There's no prospect of a man in your fortune ! Not a single one ! Well, ther is one you will meet this year... But after that, you've got no more ahead ! That's your destiny !!

Anything you want to eat ?
Alright, let's just go drinking then.

Sans attendre de réponse, il s’éloigna. Barral échangea un regard complice avec Gervais : il suffisait que leur chef aligne trois phrases pour qu’on sache à quoi s’en tenir. Dans le genre direct et concis, il ne se faisait pas mieux au SPVM. Les deux policiers poursuivirent leur chemin.

Au loin, sur le mont Royal, les adeptes de la luge continuaient de dévaler les pentes, imperturbablement, fonçant avec un plaisir évident dans les bottes de foin qui bordaient le bas des pistes.

Barral raccrocha, soucieux. Il enfila son vieux manteau à capuche, composa le code du système d’alarme et sortit.

Barral savait qu’ils allaient assister à un mini tremblement de terre au cours des prochains jours. Il hocha la tête, comme pour mieux se convaincre de cette réalité, puis composa le numéro de Paul Gervais, un de ses collègues qui, contrairement à lui, avait choisi de ne pas prendre congé.

Barral se dirigea vers la baie vitrée et s’accouda sur le rebord de la fenêtre. Au loin, des enfants couraient dans la neige sur les pentes du mont Royal, alors que d’autres remontaient des luges deux fois plus grosses qu’eux. Un brin de nostalgie l’envahit. Il se dit que son boulot de flic l’avait empêché de faire ce genre d’activité avec sa fille, que ses vingt-deux années passées au service de la police avaient eu un effet pervers sur sa vie familiale. Mais il savait aussi que la médiocrité de leur relation tenait davantage à sa personnalité qu’à son métier.

—  J’ai passé la soirée avec des chums dans un bar sur Saint-Laurent, c’était plutôt cool.

Dimanche 1er janvier

Barral appuya sur l’interrupteur de la cafetière et jeta un œil maussade par la fenêtre. La neige tombait faiblement, alors que le sommet du mont Royal se perdait dans les nuages. Il n’aimait pas les fêtes de fin d’année, elles le rendaient morose. Il sacra, en proie à une mauvaise humeur grandissante. Il essaya de se remémorer ce qu’il avait bu la veille, dans ce bar du boulevard Saint-Laurent : deux ou trois vodkas, plusieurs bières, une coupe de champagne, rien d’exagéré pour une soirée de réveillon.

She did not know I had died and come back to life. Her daughter, my mother, was still asleep. And when they came to the delivery ward, not even the doctor could explain to Saeeda what had happened to make me, her granddaughter in the clear-sided isolette, such a dense shade of blue.

The doctor checks the time of death with the nurse but gets no answer.

“I said, was it six thirty-eight?”

The nurse is staring at my body with a frown.

Imagine their surprise: a vein pulses on the crown of my head. And imagine, as I have many times, the strangeness of what they see happening to my face. It is turning blue. No, not an airless blue. Like a fine network of roots, cobalt filaments are wiggling outward from lips and eyelids, webbing together under the skin across cheeks and forehead. The broken blood vessels seem to multiply with every branching. They grow in density, too, coloring my face. Down my neck, across my chest, underneath my fingernails, and between my toes. Soon my entire body is an even, lustrous blue like a creature from a fairy tale.

Imagine this. In the final hour before dawn, the doctor pulls a baby through an incision under a woman’s belly. Everyone is doomed to this first unhousing, one way or another. And as he lifts me from the dark warmth of my mother’s body and unwraps the cord from around my neck, everyone here begins to work as hard as they can. They work for several minutes, until the outcome is obvious. Someone looks at the clock, announces the time.

Q: What speaks with no body?

A: The wind, Auntie.

Q: What grows larger the more you take away?

A: A hole, Auntie.

Q: What tells the truth by telling lies?

I was going to say a novel. But in my life, the first answer to that question is you, Auntie. Tonight is one of your birthdays. Persephone-like, you had two of them, and here at your stone in the grass, out in the cold San Francisco fog at the nadir of the year, I put a cube of soap down and ask for your attention. I’ll speak in your native tongue—lies and fables braided with the truth. It is like those dreams where I can fly or just open my mouth and sing on key: realizing how easy it is to address the dead and expect an answer.

But you? You are dirty blond, whereas Beth is strawberry blond. It’s Catherine with a C not a K. Your eyes are green but turn blue when it rains.

You are unique as fuck.

And this is precisely how you manage to detach yourself from white supremacy, in your mind. Your individuality has enabled you to create an US (good white people) versus THEM (bad, racist white people) dichotomy that lets you off the hook.

Why do we bother? After all, this country was founded on the genocide of Indigenous people, the enslavement and genocide of African people. Since the beginning, it has been racism, xenophobia, violence, rinse, repeat. The Chinese Exclusion Act. Japanese internment. Operation Wetback. Jim Crow. Police brutality. ICE concentration camps. Muslim bans. The disastrous impacts of COVID-19.

If you’re reading this, you are most likely white. Most of what’s here, you already know. You’ve known it your whole life. After all, it’s you—white people—who created white supremacy, who benefit from white supremacy, who uphold white supremacy.

