Sympathy for the Phantom

“Now they are all wondering where they come from, who they are and what they are doing here. They are trying to show that they are French or, on the contrary, that they are not French, they cling ever more tightly to their laws, their customs, their traditions or their tribulations, their look and their lingo, their regions, their religions. They are proud of the empires of their fathers and the oaths of their brothers. It is the hubbub of memories, the great memorial tumult: one memory against the other, they stand shoulder to shoulder while elbowing each other out of the way, greasing each other’s palms, and then pointing the finger at each other.The truth is that these people are sealed off inside their heads, ears watertight, nothing seeps in. Their problem, a certain difficulty in relation to time, their great naivety, believing that time passes, they no longer know how to decipher the messages of the dead. Not a soul left to gather tenderly the spirits of the dead, to then speak more gently about things... No one knows how to remember or how to forget anymore, no one knows how to be French anymore.” - Michaël Ferrier