PROLOGUE

September 17, 2009.

My name is Alex and I am just your regular exchange student in France. I won a scholarship to study at a little county music school near Avignon and I’ve been here, practicing with my “hautbois” ever since. The music school assigned me a French teacher that spoke Spanish so that I would learn the language as fast and as effective as I could. They looked everywhere for someone that could be my tutor that spoke Spanish even though I told them I was just as comfortable with an English teacher (which they already had), but they decided they wanted me to feel more “at home”. I am truly excited to be here. Even though I’ve been here two months, every day feels like the first day. This represents one step further towards my dream of becoming an orchestral and choral conductor. Finally, all those extenuating hours practicing in my little house in Mexico had paid off.

So far, I have been taking both Counterpoint and Solfège, as well as French with Minerva, my tutor, and I have been really having a bad time with the language. Somehow it sounds like they’re suffocating with their own tongues when they speak and I sure as hell feel that way when trying to pronounce difficult words. But, fortunately, some of the guys from school that I already met seem to think it’s cute and are patient with me; they even invited me to a party or whatever this Saturday, before classes officially start on Monday. I’m completely positive this will be the best years of my life.

September 18, 2009.

“L'analyse au niveau de la proposition fait apparaître différents groupes qui constituent le sujet, les compléments d'objet, les compléments circonstanciels, les compléments d'agent ou l'attribu…” What? … Seriously, though: WHAT!? I’ll just go grab my oboe. That Telemann’s Concerto isn’t going to play itself anyway. This is ridiculous. 

September 19, 2009.

I have not seen any French Textbook today, my mouth and my lungs hurt from blowing through the reed for hours and my hands are shaking crazy, still trying to play out of motor memory. Today has been a good day. And it is about to become even better: tonight is the first time in the two months that I have been in Carpentras that I’m actually going out with people. I’m going to a small bar downtown with Irina the clarinetist, her boyfriend Guillaume, the baritone, and Mélodie, the most-suitably-named soprano (I wouldn’t want to forget their names mid-conversation). I am already prepared to defend myself against the unending, unforgiving jokes about oboists. I even have a few comebacks up my sleeve for each and every one of their respective instruments, even though most only work on Spanish. I don’t think they’re going to work anyway.

It seems I got to the bar a little early. It smells rancid and moist; the walls are just very old bricks, sweating from all the people inside, luckily I found a little table for three on the walkway. It is very dim lighted and heavily decorated with signed portraits of jazz, swing, and even gypsy musicians, and they were all positioned in a weird symmetry that exalted a huge Django Reinhardt signed portrait in the middle. It’s clear to me now why they had chosen this place. If I didn’t devote myself entirely to classical music, I would’ve liked to play some of these other styles. It smells like alcohol, cigarette, and lots of teenagers. I sat on my table and ordered a 1664. I still don’t know how they drink this having Belgium and Germany this close.

The jukebox is playing Dizzy Gillespie’s ‘The Champ’ as they arrive and I am nearly done with my beer. I will discretely order a second one while they get seated.

“Salut, Alex! Ça va?” asked Irina with a clearly more practiced French than mine. She speaks beautifully even though she is Russian and has been in France for merely eight months. I envy her. “Ça va bien, Irina. Merci. Et toi?” Damn it, I knew if I came I’d have to speak French but as soon as I heard myself talk I felt even more insecure. They all giggled a bit. Thank the gods, Irina knows a very decent Spanish (only those gods know why) and she might be able to translate parts that I do not understand, correct phrases I say wrong, and more than anything, she will make what could have been a rough night, much more bearable. She is a very charismatic, very tall nineteen-year-old beauty with short blonde hair and pale blue eyes. She is the oldest of us all, she is also supposed to be one of the finest clarinetists at school and is known to go to great lengths to get a passage perfect. They say she’s got a bit of an attitude, though. Some students call her Baba Yaga. Guillaume, on the other hand, looks very Rastafari. He is very calm and happy and pierced everywhere, not the kind of look you would expect to see on an opera singer. He even smells like freshly burnt weed. His speech is slow and full of wisdom (or nonsense, I don’t know anymore). And lastly, Mélodie reminds me of my little sister somehow. She is very cute and sweet with long brown hair and a tiny nose. Her teeth are brownish from years of smoking non-stop, but her smile is as heavenly as Cupid’s tender rear cheeks.

