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Histoires De Luna

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Histoires de Luna.jpg​


Ce sont les histoires d'une jeune fille nommée Luna, elle gagne sa vie avec un emploi bien rémunéré, elle est la modèle de photos d'une photographe de Vogue.

These are the stories of a girl named Luna. She's making her living in a well-paid job, she's a photographic model for a photographer of Vogue magazine.


Forbidden Games


'Look at that mess! Look what a mess these photos are in! Where's your head! I've told you a thousand times that you have to watch where I tell you, not gazing the air, in a vacuum, with that stupid expression! What do you think about while you’re working? I’ve got a thousand girls queuing up outside to be photographed, and what do you do? Thinking of the stupid stories you write for that blog of those perverts? Do you want to make it as a photo model or a writer? You won’t earn anything if you only write nonsense!'

'Mara, forgive me, I do try to do exactly what you say, but I can’t be in the best condition every day to pose for the kinds of photos you have in mind!'

'No! No, Luna, you're completely out! You have to tune your brain with mine! Otherwise we’re both wasting time, then, you know, the director of Vogue demands the photographs that are perfect, not just bodies more or less naked or dressed, she wants girls with a face, with aggressive expressions, she wants panthers, not pussycats. I’ve told you, to make a model you have to melt your brain into mine, my every word is an order, you have to always stay connected to my brain, working together. I'm the photographer but you have to be an extension of my mind! You're not model for Playboy, where you just put it on display and then feeze, those men who read Playboy just want to see what a pussy you’ve got! '

When Mara does this it means she’s really angry. I rest, humiliated, with downcast eyes, sitting on the stool in the studio, looking at my shoes, playing with a bracelet, a ring, or my belt. I'm afraid she’ll want to replace me with another girl - she's right, there are thousands, millions who are waiting to take the place of those who have already arrived. And then, what would I do if I lost my job? Be a writer? Forget it, in a couple of weeks I’d find myself starving, I’d have to be an 'entraineuse' in some night club, or worse, a bitch in some local red light!

'Enough for today! We won’t complete anything now. Go and get yourself an enema, your swollen belly’s overflowing the waistband of yours trousers, those pants are pushing out the flab that makes you a fat sausage, your waist looks like a sausage to be grilled. Take a good hot shower, then a sauna, and go to sleep. Don’t you dare go out to the disco, tomorrow I want you perfect! '

I take off the dress that I was wearing for the photographs, and the jewelery. The make-up artist removes make-up from my face. Wearing my jeans and a simple t-shirt of thick wool with long, long sleeves, like a young girl, I’ve tears in my eyes that I hide behind large dark glasses, I mess my hair so that anyone meeting me on the street won’t recognize me.

I feel like a beaten dog. Mara knows how to be bad, when she wants to be.

Within walking distance or a short ride from the studio, on the Boulevard de Rochechouart, is my home. I found this apartment on the top floor of a recently refurbished building in Rue Pierre Picard, in the artists’ quarter in Montmartre. It has a wonderful view, but I don’t get to enjoy life here because work keeps me away from home too often.

Yes I feel like the thing that’s painted on the poster for the exhibition in La Halle Saint Pierre, 'Art Brut'.



carton-stadshofbaf-+-1.jpg




I throw the bag on the couch, I strip off, I throw myself on the bed in the throes of a nervous breakdown, I beat my fists on the pillow - I'm tired, tired of this stressful life, this life of shit!

But then what is a model? A body, a face, a little make-up, a beautiful dress, and under the dress ... under the dress ... nothing, as far as brain counts... empty!

Hysterical tears, biting the cushion cover, what can I do with the tatters of my life that flows between the blinding lights of the catwalk, the dressing rooms, the studio sessions for fashion photos, being kept waiting at the hands of the masseuse, then the hairdressers, then the makeup artist, then ... then Mara bombarding me, I feel like I’m under fire from a machine-gun, and for all that I have to be beautiful, to smile on command?

Fuck it! I’ll retire, I'll enter a convent !

Here I go, little miss goody-goody, doing as Mara wants, a glycerine suppository, a few drops of laxative in water… I lie on my bed and turn on the computer. My Forums – however many messages has Barb posted in six hours? Stories full of irony by Tree, poems of LittleSiss, stories by PK, and this new story that Eulalia is posting, 'The Girl with no Name', with photographs from a hundred years ago, that naked girl crucified ... what courage!

Oh! Oh! Quick! Just a single dose of Novilax for children. A hot shower and a sauna, fully automatic, programmed, right time, right temperature, the ice shower.

