vendredi 12 septembre 2008

Story Time

In our village's weekly vintage market, I found a very old souvenir postcard of the Nice carnaval, mailed to an address in Marseille sometime in the early 1900s. From that, I wrote this macabre little tale for my book shop. It's called "Carnaval de Nice":

“A thousand caresses to everyone from Yvonne”

She dropped the card into the letterbox and went on her way,
no inkling that they would be the last words her nearest and
dearest would ever hear from her.


Heading for the boulevard by the sea, the girl in a yellow dress
watched the carnaval’s extraordinary folk: magicians with furry
rabbit ears; musicians playing the sweetest melodies she had
ever heard on instruments nobody could see; puppets who
walked and talked needing no puppeteers; and fire eaters who
with their every breath made the air shimmer gold.


The float containing the one million blood-red Alhambran orchids
paused where she stood. She thought she heard from the flowers
a sound like sharp little teeth gnashing. “Don’t touch,” the ballerina
pirouetting all over the petals warned her, “they get nasty when
they’re hungry.” However the scent was irresistible, and she
reached a hand out to the nearest petal for a caress…


Afterwards, her family and friends looked everywhere for
Yvonne, but all they ever found were torn pieces of a yellow dress
on the boulevard by the sea.

The book can be found here.

3 commentaires:

Greet a dit…

ow, scary story,
but you are a real artist Pomme!!!!

odd a dit…

Hi. I was wandering if write in french, do you translate it yourself? CAn you manage to keep the same style?
I love your graphic way of sawing... Warm Woolly Greetings,

Oliwia
odd/woolitbe

Apol a dit…

Fleur, you are one my top cheerleaders ever!

Oliwia, I write in English and that's about it. When I start writing in French, I'll be posting here and you can tell me how bad it is :) Thank you for your visit!