- " "Escragotesques" funérailles" de Nadine CHEVALLIER

- "Je t'aime parce que tu es un chef d'oeuvre inachevé" de Régis MOULU

- "Guess who ?" de Claudine CARPENTER (texte en anglais)

" "Escargotesques" funérailles" de Nadine CHEVALLIER

Mais pourquoi tu l'as écrasé ? Maintenant, il est mort, on dirait ? " se désolait Mimi, accroupie, les larmes aux yeux, en contemplant l'escargot aplati sur le tapis. " Tu crois qu'on peut le soigner ? " ajouta-t-elle. Elle essayait de rassembler les morceaux de coquilles agglutinés dans une infâme bouillie grise. " En plus, c'était mon préféré, il s'appelait Pedro l'escargot, il avait gagné la course avant le tien ! " Loulou, les poings sur les hanches, se dandinait devant elle. "- Même pas vrai ! C'est pas lui Pedro. Ton Pedro, je l'ai lâché dans la poubelle hier. Celui là, c'est un nouveau. Et on s'en fiche, des escargots, y'en a plein le jardin. - Peut-être mais pourquoi tu l'as écrasé sur le tapis ? Maman va te gronder, ça fait tout sale. - C'est vrai que c'est dégueulasse un escargot écrasé … - Oh ! T'as dit un gros mot ! On n'a pas le droit … - Des gros mots, j'en connais des tas, figure toi. Maman le saura que si tu lui dis. Tu vas lui dire ? - Ben non, t'es mon frère quand même … enfin … je sais pas… Pourquoi tu l'as mis dans la poubelle Pedro ? - T'inquiète, je l'ai mis dans la verte, celle des légumes, il adore. - Ah, d'accord. Mais celui là, il est vraiment mort ? - Ben oui, Nunuche, quand on n'est plus vivant, on est mort ! - Alors, on peut l'enterrer ? - N'importe quoi, il est collé au tapis ! - Eh ben, on n'a qu'à mettre le tapis avec … " Elle roule le tapis et suivie par son frère, l'emporte au fond du jardin. Sous la haie, un espace découvert expose un cimetière de petites tombes cerclées de cailloux blancs, surmontées de branchettes liées en forme de croix. "- Il y en a beaucoup maintenant, remarque Mimi. - Pas autant que de morts à la guerre de 14, s'écrie Loulou. - Y'en avait combien à la guerre de 14? - Des milliards ! - C'est beaucoup, nous on aura pas assez de place. Ils sont où les milliards ? - Oh, partout, y'en a dans les catacombes aussi. - C'est quoi les catacombes, on peut y aller ? - C'est à Paris, c'est trop loin. - Moi quand je serai grande, j'irai à Paris. Tu viendras avec moi ? - Non, moi, je serai soldat, je serai peut-être déjà mort à la guerre. - Non, je veux pas que tu meures ! T'es pas drôle... " Les enfants avaient étalé le tapis et tentaient de le recouvrir de terre. " - Il prend beaucoup de place ce tapis, on n'en aura plus pour les autres morts, s'inquiète soudain Mimi. - T'as raison pour une fois … On va juste découper le bout où il y a le cadavre, ça sera moins grand, d'accord ? - Bonne idée " Loulou tente de découper le tapis avec de grand ciseaux trouvés à la maison, mais ne réussit qu'à gratter quelques fibres. " - C'est pas une bonne idée, finalement, décide-t-il, On va plutôt le cinérer. - C'est quoi cinérer ? - Ben, c'est comme l'oncle Martial, lui quand il est mort, on l'a cinéré, ça veut dire brûler dans un four, ça fait cinérer. Comme ça , ça prend moins de place. - Ah, bonne idée, comment on fait ? - On va le mettre sur la plaque dans le four avec le bouton comme Maman fait pour le nettoyage, ça chauffe à fond. Et on récupérera les cendres. " Ainsi fut fait. Une atroce odeur de caoutchouc brûlé envahit la maison. Maman arriva à temps pour débrancher le four, ouvrir en grand toutes les fenêtres. Avec sidération, elle interrompit l'incinération.