Four drops of Minias (Lormetazepam), just to reduce stress without overdoing it, and early to bed.


But why’s the phone ringing already? It’s still night! What the fuck does Mara want now? Why’s she phoning me at two o’clock in the night?

'Get ready! We’re leaving for a photo shoot tomorrow! I’ll pick you up at five and we’ll go to the airport!'

'At five this afternoon? So why do you have to screw me up at this hour? '

'At five this morning! And quit being a bitch!'

'Shit! What do I need to pack? '

'A toothbrush! Everything else is ready, your passport’s already stamped!'

'What if I decide to tell you to fuck off?'

'You’d deserve it, bitch, if I told you to fuck off!'


Mara is really pissed off!

At two minutes to five, I close the door and take the elevator.

I’m on time, the one who’s not punctual is Mara. I wait. Too long. I call her on my mobile.

'You told me to be ready at five and now it's half five!'

'I'm telling you I'll be there in five minutes, there's no point in calling me every half hour.'

Now who's being a bitch?

The car comes after a good quarter of an hour.

'Hurry up, hurry up, you're always late!'

I can’t look at her for rage! I sit in the back seat without saying hello.

'May I know where we're going?'

'To the airport!'

'But, fuck it, to go where?'

'Zanzibar!'

'Where???!!! It would better if we went to the bar and had a coffee! '

*

Naked.

Naked under the scrutinizing eye of the full body scanner inspecting my body under my light dress. Naked to the lubricious eyes of the surveillance officer at the access-point for international departures at Charles De Gaulle Airport. My thermal image transfer is formed on the screen, it is stored, archived.

We are nothing but bare anatomy to be explored, to be investigated, to be recorded, each of our particulars passes under the cruel eye of some electronic device that captures and transforms into digits an indelible part of our identity. Whether under the barrage of Mara’s cameras, or under the unseen lenses of surveillance cameras along the road, in every public place, or at the Cashpoint, we are robbed of our image.

The kind voice of a hostess announces the flight will be boarding in fifteen minutes. I take off the mask from my eyes that allows me protection from the irritating lights of the waiting and rest rooms.

Mara keeps fussing with the documents contained in the small dossier, rearranging our boarding passes, but twenty minutes pass and the start of embarkation’s still not been announced. Already a small impatient crowd rushes at is pressing around the hostess counters, behind which there are now two gendarmes, something unusual’s going on...

Finally comes the announcement for us to come forward and hand over our tickets.

I see Mara in front of me desperately searching in a thousand pockets of her handbag. Her phone is ringing.

'Shit! Shit! Shit!'

She turns to me with a terrified expression that does not bode well, whispering something to her interlocutor, but I cannot understand. She's been called by the hostess to approach and show our tickets. The hostess turns to the agent of the gendarmerie who promptly invites Mara to step aside. My turn, the same thing happens. I turn towards the window to make sure other passengers cannot see my face or recognize me, but what the hell is going on? Two more gendarmes arrive who ask us to follow them. Meanwhile the rest of our travelling companions, the lighting technician, the makeup artist and two gay models, are separated from the group of passengers.

Mara is angry and protesting with a strange voice while we are being accompanied into a small room, where two officers of the gendarmerie are waiting. It takes little sense to understand that our trip is cancelled. I don’t say a word, Mara is already making enough of a mess and I don’t want to make the situation worse. But what have they told her on the phone? Are they arresting us? Why? Have they found some drugs in one of our suitcases? I’ve only my cosmetic bag with a toothbrush, as Mara told me, I’ve not even got tranquilizer pills on me, I know very well you can get in a mess even with just an aspirin.

Mara's discussing something excitedly with the highest-ranking officer. I don't know what his rank is, but going by the stars on their epaulettes, this one has three and the others have two, I suppose they’re juniors. I try to ignore what's going on around me, I don't look even my other unfortunate companions in the eye.

The upshot is, we must all be transferred to the police station.

Zanzibar, au revoir!


I can't understand anything, Mara has shut up like a clam in deathly silence, but in fact I’ve very little desire to question her. At least now we’ve been transported to the police station we’ve avoided the humiliation of the cells.

The waiting room is full, all the garbage collected overnight yet to undergo interrogation: whores, the most numerous, druggies at the limit of withdrawal symptoms, drunks and vagrants, thieves caught red-handed.

Murmurs on our arrival.

'Hey you, princess, where were you caught? You must have been in a high-class brothel, with that ass you wiggle so well!'

