Carlos believed in positive thinking. He really did. He
if you had to make a choice between line and colour, he
believed in it so much that he thought he’d be able to
said, which would you choose? – Hells bells, I replied,
take cyanide and yet keep himself alive simply through
except that I didn’t, for I do not speak like so. – Hells
trusting that his heart could make it. He thought that he
bells, I said, what kind of a question is that? The simplicity
could never drown, so long as he truly believed he never
of my response sheltered the philosophical foetus that lay
would. The test of life, he thought, is a test of trust. That,
within. No, I withdraw foetus. How about hibernating bear? Or
in the end, is all that a man should need. It all comes
sausage in a roll, or the sweets at the centre of an Easter
down to trust. His girl Maria, however, did not believe
Egg? – Stuff the logic, he said. – Yes indeed, I replied,
in positive thinking. She thought nothing of it. She didn’t
stuff stuffing. The stuffing in a roast chicken. Of course! Why
trust it at all. At least, not until after Carlos’ funeral. It
hadn’t I thought of that before? – What? he said. – Hells
was then that she allowed herself to think about things a
bells, never mind that I replied. The logic is duly stuffed,
little more positively; to release her tired heart from
with parsley and with sage. For the dessert, I think I’ll be
the shackles of negativity. It was then that she thrilled the ghost
taking line. – Ah, he said, line. Not colour? – Not colour,
of her late boyfriend, looking on the bright side for once when
said I, unless the line need be in colour. – No, he said, the
she said: ‘Well, at least that idiot is dead at last.’
line is black – And the colour formless? I asked, grinning…
(Pierre Monceau and Jean-Pierre Sertin)
