep my head held high.\n[…]\nHang in there.\n[…]\nRemain hopeful, it will be ok.\n[…]\nI took a shower and a knife. We never know. It's not that bad in here after all. I am so happy that Boris insisted on buying a minivan and not a coupe like I wanted. It wouldn't have been that easy... I even managed to fit a mattress in the trunk. It is really weird to see that my whole life fits in a car.\nI miss Lucy. Desperately. Cruelly. I can feel a gaping hole in my heart.\nYet, surprisingly so, I am hopeful.\n\nMy name is [[Charlotte|I]], <html><strike>and like every night</strike></html>, tonight, everything is different.\n\nSunday, May 23rd 2011.

[[My father killed me.|Victim]]\n\n[[So I killed my father.|Culprit]]\n\n

Only the untold and silenced is interesting to me, what has been told but not remembered, what has been viewed as insignificant or non-memorable. [[The obvious|Interviewee]] bores me and cores me.\n\nI am nobody, nowhere, never. I don't belong to anything, anywhere, to any community. Or rather, I do not feel like I belong, it doesn't seem that I am a part; I always feel beside, outside, below, above.\n\nI do not share other people's opinions, I do not share other people's lives. There is a gap, a breach, a crack, a border, a hindrance, a discomfort. I disagree and they don't agree.\n\nThis is why I fight for equality, for the end of divisions, the end of squares, the end of labels. But it's utopian, idealistic, I can tell, I feel it, I know it. People are in need, they need to describe, ascribe, classify the world in order to find their place, they long for a sense of belonging, of being in the right place and at the right time. \n\nI am a human being. I am neither a man nor a woman; neither transgender nor cisgender; neither gay, nor straight, neither bisexual nor pansexual; neither agender nor genderfluid; and I could add up so much more to the list. I am only me. I do not want to assign a role or a label to myself, I do not want others to assimilate me to this or that community, because I am unlike any of them. \n\nLet me be alone, let me be in peace, let me be alive, let me be me.\n\nI am Charlotte, I am a father, I am a man in love with another man, I am me, I am thee, I am you, I am her, I am him, I am a mother, I am us, I am Jordan, I am a woman in love with another woman, I am Kyoko, I am me, I am me, I am me, I am me, I AM ME, I AM ME, I AM ME, I AM ME.\n\n[[That is all.|Start]]

I am only obsessed by the whisper: "Be a challenge."\nA game. I am but a game, a game whose existence means nothing. Against the eye following me, against this I, I am worth nothing. I am only here for pleasure; I need to run through the woods, avoid the brambles lacerating my nakedness; for pleasure, but not for mine, I need to [[last|Murder]].\n

body{color:#8E8D8D;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif;font-size:62.5%;margin:4em 15% 5% 5em;#sidebar{position:fixed;top:4.2em;left:7.5em;width:12em;list-style:none;margin:0;padding:0 1em 0 0;font:bold 1.1em Verdana,sans-serif}#sidebar li{color:#333;text-align:right;background-repeat:no-repeat;margin-bottom:1em}#sidebar li:hover{color:#fff;cursor:pointer}#sidebar li a{color:#333}#sidebar li a:hover{color:#fff;text-decoration:none}#sidebar #title{color:#999;font-size:150%;cursor:auto}#sidebar #title a{color:#999}#sidebar #title a:hover{color:#fff}#sidebar #storyAuthor{font-size:50%}#sidebar #storyMenu{display:none;line-height:2.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em}#sidebar #title:hover{color:#999}#sidebar #credits{padding-top:2em;font-weight:normal;font-size:80%;cursor:auto}#sidebar #credits:hover{color:#333}#sidebar #credits a{text-decoration:none}.menu{position:absolute;display:none;background-color:#343434;color:#fff;opacity:0.9;border:1px solid #fff;text-align:left;font:1.1em Verdana;line-height:2em}.menu div{padding:0 0.4em}.menu div:hover{cursor:pointer;background-color:#fff;color:#343434}#passages{margin-left:18.2em;border-left:1px solid #333;padding-left:1.5em}.passage{font-size:1.2em;line-height:175%;margin-bottom:2em;text-align:left}.passage ul{padding-top:1.3em;text-align:center}.passage li{display:inline;margin-right:6em}a.internalLink,a.externalLink,a.back{color:#4d6ad8;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none}a.internalLink:hover,a.externalLink:hover,a.back:hover{color:#8ea6ff;text-decoration:underline}a.brokenLink{background-color:red;text-decoration:none;color:#000}.marked{background-color:red;color:#000;margin-right:12px;padding:3px}.passage ul{margin-left:0.5em;padding-left:1.5em}.passage ol{margin-left:0.5em;padding-left:1.5em}.passage table{border-collapse:collapse;font-size:100%;margin:0.8em 1em}.passage th,.passage td,.passage tr,.passage caption{padding:3px}.passage hr{height:1px}#storeArea{display:none}</style>