"Je t'aime parce que tu es un chef d'œuvre inachevé" de Régis MOULU, animateur de l'atelier

L'homme se mit devant le mannequin nu du magasin de vêtements, lâcha ce nuage de mots assemblés en phrases : je t'aime parce que tu es un Picasso. Je t'aime parce que tu es un Manet. Je t'aime parce que tu es un Klee. Je t'aime parce que tu es un Modigliani. Je t'aime aussi parce que tu es un peu Turner. Je t'aime sous réserve parce que tu es un Bacon. Je t'aime parce que tu n'es pas un Rubens. Je te regarde avec des " yeux de précipice " parce que tu es dans les vapeurs d'un Cézanne. Tu n'as rien d'un Fernand Léger. Je t'aime parce que tu as failli être un Dali. Je t'aime plus que tout quand tu me fais croire que tu es un Klimt. Respect. Confusion. Admiration. Je cabriole un peu trop dans ma tête. J'espère retomber un jour sur mes pattes. Ce n'est pas si facile, rien n'est moins sûr… Là, mon émotion s'est habillée en moi, me régit, a pris ma place, m'a exilé. Malgré cela, je continuerai à te faire mon aubade, avec des mots et des idées venus tout droit de mon squelette. Car le désir, c'est de la moelle rechapée en intentions, voilà les miennes, c'est reparti ! Je t'aime parce que tu es profondément un El Greco, je voulais que tu le saches. Mais je t'aime plus que tout pour ton esprit Caravage, je l'avoue sincèrement. Veux-tu être enfin mon Renoir qui me cacherait son Schiele, allez prends-toi maintenant pour un Van Gogh afin que je profite à fond de ton Botticelli, espèce de " Léonard de Vinci grande période " ! Bref, ce que j'aime en toi, c'est que tu deviens toutes les œuvres d'art à la fois. Et ce qui me plaît, c'est ton aspect " chef d'œuvre inachevé " ! Tu es ce que je rêve. Ton corps blanc m'offre sa toile de cinéma, mes yeux redeviennent vidéoprojecteurs, tu es mon paysage mental qui défile, tu ressembles à la route que je vais prendre, tu contiens le monde, tu en es sa porte, ta main sa clenche dont je me saisis. Ah, s'il n'y avait pas de vitre à cette boutique, je te dévaliserais, membre par membre, tu es ma journée qui commence, tu es ma penderie que je n'ouvrirai pas afin qu'on reste dans la sauvagerie de notre vérité. Tu es ce goût de vacances qui me revient, ce bout de langue en moi qui t'est consacré, cette présence que je chéris, ce souvenir palpable, car je n'ai plus peur que tu m'incarnes, vas-y fonce en moi. Tu ressemble à un " derrière de dune ", tu es ce chemin que je prends, tu es aussi le vent qui m'y transportera, tu es le " désir qui vaut motricité ", cette téléportation incluse, cette annulation de toute distance sans doute parce qu'en toi il y a un peu d'éternité, quand je réfléchis bien, tu es tous les plats que je mange et je ne les détaillerai pas, mon avenir et son carburant, ma vision qui se précise et ma vue qui se dégage, tu es cette corneille qui passe dans le ciel tel un pinceau qui repeint l'azur, tu es cette ouverture, cette entrée dans les viscères de l'espoir, ce cœur, réserve à foudre pour mes désirs, cette boîte à idées sans aucun papier, ce lieu où je me recrée en t'inventant, cette plage de possibilités où le soleil de ma déraison vient s'abandonner, tu es une luminosité, une teinte, une couleur par encore répertoriée, ce renflement supplémentaire, cet ourlet qui double le ciel, un rabe de vision qui m'est offert, tu es déjà là avec ton fantôme, j'aime cette rémanence que tu te trimballes constamment, quand je ferme les yeux, tu es encore là, quand je les rouvre, je te découvre encore plus grande. Tu es le temps qui explose. Météorite après laquelle je cours. Et voilà que je me rends compte que vous êtes plusieurs en vitrine. Est-ce normal de redire la même chose au mannequin d'à-côté ?