And that way we spent the night between watery beers, loud laughters, and Thelonious Monk’s dying piano. It was perfect, I was having a great time and I was making great friends. Until, suddenly, I began feeling drowsy and light-headed. I feel like passing out. Maybe I had too much to drink. I don’t think so; I only drank three beers. “Je dois aller à la maison, je suis ‘mareadé’” I muttered (what the hell on Earth is ‘mareadé’?). I can’t speak well, I can’t even tell them what’s wrong. “Tout va bien, Alex? On dirait que t’est bourré.” said Guillaume. I have no idea what he said, but I’m going home to sleep it off. “Sí, sí. Voy a casa a que se me pase la peda” I respond, expecting Irina to translate, but I don’t know if she did. As I stand up and start to walk, they react and start saying things that are unrecognizable to me until they become inaudible. I continue walking with a foggy vision. I can feel the whole world spinning beneath my feet. I look up and see some electric cables above my head; I reach them and start playing notes out of them as if they were strings on a guitar. The walkway becomes a huge drum that I hit with every step. The music is beautiful, but I don’t know what it is. Everything is dark now, and then, nothing.

First Part

The Limbo

I am alone. I tried screaming but no one is listening. My throat hurts now and it has been an eternity of darkness. I’m cold. I can see nor hear anything. I’m not even sure I recognize my own screams anymore. More like weeps now. Perhaps I’m dead. Maybe this is Hell. Am I being punished? There is nothing here and I cannot move. I don’t think I’m dead because I am terribly hungry and I can feel pain. But then again, I’ve never been dead before, I have no idea how it is meant to feel like. This is tiring; all I have left is the music in my head. Perhaps I should go to sleep.

Introductions and new beginnings

I don’t know how long I have been shrouded in this endless nothingness. If I am not dead, I’m starting to feel like I wanted to be. My large intestines are trying to devour the smaller ones. My muscles don’t seem to be able to try to move anymore. Maybe I… What was that? There was a huge stomping sound somewhere, I swear! Or am I starting to have halluci… There it is again! “Hello! HELLO! Somebody, please, help me!” My throat feels like it’s bleeding from all the screaming, but maybe this is my chance and it’s definitively worth a shot. What if it’s something evil? I’d believe anything at this point. Should I remain silent? I would rather have something evil kill me than keep on living on this Limbo (if living is what I have been doing lately) “Help m..” Whoa! Everything’s shaking and I feel like I’m getting pressed down against the floor as if moving upwards. What is going on?

Ouch! My eyes! There’s too much light. I can’t see anything. “Oh, putain!” I can hear a sweet voice coming from above, but it is no ordinary voice: it sounds everywhere and has a very goddess-like nature. “Ça a marché. J’y crois pas que ça a marché!” My sight starts adjusting to the blinding light and I can see a huge shadow looming above what I currently consider to be my most fragile body. As everything starts to get clearer, I see my reflection. I look like I am about to die. Color has left my body and my face looks emaciated. Upon further inspection of myself y see something moving behind my reflection, something brown and round. It appears to be a giant…Oh, my God! Is that an eye? It is an eye and it’s looking straight at me!

Whoa! A gigantic hand is holding me. She is definitively a girl, she probably isn’t even 16 yet, but how can she be so huge? Her enormous fingers are wrapping my motionless body and lifting me up towards her moist lips. I’m trying to scream but words don’t seem to be able to pop out of my mind. “Tu est trop beau! On est enfin réunis!” She starts pressing me against her fleshy lips repeatedly as if kissing me. She IS kissing me. Jesus! Her breath is awful! I can tell she just ate chocolate or something. She starts spinning around with me tightly held between both of her sweaty hands. So. Fast. I don’t think I can… Thank heavens she stopped! The world is moving so fast. I think I was about to pass out. “Maintenant, rien pourra nous séparer.” she says as she starts pulling towards her lips again, yet this time, the look on her face is different. She’s… She’s pulling her lips apart and her humongous tongue is coming out. She’s pressing my face against her wet tongue! The gigantic meaty serpent that is her tongue is wildly swirling around my entire head. She starts sucking and I feel like my face will peel off my skull any second now. Luckily she retreats and I desperately gasp for air as her saliva started filtering inside my mouth, nose, and ears, but my luck is short lived as she pulls me to her lips again and her slippery tongue starts forcing its way inside my mouth. It is so big that I fear I will end up like Heath Ledger’s Joker. I try to fight it off with my own tongue as my arms are trapped by her hands, but this only makes her go even wilder, and I swear, the smell!

“Who the hell are you? Why are you doing this to me? How is it even possible!?” I ask as soon as she gives me a break from my torment. I have so many questions. She just frowns. “Ah, c’est vrai! J’ai oublié que tu ne parles pas français encore.” What did she just say? God, I hate French. “Heureusement j’ai rétréci cette autre gamine aussi. Où est-ce que je l’ai mise?” She says as she put me down on what seems to be a desk and storms off the room. I can hear the slapping of her bear feet as he walks across her wooden floor like a prelude to my own death as I imagine being under those pale feet and getting stepped on like a bug. Is that what I am now? A bug? One thing’s for certain: she’s a heavy, lousy walker.