'Give me a blow job with that cocksucking gob of yours!'

Such are the vulgar compliments directed my way.

In the anteroom of the Chief Commissioner’s office there’s a magistrate too, he greets us politely. A magistrate? But what the fuck is he doing here? Things are turning really crooked! The agent who acts as secretary, a fine woman with an athletic body but the hard face of cop, advises us that, for the statements we will be called to make, we have a right to legal advice - please will we give her the names and phone numbers of our lawyers, they will alert them.


Lawyers? And who of us has ever had a lawyer? Are they going to arrest us? For what? I’m desperate to pee, but hold it back, you never know, if you ask to use the toilet do they have surveillance?

At last! It took an hour for the lawyer sent by the 'Vogue' director to reach us. I'm still unable to understand what’s happened. Mara has a glum face, white as a corpse, the others are dumb scared, I’m hidden behind the huge dark lenses of my sunglasses, this is enough to avoid catching their eyes.

At last, our depositions begin. To begin with our unfortunate fellow travellers are called, one by one, but when they leave the office of the Chief Commissioner they aren't allowed to stop with those of us yet to be questioned. They come out upset, the makeup artist is weeping as she walks away, she just makes a strange sign with her hand, I do can't grasp her meaning. It's certainly something big. Perhaps the only one of us who already knows any more is Mara, who received that mysterious phone call. Now she goes in for her questioning, I'm left to last, but I don't know if I should be happy about that or more worried. I fidget nervously, twiddling the ring on the handle of my handbag.

But shit! It's a whole hour and they're still grilling her! Uncontrollable trembling seizes of my left leg. At last she comes out of the Commissioner’s office, she’s holding her right hand over her eyes, her shoulders are shaken by sobs. There’s no way she’s been tortured, not physically, the cops, at least the high-ranking ones, and the magistrates, won’t come near you - but they can crush you like a worm, and make you go the way of a rat. The only hope is our attorney ...

'Sit down ... Miss?'

'Luna S ...'

'Your papers please ...', the hard-face cop asks in a quiet voice.

'Here they are ...'

In front of me sits the Commissioner, on the right the magistrate, to left the cop; the lawyer’s sitting next to me on my left. The table is littered with papers and overturned photographs. I don’t see the famous lamp that’s pointed in the face of alleged criminals to extort confessions. The office is simple, tidy...

'Miss, I must warn you that everything you say during your testimony will be transcribed, and at the end we will ask you to sign the document ...'

Quietly the Commissioner adds:

'... you may also refuse to answer, when you think appropriate, but we invite you to be co-operative.'

I’m still bursting for a pee, but I hold on, I acknowledge with a nod, without having the strength to make a sound that might pass for a ‘yes’.

'Tell us Miss, you know the girl in this photograph?'

He thrusts the card that I take with a trembling hand, as if he’s expecting me to know her on sight. But it’s a photograph of a smiling girl, no make-up, 'soap and water'. I am tempted to say no, but something in that face looks familiar, a slightly sad expression under a forced smile. Ah! Yup! But it is ...? Damn, but she doesn’t look quite herself, and it’s a while since I’ve seen her about!

'I seem to recognize Kae Maay, I'm not sure.'

I lean towards the Commissioner to return the document. As he picks it up, his sleeve brushes away a sheet of paper, uncovering a photo underneath. What I perceive in the picture causes me a violent, uncontrollable trembling, a feeling of nausea and vertigo, my vision becomes blurred, there’s buzzing in my ears, I slump in my chair, I feel a pair of arms grab me to keep me from falling. ...


I feel I’m in an alien world, in a white room with soft lighting. For hours I’ve only moved like a puppet, unconscious of where really I am, under the influence of tranquilizers and who knows what else. The mixture has taken away the violent shaking I had, like an earthquake, and the chill that took possession of my body, it’s softened the memories and let time glide smoothly by.

Nurse takes me off the drip, then a familiar figure walks in the door with a bouquet of flowers, it’s Mara. Before approaching me she arranges the flowers in a glass vase on the table by the window, from which you can see the trees of the hospital garden.

'Luna, how are you?'

'I don’t know, Mara, I’m so confused - and I'm afraid. But how long have I been here?'

'Two days...'

'That long?'

'It was a bad crisis, they feared you were drugged to death, but I immediately said you don’t do such things, you’re a good girl ... aren’t you?'

'What are you hinting at, Mara? You know I never took shit, I’m not like those others!'

I turn towards the wall at my right, where there is the stand holding the drip, no longer looking at Mara, hurt by this suggestion of mistrust.

