"a" (Stewart O’Nan)

The indefinite, a baby mouthing sounds, nothing special, like the city you live in or the socks you wear, made by a machine run by a girl who left her family's farm in the north, unsung, just one of a million, a billion, the numberless stuff the mind throws up on contact - a round, a long, a last, a lie, a crime, a life, a father, a song, a war - meaningless until someone comes to claim it, to remedy it, to confess:  this is mine, I did it, it was me.

In vision is the beginning of desire, or does one lie just require another?  I'll say anything if it sounds true enough.  So what if I made you from parts of others?  I've always loved zombies.

We finally meet, after so long apart, and now I need to know everything about you, though there's no guarantee how this will end.  Badly, if history is any judge.  I'm no mindreader.  I'm the kind that will follow you around, get in bed with you, sway beside you on the train, waiting for you to betray yourself.  If you don't, I will.

I'm capable of anything - ask anyone.  So don't lie.  Don't try and shock me.  I'm no Einstein, but I've been walking this beat my entire life.  I know where your family lives.  You ask people, they'll tell you anything.  From there you can figure out their secrets.  Believe me, yours aren't much different from mine, as sad as that sounds.

What I want is what I can't understand (I'm not like you, I don't love what I know), and I'll do anything to get it.  I don't care if I look like a fool.  That's how I started in this business.  There's nothing more dangerous than a know-nothing.  If I could go back, I would, start fresh again, but it's too late to pretend, like at the end of the night, or maybe the morning after, when the streets are gray and the cars are loud and even the clouds are too bright.  I follow you back to your flat to see if you'll do what I think you'll do.  And you do.  I don't know if this is love, but I promise, whatever happens after this, I'll never forget you.

Pour citer cette ressource :

Stewart O'nan, ""a" (Stewart O’Nan)", La Clé des Langues [en ligne], Lyon, ENS de LYON/DGESCO (ISSN 2107-7029), juillet 2014. Consulté le 20/04/2024. URL: https://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/litterature/entretiens-et-textes-inedits/a-stewart-o-nan-