Concerto of prisoners

Tanguy

After a few weeks here, Tanguy got used to this music paper routine, to the point where he forgot he was a prisoner.  He thinks about it this morning, while the institute is still asleep, on the wrought iron bed of his small room where the first rays of the sun come in.  There is a wooden chair here, in front of a desk with letters still written but never read, and a sliding window overlooking the courtyard.  This window, Tanguy abhors it, because its race has been stopped so much so that it only opens a few centimeters, letting through only a thin stream of air.  He thinks, a little jaded, that the designers of this strange prison were far-sighted by welcoming teenagers at risk of suicide here.  Bars would have had the merit of being honest.

If Tanguy had really wanted to end his life, he would have done so without having to dive headlong from the second floor of the institute.  But something made him stay alive.  This faculty to mock his own experience in reality, like an incredible withdrawal from himself.  He had learned, through his readings, to be both the actor and the spectator of his own existence.  So nothing was really important anymore, in this vast drama that had become his life.  Not even her suffering.  And that's also what made his psychiatrist lock him up here.

Is that all that keeps him alive?  No, something else, he must recognize it.  As soon as he arrived at Les Bleuets, he felt a strange closeness to others.  Something that is understandable, without having to say.  He found real companions in misfortune here.

Tanguy pulls himself together, says to himself that he must not let himself go to miserable daydreams.  He is aware that among these people, rare will be those who will leave prison truly healed.  To chase away this ramblings, Tanguy shakes his head, shaking the long black curls enthroned there.  We never really heal, Tanguy knows it, he is certain, he wants for proof the old but still burning image of his father in a suit, lying on the living room floor, his brain scattered on the carpet and a Glock at  the right hand.  No one ever really heals, they know it!  Now he is curled up on himself;  and his long white body like a fetus, he breathes harder and harder, faster and faster, tilts back and forth on his mattress, vainly chasing away the ever more violent thoughts which assail him.

The day nurse toque.  It's breakfast time.  Tanguy let himself be overcome by his emotions.  He doesn't really like the thoughts that have come to him in uncontrollable currents since his arrival at the institute.  Usually thoughtful and detached, he lets himself, now that he lives almost here, be guided by his feelings.  It doesn't sound like him at all, but it may be the effect of the sedatives he was prescribed.  So he stands up, gets up, puts a cool splash of water on his face, quickly puts on a black shirt and worn jeans in the pockets of which remain some carambars, and opens the door to his room.  A new day in the sad bubble can begin.

He pretends to be indolent yawning so as not to let the traces of his still fresh bewilderment appear.  As he steps falsely nonchalantly down the small hallway of the area, he quickly realizes that his scheme is useless: there is nobody there.  It may have taken too long to prepare and the others are certainly already gathered in the dining room.  Hands in pockets, he approaches the common space.  Here he sees, through the large bay windows open to the living room, his comrades sitting on the old sofas.  Some are already watching it.  They almost seem to have been waiting for it.  What is going on ?  The head of the service greets him with a funny smile, opening his arms with unbridled satisfaction.