'I know, I know, and I know you wouldn’t - I know you well enough, even if you have got a temper ...'

'Mara! Mara! Take me out of here, I'm afraid, scared to death, I don’t want to end up on a slab in the morgue like Kae'

'You were close to her once ...'

'Yes, but then she started with that crap, wild sex, drugs, porn movies, sadomasochistic games ... then getting in with the wrong people ... I don’t want to die like her!'

'Don’t worry now, you're safe here, you are monitored all the time. If I’d known you were still so worked up I wouldn’t have come. I'd better go, I’ll come back tomorrow ...'

'Don’t leave me alone Mara! No, don’t go away! '

'Rest, Luna, I’ll alert the nurse that you're still over-agitated.'

'No! Please come here, give me a kiss ... '

I hug her tightly while she kisses me on the mouth, as if it were the last kiss of my life. The blackest of moods swamps me as I watch her figure outside the frosted-glass door of my white prison, her smile as she turns with a wave of her hand.

Now the nurse fits a new drip and injects something with a syringe into the dispenser.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Velut Luna said:


Ce sont les histoires d'une jeune fille nommée Luna, elle gagne sa vie avec un emploi bien rémunéré, elle est la modèle de photos d'une photographe de Vogue.

These are the stories of a girl named Luna. She's making her living in a well-paid job, she's a photographic model for a photographer of Vogue magazine.


Forbidden Games


'Look at that mess! Look what a mess these photos are in! Where's your head! I've told you a thousand times that you have to watch where I tell you, not gazing the air, in a vacuum, with that stupid expression! What do you think about while you’re working? I’ve got a thousand girls queuing up outside to be photographed, and what do you do? Thinking of the stupid stories you write for that blog of those perverts? Do you want to make it as a photo model or a writer? You won’t earn anything if you only write nonsense!'

'Mara, forgive me, I do try to do exactly what you say, but I can’t be in the best condition every day to pose for the kinds of photos you have in mind!'

'No! No, Luna, you're completely out! You have to tune your brain with mine! Otherwise we’re both wasting time, then, you know, the director of Vogue demands the photographs that are perfect, not just bodies more or less naked or dressed, she wants girls with a face, with aggressive expressions, she wants panthers, not pussycats. I’ve told you, to make a model you have to melt your brain into mine, my every word is an order, you have to always stay connected to my brain, working together. I'm the photographer but you have to be an extension of my mind! You're not model for Playboy, where you just put it on display and then feeze, those men who read Playboy just want to see what a pussy you’ve got! '

When Mara does this it means she’s really angry. I rest, humiliated, with downcast eyes, sitting on the stool in the studio, looking at my shoes, playing with a bracelet, a ring, or my belt. I'm afraid she’ll want to replace me with another girl - she's right, there are thousands, millions who are waiting to take the place of those who have already arrived. And then, what would I do if I lost my job? Be a writer? Forget it, in a couple of weeks I’d find myself starving, I’d have to be an 'entraineuse' in some night club, or worse, a bitch in some local red light!

'Enough for today! We won’t complete anything now. Go and get yourself an enema, your swollen belly’s overflowing the waistband of yours trousers, those pants are pushing out the flab that makes you a fat sausage, your waist looks like a sausage to be grilled. Take a good hot shower, then a sauna, and go to sleep. Don’t you dare go out to the disco, tomorrow I want you perfect! '

I take off the dress that I was wearing for the photographs, and the jewelery. The make-up artist removes make-up from my face. Wearing my jeans and a simple t-shirt of thick wool with long, long sleeves, like a young girl, I’ve tears in my eyes that I hide behind large dark glasses, I mess my hair so that anyone meeting me on the street won’t recognize me.

I feel like a beaten dog. Mara knows how to be bad, when she wants to be.

Within walking distance or a short ride from the studio, on the Boulevard de Rochechouart, is my home. I found this apartment on the top floor of a recently refurbished building in Rue Pierre Picard, in the artists’ quarter in Montmartre. It has a wonderful view, but I don’t get to enjoy life here because work keeps me away from home too often.

Yes I feel like the thing that’s painted on the poster for the exhibition in La Halle Saint Pierre, 'Art Brut'.



View attachment 369450




I throw the bag on the couch, I strip off, I throw myself on the bed in the throes of a nervous breakdown, I beat my fists on the pillow - I'm tired, tired of this stressful life, this life of shit!

But then what is a model? A body, a face, a little make-up, a beautiful dress, and under the dress ... under the dress ... nothing, as far as brain counts... empty!