He pushed those thoughts away and took a sip of juice from his glass. Wondering wouldn’t bring anything good. If he’d grown up here, he’d never have met Zeno, and that wasn’t something he was willing to wrap his mind around. They might not be related by blood, but that didn’t mean Zeno was any less his brother, and Tobal cared about him. Besides, he couldn’t change the past. No one could.

Sometimes, it was hard to believe that this was Tobal’s life.

He looked down at the table, unsure where to start. He’d never had this much food at his disposal before, and he still wasn’t used to it. His instinct was to grab as much as he could and hoard it in his room, but it wouldn’t do to behave that way, and it wasn’t necessary. If he was hungry, he just had to ask one of the many servants hanging around the palace.

Sabin shook his head. Sometimes he didn’t recognize his friend. It wasn’t a bad thing, because Berith was happy, more so than Sabin had ever seen him, but it could become a problem if other princes of Hell and demons realized what was happening. They might not attack Berith head-on, but they wouldn’t hesitate to try to take out Mel. Mel was human, and he wouldn’t be able to defend himself.

Although he’d had to defend himself the last time a demon attacked him. He’d used a vase, and while it wouldn’t have been enough to kill the demon, it had bought Mel enough time for people to notice what was happening and run to protect him.

“What will you do once you’re on the road and you can’t spy on him all the time?” Sabin asked as he stacked his files together.

“What are you talking about?”

Sabin stared. “You can’t tell me you don’t remember. We’ve been talking about it for weeks.”

“Tell me again, then.”

“You have to get on the road soon to visit your vassals.”

It was an unfortunate but necessary job. Every few years, Berith visited the people who lived in his territories. He listened to what they had to say, made lists of things they needed, and ensured they got those things. It kept people happy, and it made

Sabin was doing his best to ignore the scene in front of him, but it wasn’t easy when Berith and Mel were all over each other. They weren’t doing anything inappropriate, but Sabin couldn’t avoid listening to them. Mel was in Berith’s lap, and they were cuddling, for fuck’s sake. Why were they cuddling in Sabin’s office?

Berith grunted. He didn’t know what was happening exactly, but he would before the day was over. He flicked his fingers at Sabin, who nodded and quickly typed on the screen of his tablet. Things had been more complicated when they’d had to use messengers and ink and paper, but human technology worked in Hell, too. They’d had to make a few changes to use it, but now Sabin could send a message, and a group of guards would be out of the palace in about half an hour, headed to this demon’s village to protect it.

This wasn’t what he’d imagined would happen when he’d become a prince of Hell. He’d been ambitious, but things had changed over the decades. They’d changed even more after he’d had a child, and he couldn’t wait for all of this to be over so he could go back to his daughter. When he thought about her recent kidnapping and rescue, his heart still raced in his chest, and he had to clutch at the arms of his throne so he wouldn’t throw himself out of it and go look for her. He’d almost lost her, but he had to remember that he hadn’t. She was safe somewhere in the palace, probably playing and driving her mother nuts. That was what Berith had to focus on, nothing else.

It would be rude for Berith to get up and leave the throne room, yet, he was tempted to do just that. No one would say anything. Everyone liked their heads on their shoulders, and Berith was the one person here who could have it cut off with one word.

He crouched next to the books and started piling them again. His movements faltered when he grabbed one he thought he recognized. He’d never read it, but he’d heard about it.

Esau’s eyes burned, but he kept turning the pages. He was looking for a specific spell, and he needed to find it. It would be faster if he had help, but he wasn’t about to tell anyone what he was doing, least of all his brother. Sal wouldn’t allow him to do this, and Esau wasn’t used to taking no for an answer, not even from Sal—especially not from him. Besides, Sal was in the human realm. He probably hadn’t thought of Esau twice since he’d gone back with his boyfriend, and Esau wasn’t going to bother him. He’d have to eventually, but first he had to find this spell.

Cette vieille dame qu’était ma mère, qui comptait déjà un AVC au compteur, avait le palpitant fragile, de l’hypertension, la vésicule biliaire détraquée et toutes sortes d’autres affections liées à l’âge. C’est pourquoi Frances, qui l’avait accompagnée au bureau de Bob à l’hôpital, demanda d’abord à ce dernier de lui prendre la tension avant de lui expliquer en détail la dure, l’immuable vérité.

À sept heures ce matin, je décolle pour Oahu. Au départ, c’était censé être une virée de quelques jours, sympa, à s’imbiber et, rêvons un peu, à copuler avec des Eurasiennes à tomber (personnellement, j’étais dévoré de lancinants fantasmes sur la chute de reins de toutes ces nymphettes tahitiennes), mais là en l’occurrence, c’est pour une veillée funèbre.

Car au fond, quel être pensant parmi nous n'a jamais regardé autour de lui et contemplé les fascistes, les guignols et les brutes qui ont hérité la Terre, sans à un moment ou un autre envisager le suicide ? Si bien qu'au bout du bout, le suicide devient uniquement une façon éloquente et dramatique de dire non, on ne veut pas vivre dans un monde où règnent les gibiers de potence.