In my eyes, a last image, [[a path.|Crows]]\nIn my nose, a last scent, [[humus.|Rotting]]\nIn my skin, a last sensation, [[the roughness of decaying leaves.|Toys and Dolls]]\nIn my mouth, a last taste, [[blood.|Bloody]]\nIn my ears, a last sound, [[silence.|Flûte]]

I am cold.\nTo while away the time, I fold pretty little pieces of paper. It keeps me busy, too. Without it, who knows what I'd do. Tear my own hair out? Bite my nails off? Wander about like a lost soul, in the emptiness, in the darkness, in that home that doesn't have anything to do with me anymore? \n\nMaddened shadows are dancing, animating the naked white walls. All is gone. Nothing remains. Nothing but a heap of clothes and memories, some candles, blank pieces of paper. A clean space onto which I can externalize my pain, my anger, my despair. It's hard. Writing makes me face the ice-cold reality, makes it more vivid. But I prefer it over laying down on the floor, lifeless, amorphous, sickening emotions rotting inside. Going on writing is difficult. I am shaking; shivering. Maybe will I die here tonight, left alone in the dark? Sometimes, I believe everything would be easier, if only I could disappear... But I can't. She relies on me.\n\nI don't cry anymore ; I can't, I already cried too much. Behind me, Lucy tosses and turns under the covers, as if, [[in her dreams|Sentinel]], she could sense the horror reality will display when she awakes. Tomorrow will be like a first death. Tomorrow will be a nightmare at its peak. Until now, I had to resist, I had to endure every blow, coming relentlessly, unceasingly, one after the other. [[Boris]]' "you're under arrest", his condemnation, his disappearance. Mommy's death, her burial, her disappearance. But how can I endure Lucy's removal, her placement, her disappearance? When it's her that forces me to smile everyday, to never give up, to never pull the plug? \n\nTomorrow, my daughter will be snatched away from me. I will be deprived of a part of me, of my dear little daughter. What was the worst in all of that was to see the incomprehension in her eyes. I forced myself to answer, it's for you, for your happiness, it won't last long. But I don't really believe it.\n\nThe flame flickers; now the light too has abandoned me.\n\nMy name is [[Charlotte|I]], and just like every night, I sink into the darkness.\n\nSunday, May 16th, 2011.\n\n[[X|Second]]

[[My stuffed animals, they are dearies.|Toys]]\n\n[[My dolls, they are meanies.|Dolls]]\n\nI have a treasure as well, a silent treasure who never tells me anything but who's extremely precious to me. A dead leaf, a fallen oak leaf that must have reached me, stuck under the sole of his shoe. I often enjoy using its rough edges to caress my soft squishy skin; to permeate my entire being with the surrounding nature I will never have access to.