Hysterical tears, biting the cushion cover, what can I do with the tatters of my life that flows between the blinding lights of the catwalk, the dressing rooms, the studio sessions for fashion photos, being kept waiting at the hands of the masseuse, then the hairdressers, then the makeup artist, then ... then Mara bombarding me, I feel like I’m under fire from a machine-gun, and for all that I have to be beautiful, to smile on command?

Fuck it! I’ll retire, I'll enter a convent !

Here I go, little miss goody-goody, doing as Mara wants, a glycerine suppository, a few drops of laxative in water… I lie on my bed and turn on the computer. My Forums – however many messages has Barb posted in six hours? Stories full of irony by Tree, poems of LittleSiss, stories by PK, and this new story that Eulalia is posting, 'The Girl with no Name', with photographs from a hundred years ago, that naked girl crucified ... what courage!

Oh! Oh! Quick! Just a single dose of Novilax for children. A hot shower and a sauna, fully automatic, programmed, right time, right temperature, the ice shower.

Four drops of Minias (Lormetazepam), just to reduce stress without overdoing it, and early to bed.


But why’s the phone ringing already? It’s still night! What the fuck does Mara want now? Why’s she phoning me at two o’clock in the night?

'Get ready! We’re leaving for a photo shoot tomorrow! I’ll pick you up at five and we’ll go to the airport!'

'At five this afternoon? So why do you have to screw me up at this hour? '

'At five this morning! And quit being a bitch!'

'Shit! What do I need to pack? '

'A toothbrush! Everything else is ready, your passport’s already stamped!'

'What if I decide to tell you to fuck off?'

'You’d deserve it, bitch, if I told you to fuck off!'


Mara is really pissed off!

At two minutes to five, I close the door and take the elevator.

I’m on time, the one who’s not punctual is Mara. I wait. Too long. I call her on my mobile.

'You told me to be ready at five and now it's half five!'

'I'm telling you I'll be there in five minutes, there's no point in calling me every half hour.'

Now who's being a bitch?

The car comes after a good quarter of an hour.

'Hurry up, hurry up, you're always late!'

I can’t look at her for rage! I sit in the back seat without saying hello.

'May I know where we're going?'

'To the airport!'

'But, fuck it, to go where?'

'Zanzibar!'

'Where???!!! It would better if we went to the bar and had a coffee! '

*

Naked.

Naked under the scrutinizing eye of the full body scanner inspecting my body under my light dress. Naked to the lubricious eyes of the surveillance officer at the access-point for international departures at Charles De Gaulle Airport. My thermal image transfer is formed on the screen, it is stored, archived.

We are nothing but bare anatomy to be explored, to be investigated, to be recorded, each of our particulars passes under the cruel eye of some electronic device that captures and transforms into digits an indelible part of our identity. Whether under the barrage of Mara’s cameras, or under the unseen lenses of surveillance cameras along the road, in every public place, or at the Cashpoint, we are robbed of our image.

The kind voice of a hostess announces the flight will be boarding in fifteen minutes. I take off the mask from my eyes that allows me protection from the irritating lights of the waiting and rest rooms.

Mara keeps fussing with the documents contained in the small dossier, rearranging our boarding passes, but twenty minutes pass and the start of embarkation’s still not been announced. Already a small impatient crowd rushes at is pressing around the hostess counters, behind which there are now two gendarmes, something unusual’s going on...

Finally comes the announcement for us to come forward and hand over our tickets.

I see Mara in front of me desperately searching in a thousand pockets of her handbag. Her phone is ringing.

'Shit! Shit! Shit!'

She turns to me with a terrified expression that does not bode well, whispering something to her interlocutor, but I cannot understand. She's been called by the hostess to approach and show our tickets. The hostess turns to the agent of the gendarmerie who promptly invites Mara to step aside. My turn, the same thing happens. I turn towards the window to make sure other passengers cannot see my face or recognize me, but what the hell is going on? Two more gendarmes arrive who ask us to follow them. Meanwhile the rest of our travelling companions, the lighting technician, the makeup artist and two gay models, are separated from the group of passengers.

Mara is angry and protesting with a strange voice while we are being accompanied into a small room, where two officers of the gendarmerie are waiting. It takes little sense to understand that our trip is cancelled. I don’t say a word, Mara is already making enough of a mess and I don’t want to make the situation worse. But what have they told her on the phone? Are they arresting us? Why? Have they found some drugs in one of our suitcases? I’ve only my cosmetic bag with a toothbrush, as Mara told me, I’ve not even got tranquilizer pills on me, I know very well you can get in a mess even with just an aspirin.

