I have already had well-known patients. And that hasn't changed my practice — famous people have the same concerns as the others. I remember this footballer, tired of his collection of yellow cards and expulsions, and who managed to control himself well. And this singer, held back in her momentum by an unbearable stage fright, and who got rid of it. And also: this politician who was no longer asleep as the election deadline approached, or to have the same nightmare where he was beaten... literally! A funny nightmare, at least from the outside: the results of the elections were in, fresh out of the ballot box, and the man was lunched, beaten, beaten, what. We did a good job, he regained his self-confidence and had a whole night without a nightmare. I was not on his political side, so when he won his election, I was both very disappointed for his rival (for whom I voted), and happy for him: he had not been beaten! So fame doesn't impress me much, I take care of human beings, anonymous or not. But still. When I heard Achilles voice on the phone, I was very intrigued. I even wondered if he was an imitator, because this voice is so well known and recognizable. No, it was him, he told me about “sleep disorders”, and took the first appointment that I offered him. So is he in such a hurry? I asked myself. He arrived on time. The first contact was very easy, he was simple, warm, friendly, smiling, just like in his last movie. I had the impression that the guy was coming off the screen to shake my hand. No difference with the character I saw in the movies. Except that the roles were distributed differently: he was the one who consulted me. He introduced himself:
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— Well, I am an actor, as you probably know. I am forty-five years old, with all my teeth, and a job that I love. I have a fairly comfortable life, even if there are times when I work a lot. My family is fine, thank you. My wife Ella is very kind, a bit fragile, she had a difficult childhood and she found safety with me. Emotional security, I mean, not just material. At least I think so. We love each other a lot and we get along very well. She was a singer and she preferred to quit to take care of the children. She had a nice voice, it's true, but I don't think she would have had a brilliant career, so she doesn't regret anything. No, nothing, I don't regret anything! I have twins, a boy and a girl, they are twenty years old, they are students, one in philosophy, the other in letters, and they are doing quite well, we sometimes have communication difficulties, as in all families, but overall, I manage to maintain a family life, despite my activities. We are a close-knit family and that is very important to me. After this presentation, tidy, orderly, as if he had repeated it, I let him talk about what brought him up, without interrupting him. He used the same expression “Sleep Disorders” and then told me more.
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— There you go: I have a hectic sleep, nightmares. I can't really go back to sleep. I sleep until dawn, with images of the nightmare in my head. A long-lasting nightmare, which lasts until morning, I never quite get out of it. And I wake up tired. At night I don't fall asleep well, I anticipate nightmares to come.
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— Yes... and since when has it been like that?
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— For a long time! I have had nightmares since my children were born, I must have been afraid for them... But until now it only happened to me from time to time, it bothered me, yes, but I managed it, I don't need a lot of sleep. Since I shot this movie, “Ordinary Violence”, it has become a daily occurrence. It started at the end of filming, and the promo exhausted me. A year of nightmares, basically. He explained all this to me calmly, like someone who had already thought a lot, observed what was going on. He insisted that he wanted hypnosis. And the same day. I often start hypnosis on the second appointment, but since he thought hypnosis was his solution, and his only hope, why not? He settled on “the hypnosis chair,” as I jokingly call him, while talking to me about his nightmares.

— These nightmares follow me during the day. I have flashbacks, scary moments. The themes are always the same... For the first time, he is hesitant to continue. I encourage him, he relaxes, and goes on:
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— I dream of my death... It's always a violent death, an accident, an accident, a murder, a suicide, it's never very clear, I know that I'm dying suddenly, that's all. There are variants, but it's violent, it makes me very uncomfortable. I can't go back to sleep, it's as if I were finishing the dream: I see my funeral, the reactions of the people, I see myself in the coffin... And during the day these images come back, or just a sensation, a fear. Yes, that's it, a fear.
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— A fear... of what?
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— A fear of being... A fear of... I don't know. I have the feeling that he is remembering his words. Well, is he afraid to say what he is afraid of? I invite him to relax, while starting the hypnosis session. He closes his eyes, and:

— There is something else too...
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— Yes? He opens his eyes, looks at me, speaks slowly:
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— Well, it's as if... sometimes, I watch myself do it, as if I were outside. As if I were playing a character that I did not choose: it's my body, it's my voice, but it's not me. Like when you're playing a role... as if someone else was in my body, as if I. No, nothing. He suddenly fell silent. Seems troubled for a brief moment, and regains his confidence:
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— It happens a lot, no, these kinds of sensations, I suppose?
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— I would like to better understand: what is it like?
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— I think it's about playing characters, don't you think? I don't believe anything, I don't quite understand. As if what? I am evasive:

— We all play a role, at certain moments in life, and even several, depending on the circumstances. I'm not a psychiatrist all day, you know, I have other roles too! He is smiling, I feel reassured. So he was worried?

