emily’s Reviews > Ultramarine > Status Update

‘In the beginning, he’d send photos—had thought—his passion—shareable—reassuring—But whatever—said—was too egotistical. To marvel at a wave or at the sun was already to betray his love and marriage and this family that already had to function without him more than six months out of the year. So—he says nothing—He ends up rolling out, mechanically, the words of love, trying not to write the same ones as yesterday.’

‘Sustained by stories and questions—they smile and start—again—like—insects that keep their world turning with a rigor that makes them impervious to all mystery. They hunt down —missing bolt—the tiny fissure—test—switch from electronic to manua—trusting nothing but their own arms activating the levers—pistons to work—in the immense heat of the engines—consult user manuals—hours go by in—most profound silence.’

‘—the harbor is hostile—it’s the price to pay for leaving—Go on, quick—She belongs to the water and knows her trade. Though no trip ever begins with certainty—this accursed appetite for rupture—she entrusts, like an idiot—to the sea—a total powerlessness. The bruises are part of the transformation—Does a shipwreck give rise to new forms of solidarity? In drowning—does flesh become fish? Does skin—grow scales?’

‘—prone to disappearing—The last time—She—stayed several months—took care of all sorts of things—met all sorts of people—rekindled—old friendships—pursued—romantic fling that she then didn’t know what to do about—The last—weeks before—departure, she was certain—the city couldn’t tolerate her any longer—she was the superfluous element amid the interlocking buildings—bodies—unseen violence—fences—she—awaited boarding—'

‘Landscapes scroll past under their eyelids—childhood—plains so vast they seem prehistoric, diluvian rains, bicycles picking up speed under a beating sun—fields of sunflowers and fields of rapeseed, beaches, spices, cabins. To witness them is to see faces ecstatic—abandoned—bodies arched with pleasure. And each one knows that it’s in his own language that the sea is the sea—seen their lives summed up in a wave—’

‘Ribcages compressed—immense weight of the ocean—enormous mass, gray—the ocean—sealed the water behind the freighter that, on the contrary, puts all its strength into splitting the surface. You don’t tear the ocean like fabric or leave an imprint as you would in sand—Plunging in, you condemn yourself to invisibility—no desire for bravura, no sense of the hour to come—'