Felix De Clercq

I saw the fire. I had to think of you.

 

I told myself: there is going to be a fire and we’ll dance around it. It’s going to be magnificent. I’ll wear that tank top you like and we won’t have to worry about the bus or time or any of that. We’ll be free, you know. And we’ll dance. Yes sure. Like this? My arm. Okay. What is that smell? It smells like – I don’t know. Do you? It reminds me of a camp site, damp and dreary but somewhere in one of the big tents, someone is making food that you never tasted before but you want it, you know you want it, you want something hot and new and so and you just want to run through the rain, in between the countless drops, and taste it. With, like, cumin? Do you smell it? Is that a cat? I think I just saw a cat.

 

It’s hiding behind the shrubs, between the foliage. Don’t you want me to read, like the last time, wouldn’t that be better? Okay. I don’t mind, I could sit here all day, watch the world move, feel the sun, the back of my neck and the breeze. Hear that, it’s blowing through the book. It’s reading. It's carrying the words, through the shrubs, between the foliage.

 

I saw the fire. I had to think of you.

I think this is the afterglow.

 

There is a forest in the pillow. When I close my eyes I can hear the birds in the trees, the trees, the sap and the roots, the forest floor and its sweet and sickly smell, the sudden drop in temperature when you walk between the tree trunks. I remember we were walking and we had to turn back, we had to find another way to the river. We could hear it, the gushing, but there was a fence and you said let’s go back or I did, that I don’t remember. Or maybe we didn’t talk and just turned back, found another way. I remember not seeing you as we were walking, in sync. I wasn’t worried, I knew you were there, I knew that all I had to do was turn my head ever so slightly and I’d see you. I’d be able to touch you, your arm swinging back and forth as you walk. But I didn’t, I didn’t have to. Something happened to me, during that detour. You know, I knew, don’t ask me how I knew, that from that moment on, every time I’d close my eyes, you’d be there, just like I knew we’d get to the river.

 

I’m trying not to stare. But I like the way you divide your attention between me and the paper. Sometimes I feel like I’m more real on paper and just by looking at me, you make me come alive. Why is that funny? You don’t believe me? Do you want me to draw you?

 

I could smell the smoke, it reminded me of you. What do you mean, that’s funny? You’re funny. You’re a funny little boy, you know that? What do you have to hide? There must be something. What is wrong with you? I won’t move. No worries.

 

I won’t. You can count on us. We’re connected, that makes us stronger. We’ll protect what’s there, no trespassers. Except for birds, renards maybe. And if you leave us here long enough: grass and foliage, creepers, words in the wind. I won’t move. You can count on us. When Nadar, the famous photographer and balloonist came to Brussels, when his Géant took off from the Botanique, to take his pictures from the sky, like a bird, like a big round bird high above the Botanique, we were there, for crowd control, you know. That’s how we got our name, from him. He wasn’t pleased, you know, because he was a photographer and a balloonist but also and mostly an anarchist.

 

There is a forest on the floor. If you stare long enough, there’s a forest anywhere. I touched the bark without moving a finger, I was a fox and the roots. I carried the branches and the camp site, the river would flow through me, there would be certainties and rain.

 

(I’ve been reassembled multiple times. I have seen the times pass. I have been seen again and again and interpreted by many. I wore that tank top you like and there was no such thing as time.)

 

I once wrote a letter and set it on fire, just to watch the wind carry the words that nobody could read and I know the ashes landed on the snow, spelling out a charcoal message I will never understand.

 

When I burn, I’ll think of you.

 

Angelo Tijssens