TE23 Double Feature

Sandrine Collette

The Forests

On your feet.

in every molecule in his body, in the stench from his exhausted brain.

He took the mirror off the wall, put it on the floor face down so it would not reflect anything anymore.

Man.

How he wished he could make himself tiny—so small he could fit in a hand, and be stroked and cherished, become Blind Boy, who he carried on his back and fed and picked up when the puppy couldn’t cope—and what about him, who had carried him, who had picked him up, who would help him when it got too hard? He was a man and he would have to play that role until his dying day: that is what filled up all the space in his head. He leaned against the doorframe.

Don’t want to see that.

He needed strength.

He needed courage.

Even to go down the stairs and adjust his face the moment he went into the warm room where Mathilde and Augustine would turn their heads to him.

It was so stupid but: he was a man.

Don’t want to.

He was the one who—was going to help them, was going to save them.

He would be the one who supported others, and whom no one else ever supported. The one who held out his hand—not the one who reached for 87

It wasn’t in his head: it was in his genes, 86