CHILDREN OF PARADISE

Come in and see her. Once you’ve seen her, she will fill your thoughts, haunt your dreams. Totally unadorned, naked for all to see. You can pay as you leave. Our show is enticing. Audacious. Arousing. For those with eyes to see. For lovers of beauty.

After me? But you ran toward me.

So… So?

So as I hate to follow a woman, I ran ahead so I could meet you face to face. Now I’ll never leave you. Which way? That’s simple. You go your way, I go mine.

They may be the same. And why not?

I’m not cruel, I’m logical. I declared war on society long ago. My heart doesn’t beat like theirs. Absolutely not.

Leaving me alone with myself, yet warning me against bad company. How thoughtless. But what a splendid destiny. To love no one. To be alone. To be loved by no one. To be free. True, I love no one.

I don’t love you either.

 And I’m sure of myself. Absolutely sure.

In my idle moments. “Misconduct.” A tragedy?

I loathe tragedy. Such an inferior genre. A forest fire. An abduction by balloon.

Because he’s a know-nothing.

A dolt.

A sleepwalker… even sitting down. An unbelievable nincompoop.  A deplorable blockhead. An utter good-for-nothing.

 “Speak to me.” About nothing, probably.

A lion who can’t even roar. What torment, when inside me here,

Their lives are small, but their dreams are grand. Why do you always harp on death?

I only talk about other people’s deaths. Mine is for later.

What can I say? Life is like that. Philosophers think of death, beautiful women think of love. So, that makes you all philosophers. Why not?

I only believe in what I love.

You’ll betray me, my angel. It’s your right.

You’re wrong. I’ll never forget tonight and the light in your eyes. Just a glimmer, like everyone else.

You were left alone. isn’t alone very long.

I love you.

Garance, do you love me? You talk like a child. People love that way in books, in dreams. Not in real life. Dreams, life… they’re the same.

But it’s not life I love. it’s you. It’s not bad here, though it’s a bit sad.

Why sad? It’s always sad when you sleep alone.

But I love you. Please don’t be so solemn. It chills me.

Don’t be angry, but I’m not the way you dreamed. You have to understand me. You’re alone, I hope.

Sadly, all alone. I’m dying of silence.

Sweet nightingale, where have you been? At last, rose of my days, light of my nights. there are lovers

who make love in silence, I express myself poorly. I realize I speak in platitudes, banalities. What I say is of no importance. What matters is your reply. I no longer exist. I’m shattered. The memory of the night he thought he’d be happy forever. His beloved doesn’t love him, he’s a nothing, a will-o’-the-wisp, an automaton, a bogeyman.

Fragile: Work of art.

I write light pieces, but nowadays people prefer tragedies. This can’t be happening to me. A spring broke in the music box. The tune is the same but it’s in a different key. This is absurd.

Who are you, Monsieur? Is it not absurd to ask people who they are? Excuse me? That’s why they’re so evasive. They give you the easy reply: a name, a title. But who they are really, who they are deep down, they conceal with great care.

What is it? I think I’m jealous.

I don’t know. I’ve never felt anything like this. It’s insidious, unpleasant. It infects your heart. You try to reason, but your reason fails you. I can at last play Othello. I didn’t feel the character. He was alien to me.

A man kills his beloved and it kills him, poor man. A sad, absurd tale, like so many others. Like mine or yours . You spend your empty days in your empty rooms with your poor empty heart. It’s all so absurd and sad.

And she said,  “Love is so simple.” And I didn’t listen.

I set conditions:

 “Love me as I love you.”

And I shut the door, forever, between my love and me. He’s like a sleepwalker on a roof.

Kill me tomorrow:

Let me live tonight.

You saved me from growing old, dull and used up. My life was so empty. I felt so alone. I kept thinking I had no right to be sad because someone loved me. But I still love you. I always have.

And do you love…

Don’t answer.

I won’t ask for anything.

You’re here. That’s all that matters.

Here, alive in my arms, like the first time. I ask for nothing.

Only… the warmth of your body against mine, that mouth of yours. Those eyes of yours. We have the night before us, with us, for us.

Time works for you. Then you come back, embellished by memory. That must be easy. But to stay and live with someone, share his everyday life… that’s something else.

You can’t fight that. I’ve lived with him for six years. So have I. You, too?

Me, too. Anywhere, everywhere, every day. And every night.

All those nights spent at another’s side,

I was with him. I want to know everything about you two, know what’s left for me. If there’s enough to live on. What do I care if you love him? You don’t count. You don’t exist for me.

I’m not afraid to suffer. Everybody suffers. But I must know. Tell me now. Without thinking about it.

Look at me. Were you always thinking of her while living with me? You don’t dare answer. But your silence tells me a lot of things, things I do understand.

Answer me. Were you always thinking of her? Answer me. Even at night?

What about me?

What about me?

The game’s up. Time to go home.