Mara's discussing something excitedly with the highest-ranking officer. I don't know what his rank is, but going by the stars on their epaulettes, this one has three and the others have two, I suppose they’re juniors. I try to ignore what's going on around me, I don't look even my other unfortunate companions in the eye.

The upshot is, we must all be transferred to the police station.

Zanzibar, au revoir!


I can't understand anything, Mara has shut up like a clam in deathly silence, but in fact I’ve very little desire to question her. At least now we’ve been transported to the police station we’ve avoided the humiliation of the cells.

The waiting room is full, all the garbage collected overnight yet to undergo interrogation: whores, the most numerous, druggies at the limit of withdrawal symptoms, drunks and vagrants, thieves caught red-handed.

Murmurs on our arrival.

'Hey you, princess, where were you caught? You must have been in a high-class brothel, with that ass you wiggle so well!'

'Give me a blow job with that cocksucking gob of yours!'

Such are the vulgar compliments directed my way.

In the anteroom of the Chief Commissioner’s office there’s a magistrate too, he greets us politely. A magistrate? But what the fuck is he doing here? Things are turning really crooked! The agent who acts as secretary, a fine woman with an athletic body but the hard face of cop, advises us that, for the statements we will be called to make, we have a right to legal advice - please will we give her the names and phone numbers of our lawyers, they will alert them.


Lawyers? And who of us has ever had a lawyer? Are they going to arrest us? For what? I’m desperate to pee, but hold it back, you never know, if you ask to use the toilet do they have surveillance?

At last! It took an hour for the lawyer sent by the 'Vogue' director to reach us. I'm still unable to understand what’s happened. Mara has a glum face, white as a corpse, the others are dumb scared, I’m hidden behind the huge dark lenses of my sunglasses, this is enough to avoid catching their eyes.

At last, our depositions begin. To begin with our unfortunate fellow travellers are called, one by one, but when they leave the office of the Chief Commissioner they aren't allowed to stop with those of us yet to be questioned. They come out upset, the makeup artist is weeping as she walks away, she just makes a strange sign with her hand, I do can't grasp her meaning. It's certainly something big. Perhaps the only one of us who already knows any more is Mara, who received that mysterious phone call. Now she goes in for her questioning, I'm left to last, but I don't know if I should be happy about that or more worried. I fidget nervously, twiddling the ring on the handle of my handbag.

But shit! It's a whole hour and they're still grilling her! Uncontrollable trembling seizes of my left leg. At last she comes out of the Commissioner’s office, she’s holding her right hand over her eyes, her shoulders are shaken by sobs. There’s no way she’s been tortured, not physically, the cops, at least the high-ranking ones, and the magistrates, won’t come near you - but they can crush you like a worm, and make you go the way of a rat. The only hope is our attorney ...

'Sit down ... Miss?'

'Luna S ...'

'Your papers please ...', the hard-face cop asks in a quiet voice.

'Here they are ...'

In front of me sits the Commissioner, on the right the magistrate, to left the cop; the lawyer’s sitting next to me on my left. The table is littered with papers and overturned photographs. I don’t see the famous lamp that’s pointed in the face of alleged criminals to extort confessions. The office is simple, tidy...

'Miss, I must warn you that everything you say during your testimony will be transcribed, and at the end we will ask you to sign the document ...'

Quietly the Commissioner adds:

'... you may also refuse to answer, when you think appropriate, but we invite you to be co-operative.'

I’m still bursting for a pee, but I hold on, I acknowledge with a nod, without having the strength to make a sound that might pass for a ‘yes’.

'Tell us Miss, you know the girl in this photograph?'

He thrusts the card that I take with a trembling hand, as if he’s expecting me to know her on sight. But it’s a photograph of a smiling girl, no make-up, 'soap and water'. I am tempted to say no, but something in that face looks familiar, a slightly sad expression under a forced smile. Ah! Yup! But it is ...? Damn, but she doesn’t look quite herself, and it’s a while since I’ve seen her about!

'I seem to recognize Kae Maay, I'm not sure.'

I lean towards the Commissioner to return the document. As he picks it up, his sleeve brushes away a sheet of paper, uncovering a photo underneath. What I perceive in the picture causes me a violent, uncontrollable trembling, a feeling of nausea and vertigo, my vision becomes blurred, there’s buzzing in my ears, I slump in my chair, I feel a pair of arms grab me to keep me from falling. ...