I’m still soaked from a dense coat of saliva but I think it’s smart to get to know my surroundings in case I imperatively need to escape soon. Her room is very girl-like: she likes horses (not a hard deduction, as she hung around 14 horse posters, I am no Sherlock) and she has the whole equipment necessary to practice horse riding, form helmet to very dirty, muddy riding boots. Her bed is pink as most of her room and everything is very rustic, so I assume I’m still in the south of France. It smells like cinnamon or something. Perhaps if I wasn’t drenched in saliva I would be able to tell for sure. She has 1,2,4…8 CD’s!? Who has only 8 CD’s? Does she live in a cave? At least she has more CD’s than books. There’s not much in her bedroom apart from that, a closet with more stuff inside, and the laptop I’m currently walking on as a small sign of revenge. How did I become so small? I figure I must not be taller than 4 inches.

I can hear her coming back. That horrible foot slapping of doom approaches. “Rebonjour, mon p’tit bonhomme.”She says as she sits on her chair, placing her cupped hands in front of me. “Comme je savais que tu ne pourrais parler pas français avec moi, j’ai pris le temps de rétrécir à ta copine pour nous aider. Allez, dites vos bonjours.” As she opens her hands, I see the trembling figure of Irina that is red from crying and cursing. “Lâche-moi, salope! Je t’ai dit que je suis pas ton animal de compagnie et moins encore, ton esclave!” says Irina to what the giantess angrily responds after violently smashing her fist on the table mere inches beside us: “faittes attention sur la façon dont tu t’adresses à moi. Ne oublies pas que tu m’apartiens maintenant et que ta vie dépend de moi.”Irina falls to her knees and cries. “What did she say to you?” I asked Irina and she started translating automatically while sobbing: “She told me to be careful on how I address her because now I belong to her and my life depends on her”. As she translated, she finally looked in my direction and recognized me. “Alex! I’m so glad to see you! This has been a nightmare.” She says as she jolts up and hugs me. “Why are you so wet? And what is that smell?” She asks. “Chocolate, I think.” I respond.

After a few moments of being really happy to see a familiar face, the giantess coughs as to remind us that she’s still there above us. I gather a lot of courage and, with messy dry and hardened hair, I ask Irina to translate: “We are human beings, we are not your property and we do not belong to you to do whatever the hell you want to do with us, so set us free, giant, before I decide to take legal actions!” Irina simply looks at my like I’m an idiot and says “How are you going to take legal actions against her when you are the size of a lollipop to her, as she apparently already used you as such. And, by the way, that is Élise, she plays the tuba at our school”. Damn it, I had forgotten about school. I think I might be late for class. Élise understood that what I said was addressed to her so she demanded Irina to translate and she did. Élise said something to Irina who tells me that only she is her property, that I am the love of her life and that she’s heartbroken that I did not recognize her, and that we met on my first day on France at the airport. As Irina translates, I see Élises face starting to gloom and then turning red of rage. “Mon p’tit amoureux n’est pas capable de me dire de choses comme ça. Je crois que le problème c’est le traducteur et il faura faire quelque chose pour le réparer. Merci pour ton service, Irachka.” Irina started getting pale as she translated: “My little sweetheart isn’t capable of telling me such things. I think that the problem is the translator and I’ll have to do something to fix it… Thank you for your services…Oh, God! No, please! NO!!”

Élise is swiftly lifted Irina by the waist and is dangling her above her anticipating mouth. Her screams are more frightening that any other sound I have ever heard. I should say something. I should do something. But I can’t. I’m not able to move a single inch. Élise dropped Irina into her mouth and is now resting with her mouth open, using only her tongue to prevent her from escaping. Her screams are provoking chills down my spine; I can’t believe what I’m seeing. She then slowly closes her mouth and now I hear her muffled screams inside the teenager’s mouth. Judging by the screams and the movement of Élise’s jaw, I can tell that she’s still playing with Irina with her tongue. I can picture myself being there inside, between those sharp teeth bigger than basketballs, getting crushed by the wet tongue, getting soaked on gallons and gallons of saliva, and the overwhelming smell of chocolate combined with a whole day’s breath odor. Eventually I hear the first crunching sound and the screaming intensifies. Then another and another. The screams stopped. That was the worst part. Then she started to casually chew and I was able to see for a brief second the bloody mess inside her mouth. Most of it was unrecognizable now; some of her was between her teeth. That used to be a person. Worst of it all, that used to be a great clarinetist. A drop of blood drips from the left side of her mouth and into the desk. She lightly tilts her head back and I see a little lump going down her kilometric throat and with a loud gulp, Irina was no more. All she ever was, all she could ever be, all the hours she spent practicing, all the great moments she enjoyed around Guillaume were now reduced to nothing more than a little girl’s snack. What the fuck have I got myself into? This is sick. I’M feeling sick. Élise’s huge hand is reaching towards me but I am too ill to fight back. Everything is dark again.