— You have to find a name for it before it starts... A first name for a prostitute woman often contains an y inside, the “y” is the suggestion, the opening, the gap, the embrasure, the golden dream, Debby, Marylin, Myriam, or else the first name ends in a, the a also suggests femininity, softness, roundness: they have the choice. Lola, Sonia, Vanessa, Fiona, Rita, Carolina, Fiona, Rita, Carolina, all you have to do is add an “a” to the last consonant.
— Natacha, she can be called Natacha, that sounds good, right?

Immediately, I accepted this name, it sounded Russian, sexy and full of crap. It all started at the age of 18, with this announcement read in the local press, in Charleroi, Belgium, very close to the French border, “bar hostess, well paid”. Yes, I admit, I had just passed my high school diploma, and I had it. Unbelievable. A woman in her forties. She takes me far away, there, to this unknown city. We had to drive more than six hours to reach Belgium. Bar hostess, that sounded good.

— Being a woman, maintaining yourself well, is expensive Natacha, very expensive, she repeats over and over again along the way.
I am listening to it. Envy. She is beautiful, long, well made up, well dressed. Assurance, trust. Everything I don't have. She drops me off in an apartment, above the bar, called Aux Sirène Bleues.
We are eight girls, now, so young, so cute, one very fat, another very thin, a blonde, a redhead, I must have been the missing brunette. Evening. I wear makeup. At least, that's for sure, with my red and swollen mouth, my blackened eyelashes, my pantyhose, I will be seen. Eyeliner, a black or silver line that curls. In the mirror, I further accentuated femininity, underlined the lips, pink, red, always, I again lengthened, curved my eyelashes, plated my eyelids with blue, mauve; the feminine is often long, thin, stretched, stretched, slender, slender, again emphasized the breasts, again emphasized the breasts, offered the chest, the feminine is wide, round, and generous.
A mask, a disguise, a call: I am fully aware of it.


_____________________________________________________

Last night, I don't really remember what we did, I just think we laid a guy down — who was it? — no he was not a regular, and he had been sprayed with champagne on his stomach and lower abdomen — what other alcohol, let's see? — and that it had been mightily licked, sucked, swallowed. A beautiful evening, under the full red equinox moon. Outside in autumn, outside the moon illuminated the slugs, the nettles and those snails that came out, slimy and Soft of their shells. The guy — well who was he? — it was licked, sucked, swallowed. To the last drop. There were three of them looking at us and throwing bills in our face, bills in the butt, bills in the slots, in all the slots. We had smoked cannabis, we were elsewhere, we were opening up, we were tearing each other up, so we had stripped them all naked, and vacuumed them up.
To the last dew, to the last cent.
Now, here we are, all five of us, in the morning, with our ten guilty hands on the yellow earthenware bowls, and with the fifty bright red nails grasping the crumbs from the croissants. Yes, because I'm still the one who gets up to go get the croissants at the gas station just behind me. The only correct place that delivers good French pastries.
The mouths that swallowed the sperm are still present, the mouths forget the soft balls, the hairs, and tear the puff pastry, swallow the butter.
In the background, we could hear Marguerite doing the cleaning, scrubbing the walls, scrubbing the walls, tapping the carpets, opening the windows wide, Marguerite never ate vegetables or fruits, it's for the cows, she said, and she said, and never drank water, it rusted, she said. Marguerite asked me questions all the time, and finally she often answered her own questions, which allowed me to remain silent.
She never went out, staying locked in this house; in turn, people went shopping for her, buying her beer. This house, its walls, was its thighs, its legs, this house was also our body.

My life was like an electrocardiogram. Dishes, a peak. Dead days, living days. A life of just thinking about that. To live only for that. Nonstop. Night and day. Join me up there, it's sensational, repeated Le Brisard.
At the end of the four beers, I panicked. Like in a broken elevator, at the sixth. I had to buy some again. Not much. Just two, or three. Maybe four. Enough to go up a notch.
In seventh heaven.

