2018.06.07.
Omar
The guy is my neighbour. I live on the second floor. He's my street level neighbour.We meet almost every day, and sometimes we talk, we smoke a cigarette and chat. Mostly at night.
Bits of life shared under a lamppost, near the Métro vent.
You see, I live just above a Métro ventilation grid.
The noise of its ventilation drones ceaselessly in my ears, even when I shut the windows.
A constant drone. A mass of hot foul air spouted continuously by this insatiable mouth.
It exhales the sweat of the city that crawls and steeps in its intestine ducts.
The harsh smell of these millions of figures struggling inside its belly from 5:30 to 00:26, mixed with cheap detergent.
A subterranean filth floating upwards like a flatulence and spreading through this ventilation grid.
Rum is Omar's favourite poison. Dry rum, the cheapest sort. One gulp in the morning to wake up, and a 70 cl bottle in the evening.
That's his daily routine. And rum cleanses everything, or so they say. It anesthesiates, it disinfects.
With the rum he escapes, he rambles and trips far away.
With rum he hears voices that pester him. Voices that remind him things... Voices that are after his skin, so he defends himself.
One day, as I watched him crossing the street to refill his stock at the convenience store, he was nearing a big sparkling red convertible Mercedes at the red light.
He stops in front of the car and stares. I witness the scene from my window. I wonder what he might have said.
Was it 'Wow! That's a classy drive, man, very nice choice', or rather 'Hey you! How come you got enough dough to afford that? You motherfucker!'
Omar lives alone. He's famous in the neighbourhood. My daughter loves him. She gives him a peck on the cheek on her way to school.
She keeps asking us to invite him for dinner. She draws pictures for him, which he guards preciously in his wallet.
His belongings are always neatly packed and in their proper place. He takes care of his things and makes sure to be closely shaved every day, just like before. When he was a paramedic in Toulon and madly in love. But that was such a long time ago...
Today... He's my neighbour. I live on the second floor. He's my street level neighbour.
The drunk tanks are too violent, according to him. The guys simply can't hold their liquor there.
It comes to fistfights right away, he says. And there is a lot of stealing too, and drugs, and it's grubby.
After his last experience, all things considered, he'd rather stay in the street. On this voracious grid that warms him during winter and smothers him in summer, his face ravaged by 25 years in the street.
His muscles lanky and his lungs filled with the city's foul exhalations.
This translation does not claim to be of any particular value.
Glad if you liked it, sorry if you didn't.
You can reuse it as you please.
Glad if it's for knowledge or understanding, sorry if it's just for money or fame.