For all these years, I have only been living a lie; some will say that I am one of the luckiest characters of that story, some will say I cannot complain; others, however, will convince me that I too am but a victim and that I haven't done anything wrong. I have nothing to be blamed for.\n\nBut I know none of this is true. I have everything to be blamed for. Everything. I didn't see anything; didn't do anything. I lived, happy, for all these years, in my own little world, while under my feet, hell and horror were living. I lived, happy, for all these years, in my own little world, while under my feet, slowly, silently, my family was suffering, choking; dying. \n\nI should have seen in my night terrors some dark foreboding, a premonition, an omen. These black visions, these painful faces, this burnt-flesh smell, and this voice, this voice. I always believed these scenes were complete fabrications of my mind, fed by the fear I had of him, of his tyrranical voice, of his steely blue eyes.\n\nI should have known, I should have seen, should have felt that this void inside me, that this impression of permanent emptiness, this feeling of incompleteness wasn't just a figment of my imagination, was not me showing off, bragging, faking, as he would always repeat it to me. I wished I could have talked about it with my sister, with my grandmother, but they would have told him: nothing could be hidden from him. And that's precisely what was the most terryifing to me.\n\nI am a coward, I only deserve hate. My life is nothing but a pack of lies, a paradox. My grandfather is also my father; my mother is my half-sister. When the blunt truth came to light, I started to hate myself right away: why had I deserved to live outside, upstairs, and not the others? Why had I survived, and not my brother, my twin, my alter ego?\n\nI deserve to die because I've had a life. I am an abomination, a monster, [[the fruit of incest|Toys and Dolls]] and hell. Born in horror, born in pain, born in death; born torn up, torn out, torn open, torn apart.\n\nIt is time for me to be punished. It is time for me to see that privilege, that life I didn't deserve, snatched away from me. It is time for me to return to my other self, to know the end, and to reach [[fullness|Rotting]]. I resent myself, hate myself for having been allowed to live; that was a mistake.\nAnd I am going to correct it.\n\nMy name is [[Charlotte|I]] and tonight, I burn, I melt, I crackle; I meet with this brother I've never known but always loved, and I finally go to hell.

This is not merely a middle-school recorder. It had been gifted to her for Christmas in 1996 instead of a Butterfly Princess Barbie doll. This was her biggest childhood frustration: she had asked Santa for a Barbie, not for a recorder, and thus was in total and utter shock. Due to her extreme disappointment, the next day, her dad had to go buy her the doll, telling her Santa had only "forgotten" about it. \n\nShe played the recorder in a music school until she was 11. She then moved out and had to play in an academy until she was 16 in 2006. At first, she wasn't happy and would have rather played the violin, but she learned to like it. One of her teacher was amazing: she ended up loving the instrument because she loved the teacher.\n\nWhen entering the academy, she was considered as having very little talent and was sent to the beginner's classes. At the end of her last year, the academy's director wrote a very lame opera. Being part of the orchestra, and learning how to play this piece, was a requirement and was adding up two hours of classes a week. In March, after months working on it, all the students were told the performance was cancelled, only increasing their overall lack of motivation. She started skipping classes, except one recorder class taught by a hippie new age professor. She never passed the exam at the end of the year and stopped playing classical music for good.\n\nAt school, she used to play some Fauré and some Lully (Pavane pour le roi). Now she only plays movie soundtracks, but she doesn't bother with music sheets anymore.\n\nLearning how to play the recorder was still useful through middle-school, as she was able to skip all the music classes and do her homework instead.\n\nHer recorder was very cheap, old and worn-out, with the wood finish disappearing where her fingers had been too often. \n\nHer first concert was very lackluster. The second, however, was extremely strange. It was designed around the concept of musical haikus (written by one of her professors himself, but they were not great at all). Her father was a hardcore classical music enthusiast; he came but didn't enjoy the experience at all. The grand finale, some sort of messy cacophonic improvisation, was the straw that broke the camel's back, and he only bore a look of utter disgust on his face for the rest of the concert. When they were done "playing", however, he suddenly stood up and clapped, and clapped, and clapped. He was so happy it was over.\n\nAfter that fateful day, he never ever came back to sit at one of his daughter's concerts and would let his new-age music loving wife go instead of him.\n

[[*I see you far off in the distance and I run.|Crows]] \n\n[[*I see you far off in the distance and I run.|Deserter]]\n\n[[*I see you far off in the distance and I run.|Bloody]]\n\n[[*I see you far off in the distance and I run.|Remember]]\n\n[[*I don't see, I don't run, not anymore, and yet; you are here.|Rotting]]