Eighteen hours. I knew how bad it was to drive drunk. Worse than running out of alcohol. Yes, I knew that. But when it came to satisfying the need to drink, nothing stopped me. Gabrielle did not offer to take me. I would have refused. She didn't stop me from taking the car. I had the urge to drink.

The supplies were about ten kilometers away. A discreet grocery store where I was sure I wouldn't meet anyone. Even so, I would have found an extenuating circumstance. Inside, I went to the essentials, served myself, paid, packed, and greeted. Gone are the days of lame alibis. Before leaving, I drank a few sips. And then, I hit the road again, one hand on the wheel, the other on the can. At my feet, the pressures rolling in the corners, and me too fast. At the roundabout, I hit something. A little bit of beer was spilled on the jeans. I wiped, while the Brisard took the wheel. In the straight line, he accelerated. When cornering, it did not decelerate.

A first shock. My body that waltzes, bumps, flies, flies, bounces, disarticulates as if in slow motion. It lasts. Besides, I find time to tell myself that it's over, to greet those who love me, the others too. The end does not frighten me, it seems to me to be both a vision and a good alternative. Of course, I am drunk.

A second, more violent shock, followed by a deafening noise. And the black one. Noise again, this time in my ears. Inside. Outside. Now the smell of gasoline, burnt gum. Then, blue figures, white voices, orange or yellow lights for that matter, I can't distinguish well. I see Gabrielle. Gabrielle, over here! I get agitated, wave to him, ask for his forgiveness, cry. She is approaching. It's a man. A man who talks to me. Can you repeat? I can't hear. They pick me up, drop me off somewhere. In the fog.

And there's that awful moment. The moment when, all of a sudden, like that, the curtain is torn, lucidity passing through.

THE FLOWERS
She hadn't had tulips in a very long time. She had forgotten how crazy tulips get in a vase as the days go by. Already on the second day, they twist their shaft, in a kind of violent distraction, and they throw their heads very far at the end of this bent shaft. They go in all directions, without worrying about harmonizing with each other. They are extremely independent. Some seem to want to stick their heart to the ceiling, wide open, others reach out to you and touch your shoulder, their shaft almost horizontally. Another withdrew in on herself, a victim of the weight of her thoughts. Tulips are crazy, she likes that. She smiles when she looks at them. And the more days go by the more crazy they get. As a result, they are even more cumbersome than other bouquets. We no longer know where to put the vase, because it takes up so much space, because of the extension of the flowers. Several times, she found the vase at the top of a shelf, or on top of the piano, or stuck toward the kitchen window. But nothing will stop them from being there. Silent, always quiet. Watching them hate each other, smile, love each other, love each other, argue, eat, drink, talk, fall asleep too. Do they really close when they fall asleep in the bedroom? When the light goes out around them, do they put their petals back in order? They whisper, ceaselessly, over the days: “I love you... I don't love you anymore... I don't love you anymore... I love you... I don't love you anymore...” Only the woman hears them.

RAPIST
I met this woman one morning, very close to Choisy Park. I was going to buy the bread and she, in the other direction, was not going to buy anything. I barely looked at her, but at a glance, I noticed her scarf on her head, her old, heavy tweed coat that hung over the irregular hem of a colourless skirt, her men's shoes topped with socks. Signs that don't deceive. Like pushing a shopping cart with all your body, with all your fatigue. A shopping cart full of old plastic bags. I should have done as usual, went my way with more or less good conscience, but I turned around, and I saw this shapeless figure from the back go away, this small lean body that the superposition of clothes grew bigger, overwhelmed on each side by the stuffed, swollen plastic bags, a strange greyish harness, driven by the sole, declining strength of the homeless woman. I gave in to a strange curiosity, I turned around and followed her a little, to the side. At that moment a little girl passed by with her mother and exclaimed: “Have you seen, Mom, everything she bought, the lady? And her mother smiled without further explanation and they went away. The woman went to the park gate, open, I noticed how she was leaning on the handle of the shopping cart, her forearms folded, and I understood that the shopping cart was not only her home, but also as a structure, almost as a spine. What a nice day when she stole it from a supermarket. We both crossed the park gate, me behind her, and she headed, always slowly, towards an alley lined with tall trees in the middle of which benches were interspersed, offered to everyone. She stopped her shopping cart near one of them, without hesitation, as an owner. Then she went to the fountain, just behind the bench.