Bruno Montels

   by Alain Frontier, translated by Raymond Federman

Then he dies. His cries are always silent cries. He is standing in front of his audience. He does not confront it, but rather drags it behind him, then he dies. His body is twisted. His body is thin and twisted. He enters an awkward dance. He extenuates himself to say something in a low voice. But offers no ideas in spectacle. In a way, he has nothing to say. He doesn't move. Something moves in him. He makes the room resonate with an almost inaudible whispering. He has no law to impose. He says that sometimes he feels a brutal and sudden breath, that comes as a surplus. He says that he did not write this anger. Even the noises outside, which he hears clearly, cannot drown his voice. He is not alone among the others. He moves briskly among them, but not arrogantly. He passes lightly. He has a certain way of smiling, then he dies. He is always vigilant. He listens. He is, in other words, always watchful. He says he has phantasms that are like another life, but it's not what it's all about, rather he watches the moment when himself. Sometimes a word comes off the page. Then he hears his own tongue speak next to him. He feels that he is moving away from himself and that he loses sight of himself. He feels that he is in danger. He feels a kind of hollow inside into which he is going to fall. He needs to hang on to the page. The steady beating of his finger against the edge of the table prevents him from staggering. He has chunks of time that explode and sink. He says that the times are all mingled. He says that perhaps his mother did not burn in the great fire. He is not sure. The walls are covered with signs, and bodies are also mingled. He says that the police are mingled and embroiled, and that when he passes in front of the facades they look at him with his own eyes. He crumples the page he just wrote and throws it away far from him. Bruno Montels throws the page away as if he no longer needs it. He says he no longer needs it. Then he is, dead. Then.