But deep within me, another voice, a powerful one, drowns out all the others and joins the porcelain dolls' litany: [[Charlotte|I]], one of my voices, tells me that everything is my fault; and if I want things to stop, all I have to do is punish myself, and [[disappear.|Animadversion]]

I am convinced you are here, safe and sound, inside this forlorn defensive tower. It resisted many assaults, many bullets, and I am certain you resisted as well. I refuse to believe you could have died alone, without me by your side, without letting me tag along on our last long journey. When I lost you, I lost my mind, lost my caution, lost my fear. I don't think; I run you. I scream you. I call you. I want you. I need you.\n\nBang. Everything spins, everything shakes, everything stains. For a minute, the entire world stops and turns black and white. When I understand, when I understand this is not you, when I do understand, it's too late. I turn around and run away, I don't look back, I run off until I vanish into the night, until I sink into oblivion.\n\nMy blood is oozing, my blood is pouring. A crimson river is spilling from my shoulder; a carmine river dripping at each of my fingertips. The red fascinates, the pain vitalizes. I will not fail. [[I want to find you, I want to see you. And I will.|See my life]] \n\n

[[See Life]] or [[See my life]] ?

I am hungry.\nI just had Boris on the phone. While in the phonebooth, I got stared at like a madwoman. I wanted to punch them. I wanted to see them in my situation. They don't get it; they can't. They don't know. They don't know.\nI would love to be a madwoman, I would at least have a roof, I would be confined to an institution, I would be nice and warm, I would have things to eat. But I refuse to lose the little lucydity I have remaining. I almost forgot everything, forgot myself, forgot this life; I almost let myself drift towards the next one. When they snatched my daughter away from me, I wanted to give up, I wanted to starve to death in a hidden lair. \nSpeaking to Boris helped. Of course, for him, everything is easier. He has a bed, central heating. He can bathe, he can eat, he can avoid thinking about tomorrow. He fucked up; I didn't. He's the one who brought us all down with him. And yet, I have fallen way harder than him, I have sinked way deeper. It's so unfair.\nAt least, he made me want to fight. To wrestle to get back what I had. To recover my daughter, my life; my dignity. I won't make the same mistakes, not ever again. I won't let my life depend on someone else's.\n\nBehind me, no one is sleeping on the mattress anymore. I am all alone, but I won't last. I mean, I think...\n\nMy name is [[Charlotte|I]], and just like every night, I wonder and ponder if it will be the last one I have.\n\nWednesday, May 19th 2011\n\n[[X|Third]]

You've never been my father. You've never loved me. You've never loved anyone but your sculptures, your statues of stone, marble and clay, your creations. Actually, you've never loved anyone but you. These statues, these "pieces", represent a part of you, represent a part of your talent, of your life, of your "genius", and you take great pleasure in admiring them, in admiring you, you, Narcissus of Tahiti.\n\nAnd if you had let me live, if you had let me live my life, by myself, without interfering, everything could have perfectly worked out. I had never come and sought you, I had never asked you anything. You made me believe I was nothing to you, so I started believing you were nothing to me either, nothing other than a creator, a seed, a tool. I wonder sometimes why you never had me adopted, why you never abandoned me on someone else's doorstep. Then, I remember, I remember it could have tarnished your reputation, your honor; the neighbors would have talked, muttered, murmured, whispered.\n\nYou were also seeing me as one of your creations, as one of your statues, and never would you have abandoned, sold, given away any of them, no matter how vile or disappointing they could be. You always prefered breaking them, destroying them, remodeling them; making them disappear yourself, your own way, hammering, chiseling, even throwing the debris in the cold black sea. And here I was, the vilest and most disappointing of all your creations, the least successful and yet the most alive. Imperfect, impure, unfinished, it was impossible, however, to remodel me to perfection, to transform me entirely. You thus chose to destroy me. You waited, you waited until you were certain you couldn't do anything else, you waited for me to grow up, for me to suffer your daily hammering, for me to be penetrated by your creating power, to be remodeled by your words, your fits of anger, your will; you waited for my inside to be destroyed, conquered, for my self to be vilified, hated, insulted, scorned, trampled, you waited for me to be nothing, nothing more than a pile of flesh and a broken spirit, nothing more than an object, your object, your belonging, without any will of my own, you waited for me to be yours.\n\nAfter my destruction, after my annihilation, you noticed that rebuilding a spirit was harder than rebuilding matter. And so you pulled me, dragged me, slid the one you said was a slut, and you threw me away, like you would throw trash away, you pushed me over the edge of a cliff, without any possibility for me to react, I was too busy vegetating, too busy licking my inner wounds, too busy rebuilding my self, you threw me away. For a moment, I thought I could fly, I opened my arms to make wings out of them and I screamed, I screamed, shrilling like a harpy, I screeched, I succumbed to fear, to maddenedness, I cursed you one last time, I met with the vastness of the waves and sea, I smashed, I shattered, and I disappeared.\n\n[[My father killed me.|Epitaphs]]\n\nDeath is dead - long live death!\n

