Pikaia

Last night, I went back to review Les Mailles sanguines. I wrote to this reader’s committee at the publishing house, which, without closing the door completely, did not open it much. I wanted to tell them that I’m not discouraged. But it’s no use. This job belongs to me.

I am asked to rework the text, especially to remove clumsiness and outgrowths (sic). I am willing to do so even if I would have liked to be suggested where I could make the cuts. That is not to say, already, after reading the first paragraph, I felt the usual uneasiness of boredom and déjà vu. It takes courage to put back on the table, even on the butcher’s stall, the words that we had, at first sight, thought so well ordered. Courage because you have to crush what little pride you had and, on this side, anyway, I am a master.

The weather is fine outside. I don’t really walk around in the morning anymore. I’ve been drained lately, and I’ve been consuming as much sleep as I can. And then the work that does not stop. I’m moving forward. That’s a win-win situation.

My model is the Pikaia which, after eating all its mud, gave a long offspring, one of which, after many mutations and procrastination, types these lines. The dance of evolution is fascinating, the genesis of all these scattered beings so vertiginous, and I gladly conceal the billions of billions of stars around which pregnant planets revolve.

I eat my mud and am very comfortable with it. I return to my words and sculpt my modest castle in the sand of a friable universe.