Stromae fan fiction

Lesson 3: En scène

I managed to make it back to my dorm. I immediately wrote down the phone number on a piece of paper so it wouldn't wash off or get smudged and be gone forever. After that I just fell asleep on my bed. I was exhausted. My head was swimming with thoughts.

The next morning, I woke up to the sound of rain. Lucky for me my first class of the day doesn't start until 12. I wanted to do some research on this mysterious person I'd met the night before. So I pulled out my laptop and punched in "Paul Van Hayver" the computer quickly corrected me and spelled it as "haver". Then boom. There he was. The man I had met the night before. There were hundreds of pictures of him, wearing every colored outfit you could imagine. But he wore it so well. I had never seen someone pull off a bright yellow sweater the way he did.

The next thing I saw was all the music he'd made: titles of albums and songs. I wanted to listen to it but first I wanted more information on who exactly he is. I clicked on his Wikipedia page. But the name above his face did not read "Paul Van Haver" but rather "Stromae". It makes sense, to have a stage name, I don't imagine super star to have a name like "Paul". I stopped when I saw his age. 30? He doesn't look more than 25! I had to wonder if he realized that I'm only 21. We have a 9 year age gap between us. He must realize I'm young, he dropped me off at a college! I continued on reading about his personal life. He wasn't French like I'd assumed. He was from Belgium. However he got his darker skin color from his dad, who was Rwandan. I continued to read. His dad had died in the Rwandan genocide so his mother had raised him mostly on her own. I frowned, I barely knew this man but the thought of that made me sad. He had been so kind to me. Bad things happen to good people too I guess.

Next I clicked on Awards. I gazed on in amazement as I counted through 23 major awards he'd won. How could someone so famous in Europe be so unknown to me here in the U.S? I'd taken 3 years of French in High School, but the music we listened to in that class was Jaques Brel or Georges. We had never listens to someone so modern. I had to hear for myself what all the hype was about. I clicked on the first song that popped up. "papaoutai".

At first the video was strange, I wan't quite sure what was going on. The rhythm was catchy. Then I remembered that he had lost his father. The chorus asks: "Ou t'es papa ou t'es?" Or where are you dad where are you? It shows other pairs of father and son dancing together with a young boy looking on longingly. I couldn't help but tear up. I didn't understand the lyrics 100% but I could understand the meaning of the song and know exactly what was going on. The ironic and strange thug about this song however was that it is so danceable. It's a song about an absent father yet it's so catchy and fast paced. I could understand how the song had nearly 260,000,000 views.

I continued to watch, I wanted to learn more. I went through song after song: tous les mêmes, Ta fête, Carmen, Alors on Danse, formidable. When I didn't understand the lyrics fully I looked up the translated version. Each had a deep meaning that fascinated me. I could admire that. Music that wasn't about drugs, alcohol, or sex and partying all the time. I watched for the better part of the day I didn't want to leave my computer but pretty soon the clock read 11:30 and I needed to head to class. When I got back I would try to muster up enough courage to call that phone number. But for now I needed to go to class, no matter how much my mind would wander.