I feel I’m in an alien world, in a white room with soft lighting. For hours I’ve only moved like a puppet, unconscious of where really I am, under the influence of tranquilizers and who knows what else. The mixture has taken away the violent shaking I had, like an earthquake, and the chill that took possession of my body, it’s softened the memories and let time glide smoothly by.

Nurse takes me off the drip, then a familiar figure walks in the door with a bouquet of flowers, it’s Mara. Before approaching me she arranges the flowers in a glass vase on the table by the window, from which you can see the trees of the hospital garden.

'Luna, how are you?'

'I don’t know, Mara, I’m so confused - and I'm afraid. But how long have I been here?'

'Two days...'

'That long?'

'It was a bad crisis, they feared you were drugged to death, but I immediately said you don’t do such things, you’re a good girl ... aren’t you?'

'What are you hinting at, Mara? You know I never took shit, I’m not like those others!'

I turn towards the wall at my right, where there is the stand holding the drip, no longer looking at Mara, hurt by this suggestion of mistrust.

'I know, I know, and I know you wouldn’t - I know you well enough, even if you have got a temper ...'

'Mara! Mara! Take me out of here, I'm afraid, scared to death, I don’t want to end up on a slab in the morgue like Kae'

'You were close to her once ...'

'Yes, but then she started with that crap, wild sex, drugs, porn movies, sadomasochistic games ... then getting in with the wrong people ... I don’t want to die like her!'

'Don’t worry now, you're safe here, you are monitored all the time. If I’d known you were still so worked up I wouldn’t have come. I'd better go, I’ll come back tomorrow ...'

'Don’t leave me alone Mara! No, don’t go away! '

'Rest, Luna, I’ll alert the nurse that you're still over-agitated.'

'No! Please come here, give me a kiss ... '

I hug her tightly while she kisses me on the mouth, as if it were the last kiss of my life. The blackest of moods swamps me as I watch her figure outside the frosted-glass door of my white prison, her smile as she turns with a wave of her hand.

Now the nurse fits a new drip and injects something with a syringe into the dispenser.
Click to expand...
Umm... what the hell is going on here, Ms. Velut???

It is interestingly disturbing...

T
 
The round world



The world is a grey, curved, concrete wall. The world has muffled sounds and echoes. The world is a circle twice as wide as my open arms. The first thing I learned in this round world are my new names. I have two of them. ‘Daughter’ is the name I prefer. I have right to it when I do the right thing, when I obey. Otherwise my name is ‘Beast’. When I'm Beast, I am punished. When I'm Beast, I'm cold and hungry. When I'm Beast, the circular world stinks. In the round world I'm always naked. When I'm Beast, I'm chained and blindfolded.

Since, as Daughter, I don’t want to become Beast, I must remember the places for the things that have been entrusted to me, and pay attention to them. The bucket for my natural needs must always be hanging on the beam, waiting to be emptied. The jug of water must always be on the table. The food tray should always stand next to the hatch.

The hatch is the centre of the circular world. I fear and revere it as a capricious deity. The hatch can open unexpectedly, or remain closed for days, even though I’ve no longer any sense of time. Through the hatch they can push food, or dish out punishment.

Mistakes are always punished. For small mistakes there is hunger, for the biggest mistakes, cold, or excruciating heat. Once I got so hot that I stopped sweating. I fell on the concrete thinking I was dying. I was reprieved with a jet of cold water. I was Daughter again, I could drink once more, and clean out the bucket buzzing with flies. Punishment is harsh in the circular world, relentless and precise.

So I believed, until I discovered that the circular world is imperfect. The circular world has a crack, as long as my index finger, it opens in the wall where the beam for the bucket slots into the concrete wall.

I didn’t dare look at it closely for a long time. I knew it was there, pressing the edge of my consciousness, it burnt like fire. I know that studying the crack is a forbidden act, because, in the circular world, everything that is not explicitly allowed is forbidden. But one night I allowed myself, I transgressed for the first time in a long while, time is always the same in my round world. Carefully, slowly, I studied my moves. I got up on the bed boards and pretended to fall.

Stupid Beast. Useless Beast. I pretended I had to reach onto the wall for support, and I paused for a moment with my left eye in contact with the crack. I didn’t see anything. I was alone in the dark, but the enormity of the gesture made me sweat with fear for hours. I expected punishment and pain. I waited in the cold and hunger.