 

"Guess who ?" de Claudine CARPENTER, texte écrit en anglais et lu-traduit à l'oral en français lors de la séance

Guess who I am if you dare. I am famous, famous for how efficiently I managed to bar the entrance to a coveted historical place. I am, in other words, The Bouncer of Greek mythology. No, I am not Cerberus… Cerberus, bless his brawny shoulders, wasn't really a bouncer… Cerberus stood by Hades' side, he growled and looked scary, and helped his master herd unruly souls into hell. Cerberus was a glorified sheep dog who unlike me never had any brains… just muscle. He obeyed orders efficiently and swiftly but he never thought any strategy through. He never needed to. I wish I could tell you more about Cerberus, I know how popular he is in books and films nowadays, but I can't… His three heads contained a total of nine brain cells maximum, so any conversation I ever had with him was extremely limited. He never had much to say for himself poor thing. I have a voice. Listening to it may cause you to die an untimely death. No silly, I am not a siren… Sirens did act as guardians, for rivers and straights, you are quite right. Sirens were ruthless killers, right again, the tale of how they lured countless men to their death was immortalised by Homer. However, unlike mine, their modus operandi was rather basic… flirt with the guys until they take their eyes off course and crash their ship into rocks. It was efficient, I'll give you that. Few ships managed to sail through the strait they guarded in Massa Lubrense but it wasn't very interesting as far as strategy goes. (Dear reader, please forgive me, this sour grapes. You see, I would have loved to be a Siren myself when I was young but I just didn't have the looks. I am not a team player anyway, so it probably was a blessing in disguise.) I am a woman though so you are getting warmer. I am a woman and I am a dangerous. Don't look me in the eye or have a conversation with me, it could be fatal. Medusa? No, no… I am not Medusa, of course not. I rather liked Medusa actually… she was fun and fierce and she was ruthless and, just like me, she was a lone wolf. We'd meet up occasionally to go out for a few pints of ambrosia and we'd have a whale of a time. We'd stay out until the early hours of the morning and she'd finish the night in my bed because she'd missed the last ferry home. I really enjoyed that, because despite all the nasty stuff they say, Medusa was hot… big time. She had this steaming body and (as you all know) killer eyes. Her hair was a mess, I'll give you that, she was a little scruffy sometimes but she (as you all know) never liked mirrors. I liked her hyperactivity, her quick mind, her rage… She was in a different class from those bimbos from Capri (whoops, there I am bitching about them again). What Perseus did to her was quite horrible. I still get upset when I think of it, even nowadays. Have you guessed yet? Even if it is just through a process of elimination? You ought to. Come on! Make an effort! A bouncer, a woman, who's not beautiful but smart… A woman who it can be dangerous to talk to. Ok… most of you have got it, I think. Those of you who know, will understand how fitting it was for me to start my story with a riddle. I love riddles, and it is actually my ability to present impossible, unsolvable problems to others that got me a place in his-tory or rather my-thology. Those of you who don't get it…If we were having conversation in person, I would already have pounced on you with my lioness haunches, or swooped down onto you with my bird wings and eviscerated you with my beak or fangs or whatever they have decided I have instead of teeth and gobbled you up. Because I never did suffer fools gladly... That is where the second part of my legend comes from. I wasn't born a monster. I was a perfectly normal baby and little girl. My hips were rather wide and my nose was a little large and pointed, that much is true… But, honestly, Sophocles' turning me into a lion-haunched and bird-winged animal human hybrid… well that was just petty and nasty. My issue, like Medusa (and unlike the blondies), was that I had brains. This was at a time when women weren't allowed to have any. In ancient Greece, women weren't educated, they weren't meant to read books or to know things. They were meant to be pretty and graceful and modest and docile and good at dancing in order to find a husband and once they had a husband, they were meant to have as many kids as possible and to run their homes efficiently. Sois belle et fais des gosses. Just a quick note in passing: I ought to be nicer about the Sirens, they were after all just girls who were upset about their lot, rightly so, and in order to rebel against it, they used the very weapons the patriarchy had bestowed them: their looks and their singing and dancing talents. Thinking it through, I see how terribly clever this is. Moreover, there is safety in numbers… Of course… now it seems even smarter... But I digress… I became a monster because I learned to read at age six. I would steal my elder brother's parchments from school and I used them to piece together the written language. Then, I started to read in secret. Even at a very young age, I knew that what I was doing was forbidden , especially for a woman of my social class. Life is so unfair. If I had been a boy, I would have been allowed to go to school, to listen to the greatest teachers of the time, to take notes on a wax tablet, to discuss and debate the finer points in philosophy or science or literature and