Tales from my sofa
by Bonjour Ivresse
Hello, wino. I’m finishing my drink for the umpteenth time today. I’m finally starting to feel the effects of alcohol. The good ones. That sweet feeling of well-being, of lightness, of peaceful energy. This desire to do thousands of things without actually doing any. The night begins to fall, the brightness slowly decreases. The clouds have deserted the azure sky. Time takes its time.
Soon all these idiots will come out their hands, tired of uselessness for weeks, to applaud. Collective hysteria. Malaise. It’s at least a point of reference for all these people who suddenly find themselves without a horizon, lost to have time for themselves, unable to follow a direction that is no longer indicated to them. It’s eight o’clock. I drag myself to my fridge to get a beer. Gray jogging suits and a half-punched T-shirt. Same outfit I’ve been wearing for three days. Lye marks must look pretty bad. Pelforth’s pack is already half empty.
It’s amazing how much you drink when you’re bored. Drinking, eating, fucking. Back to basics. I grab the beer, some chips, sausage, and I’m back to my couch. My ass wedges with amazing ease in the place I’d just left. Squatting 8 hours a day for weeks on the same cushion, nothing like that for shape memory. And that’s the tragedy. The TV threatens to go off in 60 seconds if nothing happens. So I’ve been sitting in front of a screen for 4 hours now and I’m not even looking at it. I make an effort to remember which show can put my brain to sleep for such a long time with such ease. Fifty seconds. BFM of course.
It’s crazy the hypnotic power of these continuous news channels. Talking so much to say almost nothing is genius. 40 seconds. But shit, don’t these journalists get pissed off by repeating the same bullshit every five minutes? I’m still impressed, and I know what I’m talking about. 30 seconds. I’m putting on a big bunch of hops to give me courage. Twenty seconds. It’s amazing how fast a minute can go by when life hasn’t seemed this long in a month. Ten seconds. I finally reach out my arm to the remote control on the table. 5. 4. 3. 2… I obviously wait until the last second before pressing the OK button with a smile on my face, a proud look on my face and a rounded chest. The TV stays on.
In these troubled days, any small victories are worth taking. I feel like I’ve done something with my day. Like I clapped at 8:00. Another well-deserved shot of beer. I’m a bar manager, by the way. And my bar, Drunken Morning, has been closed since the night of March 14, 2019. Administratively closed with no infraction. And all the uncertainty that goes with it. The unknown. Punished by an invisible enemy. Forgotten the endless debates, the cornered glances and the friends at the end of endless nights. More than a month without beer, without debates, without wine, without music, without laughter, without encounters. Without the salt of life. And still weeks of deafening silence ahead. Last sip. The pack is empty. Soon it will be time to go to bed thinking about the future. Fill out the fucking certificate so we can restock the beer supply. Good evening, Sadness.
@Julien Brossard