But nothing happened. It was an amazing surprise. Through the long wait, a sleepless night and a feverish day, I realized that not everything I do is seen. Not everything I do is weighed and judged. Not everything I do is rewarded or punished. I'm lost and alone, as I was in the first days in my round world, when there were still strong memories of before, when the walls did not exist and had I another name, other than Beast or Daughter. My certainties were shattered and so I dared to look again. The second time I held my eye close to the crack for nearly a full second. The third for the length of a breath. I have seen it. I saw green. I saw blue. I saw a cloud. I saw the red roof of a house.

Now I'm looking again, poised on the tiptoes, hands splayed out on the concrete to support me. There's something moving outside, in a light which I imagine to be the dawn. It is a dark form, which grows bigger and bigger as it approaches. Suddenly I realize that I'm making the worst mistake, I am committing the most unforgivable fault.

The man walking over the meadow is the Father, and I'm looking at him. As if he’s heard my thoughts, the Father gathers pace. He’s coming for me.


And he is holding a cleaver.
 
Velut Luna said:
The round world



The world is a grey, curved, concrete wall. The world has muffled sounds and echoes. The world is a circle twice as wide as my open arms. The first thing I learned in this round world are my new names. I have two of them. ‘Daughter’ is the name I prefer. I have right to it when I do the right thing, when I obey. Otherwise my name is ‘Beast’. When I'm Beast, I am punished. When I'm Beast, I'm cold and hungry. When I'm Beast, the circular world stinks. In the round world I'm always naked. When I'm Beast, I'm chained and blindfolded.

Since, as Daughter, I don’t want to become Beast, I must remember the places for the things that have been entrusted to me, and pay attention to them. The bucket for my natural needs must always be hanging on the beam, waiting to be emptied. The jug of water must always be on the table. The food tray should always stand next to the hatch.

The hatch is the centre of the circular world. I fear and revere it as a capricious deity. The hatch can open unexpectedly, or remain closed for days, even though I’ve no longer any sense of time. Through the hatch they can push food, or dish out punishment.

Mistakes are always punished. For small mistakes there is hunger, for the biggest mistakes, cold, or excruciating heat. Once I got so hot that I stopped sweating. I fell on the concrete thinking I was dying. I was reprieved with a jet of cold water. I was Daughter again, I could drink once more, and clean out the bucket buzzing with flies. Punishment is harsh in the circular world, relentless and precise.

So I believed, until I discovered that the circular world is imperfect. The circular world has a crack, as long as my index finger, it opens in the wall where the beam for the bucket slots into the concrete wall.

I didn’t dare look at it closely for a long time. I knew it was there, pressing the edge of my consciousness, it burnt like fire. I know that studying the crack is a forbidden act, because, in the circular world, everything that is not explicitly allowed is forbidden. But one night I allowed myself, I transgressed for the first time in a long while, time is always the same in my round world. Carefully, slowly, I studied my moves. I got up on the bed boards and pretended to fall.

Stupid Beast. Useless Beast. I pretended I had to reach onto the wall for support, and I paused for a moment with my left eye in contact with the crack. I didn’t see anything. I was alone in the dark, but the enormity of the gesture made me sweat with fear for hours. I expected punishment and pain. I waited in the cold and hunger.

But nothing happened. It was an amazing surprise. Through the long wait, a sleepless night and a feverish day, I realized that not everything I do is seen. Not everything I do is weighed and judged. Not everything I do is rewarded or punished. I'm lost and alone, as I was in the first days in my round world, when there were still strong memories of before, when the walls did not exist and had I another name, other than Beast or Daughter. My certainties were shattered and so I dared to look again. The second time I held my eye close to the crack for nearly a full second. The third for the length of a breath. I have seen it. I saw green. I saw blue. I saw a cloud. I saw the red roof of a house.

Now I'm looking again, poised on the tiptoes, hands splayed out on the concrete to support me. There's something moving outside, in a light which I imagine to be the dawn. It is a dark form, which grows bigger and bigger as it approaches. Suddenly I realize that I'm making the worst mistake, I am committing the most unforgivable fault.

The man walking over the meadow is the Father, and I'm looking at him. As if he’s heard my thoughts, the Father gathers pace. He’s coming for me.


And he is holding a cleaver.
Click to expand...
Dark and scary ... nice writing Luna!
 
I was so entranced by the ideas, the round circular world, wondering where she had come from, getting hints that there was a before. Beautifully written and ideas so different than my own, and so clearly detailed. I could well understand her anxiety regarding her "transgression" at the crack. The holding a cleaver part took me completely by surprise, as in a real shock. :eek:

Lovely writing, Luna. :):)
 
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