The Mime

Chapter II

"It's regrettable but we have to keep hope...", reassured me my mother in the past. Yes it's regrettable, regrettable never to have been able to say goodbye to her, to her, to father and to grandfather. Sorry that I never got to laugh with them, pray with them, never got to argue with them, never got to tell them how much I love them, sorry that I never got the chance to tell them a word. But hope, I have none. Hope is a distant door that provokes me, however, in my most disastrous moments. Even if one day I succeeded, at this door, I would never have the key. Clinging to a hope is absurd. Absurd because the reality is quite different, it clearly clarifies that hope is now childish.

I only had my grandfather's apartment for a home. A small property that sent holiness, hospitality and benevolence. A small property that smelled like home. I had never redone Grandfather's deathbed since his last breath. I watch the crumpled pearly white woolen blanket at the edge of the bed falling to one side on the floor. His uncurled cold gray pillow where his head lay reluctantly. On his mattress again there were crumbs of food considering his sadly advanced weakness. I remembered the night when he had told me about his past life, his service in the army, a respected and loved person... My spitting example.

I dined alone on average two to three times over seven days. It was very rare to find anything to eat and scarcity caught up with me at all times. I had already betrayed the Wards, but I couldn't even ask for alms, it would simply be inexpiable. I had sold all of my parents' possessions, of course, but the authorized medical expenses that guaranteed Grandfather's health took everything away. The Ward family was about to die out for good, slip away and disappear. All because of a miserable man unable to get his daily bread. These depressions are certified twenty-four years ago now,right, and as the past caught up with me at all times, my childish spirit did the same, and it dragged me despite everything into a completely different world where hope would not be never again melancholy, where sadness could struggle in vain, because in that world, perfect symmetry of reality, only me reigns there, me and my childish instinct, which gave me an epilogue to all my difficulties, the epilogue of miming.

As absurd as it should be, it would never change anything. But the bit of fantasy that I had left was based on all the things that I lacked; I mime food, reading... I mime a life. A form of insignificant allegorical illusion comforting my dull, silly calamity spell. I would have mimed a horse, if I could, but, in addition to being incapable, Emile Ward would be called crazy.

Grandfather had a benevolent friend before he died who came to our aid during our miserable distress. He was our protagonist. He too had served in the army and on the Parisian prosecutor's office alongside grandfather. The weather is no longer so foggy and soon, Paris will be drowned by thunderstorms and torrential deluges which will end up beating down within barely a month. Since he offered his condolences, I had never seen him since. Strangely, one evening, with an empty stomach, the mysterious came knocking at my door. This strange feeling came back to me right away, my hunger dissipated and my heart sank. What the hell was he doing? However, I was really happy with his presence and I felt the house come to life. Without paying attention to me, he walks across my path and comes to sit on the armchair in the living room, which makes a storm of dust appear with its sudden pose. He coughed wildly and cleared his throat before saying:

-I had a very long journey, my boy. Bring me a water worm.

I run quickly to fetch him water from the only drinkable source in this house. My heart sank over and over again before I noticed my hands were shaking clumsily as they almost knocked everything over on the floor. What did his visit mean? Several thoughts suddenly collided in my mind and I was even afraid for a moment that he came to claim some amount. But I remembered that in the past, his loyalty and his support were inestimable and precious. This was the main reason why I offered myself in his service whatever the consequences.

Handing him the container, I grew impatient as he took quite a while to drink everything down to the very last drop.

- Sit down, I'll take you, he whispered, pointing at the old loveseat opposite.

I run again without raising any objection. I felt that the evening will prove to be very painful, as it seems to me.

- Your grandfather was a good man, may God protect his home and all the people he knew and loved, he exclaimed, as it seems to me, you have made serious mistakes since his death , and I'm here to fix them.For the first few seconds, I hardly understood what he was insinuating through his words before reminding me of all the disasters I had committed previously. I remembered grandfather's words, the day before I turned twenty-four; "It is not death that is so sad. Never will there be more funereal and somber than regretting all one's previous actions. He placed a stack of documents on the rickety ashen shelf. I had never been very good at reading, since a school had never really taken me seriously, but that didn't stop me from continuing to read a few random books, even though I only understood half of them. At the top of the first sheet I could distinguish Emile WARD, from the late tutor Mr Charles WARD, will entrusted to Mr François PHILIP. This last name vaguely told me something. Grandfather often spoke to me of a François, a faithful friend, who was going to take charge of the legacy of his fortune. Of course, it was none other than the nice gentleman here.