poetry. Instead, I had hide in order to read my brother's books and peruse his notes that were full of spelling mistakes because I knew that what I was doing wasn't allowed. But I was found out…but it is only because of my big mouth, not because anyone caught me red handed. Reading, when you do it properly, expands your brain and widens your imagination. It makes you wonder, it makes you ask questions and when you have questions, you want to find the answers. I couldn't find the answers to all my questions in the few books my brother brought back from school (he wasn't the kind of student that took extra reading home, quite the opposite actually), so I started asking questions to others: my mother, the maids (they didn't know), my faither, guests to the house... I got the answers to some questions but the answers led to more questions, which I would ask as well. And so on, and so forth. The desire for knowledge is an addiction, a virtuously vicious circle. And it is dangerous. One day, I asked too many questions, questions that were too complicated. And I was found out. And I was shunned. And I was thrown out on to the street as the unnatural being I was. And so I became a monster. I became a terrifying chimera, a monster with the body of a woman and the brains of a man. I would walk up to men on the street, ask questions, present them with conundrums, make them think and wrack their brains and tease them when they were unable to find the answer to questions that seemed so basic to me. I did quiz them and question them and tire them out intellectually and I suppose I ruffled their pride but I never killed or devoured a single one of them. I did however emasculate them a little, which is, as we all know a fate worse than death. However let this be said clearly: it is my hunger for knowledge that made me monstruous, not my hunger for human flesh. Anyway, that is why I was later thrown off the streets of Thebes and had to guard its entrance. Or rather, I wasn't really in charge of guarding the entrance to the city but I would stand at the road leading to the city and ask passing travellers to answer my questions. They were questions, not riddles and most definitely not that stupid four, two and three legged riddle. At that point, due to my exile, I had no access to books and I still had so many questions! Some of these travellers were put off by me and decided to turn back because if all the women from Thebes were like that… well the city would be no fun. My terrible revenge on my hometown was to prevent wealthy merchants from doing business and spending their money there. Wow. How scary… Hell hath no fury and so forth. Then came Oedipus. I knew what was going to happen with Oedipus from the very start. He had the same arrogance as his father the King and the same bovinely stupid gaze as his mother, the Queen. He was the same build as his father and I remembered seeing the pendant he was wearing hanging around Jocaste's neck. His swollen deformed feet served as a reminder of what his parents had done to him when he was born and also gave his true identity away. I knew who he was… Anyone would have known. My dear friend Cassandra would be able to tell you that soothsaying is only a matter of carefully looking at the clues you have at hand and using them and some basic probability calculations to work out what will happen. But clever, perceptive women are rarely listened to, and Cassandra's tears were tears of frustration at not being listened to, not because she was sad. Do you know what question I asked him? Of course it wasn't the one about man's three ages. Any six year old can solve that one. I asked him what happened when a man met his father and killed him. I asked him what would happen if this man married his mother. I asked him about the monstruous children she would bear this hypothetical man. He didn't answer. He knew what I was getting at. The oracle in Delphe had already told him what was going to happen. He didn't want to stop and think of the consequences of his actions. So he didn't answer. He killed me instead. He raped me first of course. I had asked for it, after all. So I am dead. The Sphinx, the terror of travellers in Ancient Greece was killed by Oedipus's rightful masculine wrath. But this isn't the end… I live on. I live on in every girl who would rather go to the library than play with dolls. I live on in every girl who wants to build bridges instead of making cupcakes. I live on in every daughter who exhausts her father with her endless questions. Medusa… Medusa lives on in every angry woman venting her frustration on a punching bag or in a kickboxing class, in every woman marching for women's rights, in every nasty woman standing in an agora and facing up to the patriarchy with her words and anger. Here she is, standing by my side, smiling, tall, strong, face bare and hair uncombed, she wearing army fatigues and combat boots… The knife she has in her hand has dribbled a little blood over my copy of Oedipus Rex, I think this is quite apt so I won't clean it off Armies of sirens are leaving beauticians, flipping their shiny hair away from their beautiful faces with red-taloned hands. With their high heels and sexy clothes, they aren't aiming for mens' jugular any more, no they are aiming lower, no… not their hearts… it's the wallet they are going for silly! Cassandra isn't crying anymore. She is watching us, assessing, calculating. She has a pretty clear idea of what is going to happen. And it makes her smile. And very soon… You'll see it too.