Bonnie the bunny tells me I shouldn't worry, I should stop thinking about it, I should hop and prance and live my life to the fullest.\nMoolissa the cow tells moo I need to think about it calmooly, take my time, and not do anything inconsiderate.\nPenny the Hen tells me I have to stay on my toes and send [[the haters|Dolls]] go fry an egg.\nHorace the Horse and Mary the Mare tell me I need to pounce, rear, thrash to set myself free and run, run, run, far, far, far.\nAllie the Alligator tells me to stay as cool as a cucumber and grins from ear to ear.\nOwlie the Owl tells me to sleep, that at night, my thoughts will not bombard me, I will feel at peace, I will feel relaxed.\nFaeryn the Firefly tells me she agrees; she will light up the darkness and keep nightmares at bay.\nSheepy the Sheep tells me he will snuggle up against me, surrounding me with softness and warmth, and won't let him come close, won't let him make my blood run cold.\nOtto the Octopus tells me that if he ever comes back, she will grab me, snatch me, steal me and put me out of reach on top of her eight tentacles.\nStorm the Cat tells me he can easily hiss instead of purr, his claws are always sharpened, his teeth are always hungry.\n\n\n[[But...|Mine]]

During the days of ''Creation'', God was at the ''source'' of everything. It was time to ''update'' the world into the version of it we know now. It would seem, however, that everything started to go to rack and ruin, it would seem that, corrupted by vice and by sin, men started to betray divine words, ''holy books'' and ''religions''. \n\nI was created to palliate these problems. At the ''origin'' of times, I was a nun among so many others. Assigned to numerous tasks of writing and rewriting, of ''publishing'' and ''editing'', of curating ''collections'' of many ''biographies'', ''autobiographies'', ''hagiographies'', ''genealogies'', ''memoirs'' and other ''life stories'' and ''personal writings'' from the Early ''Middle Ages''; I was in no way intended to have a different fate. My tedious life consisted in worshipping our holy Lord; thanking Him for His light and benevolence, praying, helping my neighbor, gathering and preserving knowledge. I would sometimes attend some funeral, I would sometimes become an ''author'' and help write some ''obituary'' or ''[[epitaph|Epitaphs]]''; but I remember better the "Our Fathers", "te Deums" and other "Ave Marias" which were tirelessly marking my mornings and evenings.\n\nBut ''History'' had something else in store for me. It is only after a fateful event that I realised what my vengeful mission was. My brother, the love of my life, the only one I had, was cruelly ''murdered''; proclaimed a heretic and burned at the [[stake|Animadversion]], he was never given any opportunity to repent, to ask for forgiveness, to be absolved. \n\nI then became a ''sentinel'' and I swore I would take revenge; I swore I would assassinate all of those who, on the grounds of being part of the Church's highest spheres, dare model God's word to their liking. Hidden by my holy habit, I thread my way, I conceal my presence among the crowd, and I poison, I stab, I strangle. Now, all fear my presence and fantasize about my identity.\n\nMy name is [[Charlotte|I]] and I am the hand that strikes from the darkness.\n

by Jordan