Eve Out of Her Ruins Read Free

slime of desire that oozed down my right cheek. They, the bigger boys, had something else to give in return: books, calculators, CDs. All I gave them was the shadow of a body.
    I am in permanent negotiation. My body is a stop-over. Entire sections have been explored. Over time, they blossom with burns and cracks. Everyone leaves some trace, marks his territory.
    I am seventeen years old and I don’t give a fuck. I’m buying my future.
    I am transparent. The boys look at me like they can see me inside out. The girls avoid me like a sickness. My reputation’s been sealed.
    I’m alone. But I’ve known for a long while the value of solitude. I walk straight ahead, untouchable. Nobody can read anything on my blank face, except what I choose to show. I’m not like the others. I don’t belong to Troumaron. The neighborhood didn’t steal my soul like the other drones that live there. This skeleton has a secret life sealed in its belly. It’s carved by the sharp edge of refusal. Neither the past nor the future matter; they don’t exist. And the present doesn’t either.
    Eraser. Pencil. Ruler. Beginnings are always easy. And then we open our eyes to a bleak world, to a universe under siege. The looks of others, eyes that judge and condemn. I’m seventeen and I’ve decided my life.
    I’m braving the reefs all around me. I won’t be like my mother. I won’t be like my father. I’m something else, something not really alive. I walk alone, straight ahead. I’m not afraid of anybody. They’re the ones who fear me, who fear what they can only guess lies beneath my skin.
    The more they touch me, the more they lose hold of me. The ones who dare to look into my eyes feel dizzy. They’re so simple. The inexplicable frightens them. They have fixed ideas. A girl to marry, a girl to conquer and toss aside. Those are the only two categories they can understand. But I don’t belong to one or the other. So they end up baffled and angry.
    At night, I haunt the asphalt. Meetings are arranged. They take me, they bring me back. I remain cold. Whatever changes in me, it’s not the truest, innermost part of myself. I protect myself. I know how to protect myself from men. I’m the predator here.
    They take me. They bring me back. Sometimes, they rough me up. No matter. It’s just a body. It can be fixed. That’s what it’s for.
    I sidestep the traps and the obstacles. I dance in evasion.

    Shadow or wing, what you were no longer is. You become something else. In Troumaron, a reflection follows you. It taunts you. It tells you you’re walking the wrong way. It transforms your surfaces, inverts your trajectory, reveals the other side of your silence. The paper boat is leaking everywhere and you don’t know it. You watch as you sink but you don’t see that it’s you. Erasers, papers, pencils, rulers, books, heart, kidneys, toes. One day, you’ll see yourself in the mirror, and nothing at all will be yours.
    You see a face congealed under its lies. You ask yourself where you went. You were looking for a key—but something had broken in.

CLÉLIO
    I’m Clélio. I’m at war. Fighting everybody and nobody. I can’t get away from my rage. Someday, I know it, I’ll kill someone. Dunno who. Maybe my parents, or some boss, or one of my guys, or a girl, or myself. Dunno who. I’m Clélio. You know who I am, so don’t you mess with me. You shitheads have no idea what anger is if you’ve never met me.
    I’ve done all sorts of jobs. The only one left is to kill someone. And then sometimes I sing. When I sing, people listen. Well, at least they stop. I stop their lives and their hearts. My voice pierces infinity, Saad told me. (He doesn’t talk like anyone else here.) My voice makes metal shiver, apparently. The buildings stop crushing men, cement loosens its grip. Walls turn nostalgic. Girls go rosy. But I