The severed head and other tales of the unexpected.

Chris was sat at his desk, typing word after word of a story without any end. The story entwined other stories which in their turn carried on leftover threads from previous stories. Some were snippets, some were figments, all were woven into the texture of tales which he told. Here are some of them. Where: Marseilles. Amidst tower-blocks designed by Le Corbusier. When: After the war.

The sun was oppressive, unbearable. Jacques wiped his forehead, ran his hands through his dark greasy hair. The cement of the tower blocks absorbed the heat, threw it back out into the inferno. Window upon window, row upon row stood silent, ominous. Inside each flat facing south it was like an oven. The inhabitants baked. The old had skins like parchments. Dried and wrinkled with wear. Trash cans overflowed with refuse. Dogs sheltered in the shade. Somewhere a lonely bitch yowled to hear its echo resonate in the empty sky. In Le Mistral the regulars were waiting, waiting for something to happen, someone to show up, an event to interrupt the monotony of existence. Nothing happened. Nothing ever broke the emptiness of the glasses rising and falling on the polished counter. Only the ringing of coins as they fell into the till reminded them that music existed, somewhere, but not here, not in their refuge, their palace of silent dreams. Dreams which they swirled and rotated, and drained. Jacques searched in his pockets. Nothing. Not even a cigarette. Im away now, lads. He staggered under the blow of the heat as he stepped outside. He headed for the docks, dreaming of white lights and stardom, spotlights and fame. Grard and Monique drew up alongside the quay. Their small car drew to a halt, the motor painfully rattled, grinded, rattled once again before falling silent.

Its so beautiful, murmured Monique. Lets go find something to eat Grard got out of the driving seat, took his black holdall from the back seat, paused, put it back. Ill leave this here. Keep it for later. Ive got plenty of time. A seagull flapped noisily by, looking for scraps, scavenging amongst the flotsam and jetsam of the busy bustling port. Lorries and ferries hooted. Smoke billowed in the breeze. Locking the car they wandered off, nonchalantly, soaking in the atmosphere. A long hot summer lay stretched ahead of them. Paradise: golden sands, the infinite blue of the sky merging with the Mediterranean, an isolated cottage overlooking the sea. Jacques, staggering under alcohol soaked sun, smashed the car window and grabbed the bag. Too tired to run he stuffed it under his armpit and sauntered down the street. All the windows were open. Each seemed to be staring at him as he passed by. The noise from television sets and families bickering drifted past. Hey look, this place looks quaint! Old Fashioned. In the backwater of time. Grard acquiesced with a nod. They entered Le Mistral and ordered: 1 croque Monsieur, 1 croque Madame, 1 demi 1 Vittel-menthe. Grard, feeling generous, and a little tipsy, left a coin which the waitress slipped silently into her black waistcoat pocket. They returned to the black Renault, gasped as they saw the damage done to their car. Its empty back seat stared up at them like an open wound. Grards face turned a pale shade of off-white. Monique collapsed, ashen faced, onto the concrete, beneath the merciless eye of the yellow ball of heat scorching the sky. Even the lizards sought shade. Jacques, heavily sweating, rummaged through the bag for cash. Found none. He threw it over the cliff in disgust.Tourists!he cried A passing seabird let out a cry which ran through his veins like a knife. It dived, attacking the bag with its beak, tearing at it and ripping into it in a frenzy. Pierre,a Phd. student of French literature at the Universit Marseille 2, heard the sound, looked up and saw the bag flying through the air. It seemed strange. Why was the bird almost frantic, he wondered? He went to the foot of the cliff to investigate. Looking at the bundle of manuscripts inside he froze. His face was expressionless. He recognised the lines. Ctait un temps de solitude Ce quil maura fallu du temps pour tout comprendre

 Jeunes gens le temps est devant vous comme un cheval chapp Or rather he recognised something. A je ne sais quoi. The melody ? The music ? The genius which underlay them. He couldnt say. All he knew, all he was sure of, was that he had heard them before, or something very similar at least. But where? He couldnt put his finger on it. The diction. The language. He knew it, yet he knew not how. He rummaged in his memory to no avail. Grard and Monique took the six oclock ferry for Corsica. They had spent the best part of the afternoon in the Gendarmerie. A bored policeman had with weary index finger -slowly typed out their story. Grard had no idea how to broach the subject of the manuscripts theft to its author. He spent the summer fretting whilst an ulcer grew inside his gut.. Monique hardly left the kitchen. Whilst their car chugged slowly back up the motorway forming part of some kind of giant headless snake Jacques ordered another Pastis in Le Mistral and Aragon began writing his poem, in a Parisian literary caf, Les Deux Maggots opposite the church at Saint Germain des Prs. Je demeurai longtemps derrire un Vittel-menthe Lhistoire quelque part poursuivait sa tourmente Ceux qui nont pas damour habitent des cafs La boule de nickel est leur conte de fes. .Du langage conjugaison Des phmres Dj le papier manque au temps mort du dlire Je nai plus de papier ! Garon. De Quoi Ecrire! As Grard finished unpacking his suitcase in Moniques tiny flat in Argenteuil the phone rang. Allo. Oui. ? Oui..Marseilles.Oui.Quoi! Cest pas vrai! As he slammed the phone down Jacques, leaving Le Mistral. ,jumped onto his mobylette. He rode quickly through the town, zigzagging past old ladies with dry parchment like wrinkled timeworn skins suspiciously eyeing him as he flew by, the warm Mediterranean wind billowing the back of his black leather jacket into a ball behind him, or was it a monkey, with its tail wrapped around his neck? He spotted an old lady crossing the road in front of him, twisted the throttle hard, accelerated and, as if time was jumping out to greet him, grabbed her black leather handbag as he swept past, knocking her senseless to the ground. A black newspaper delivery bicycle rushed the wrong way out of a one-way street. Jacques swerved to the right, just in time to hear the screeching metal of wheels squeal on the rails as he glimpsed the white lights of the oncoming tramway bearing down on him. The police press

photographer was the first to arrive on the scene. He had been in the tram on his way home when it slewed to a halt. The eyes of Jacques were still staring at the stars as he photographed his severed head, lying between the tram rails. His flash gun lit up the morbid scene. The crushed headless body, the wreckage of the mobylette, the old lady spread-eagled, face in the gutter, on the pavement following her heart attack, a blackhandbag, a head, eyes staring wildly, almost popping out of their orbits, beneath the eerie white light of the flashes. The pictures and story made it to the regional newspaper and the following day were in the papers being delivered by the delivery boy who had provoked the accident. He had been portrayed as something of a local hero, helping the fight against violent crime. End of story? Almost. Aragon published his poems in Le roman inachev in 1956. Chris read it in 2012, after coming across a dog-eared copy in the second-hand book store-onrails La caverne des livres at the S.N.C.F. train station at Auvers sur Oise.

This was the year when Grard Noiret won le prix Max Jacob for his novel Le pont de la morue which had been created from the ashes of his play of the same name and performed at Cergy playhouse (http://www.theatre95.fr/LE-PONT-DE-LA-MORUE) the previous year and was later to be turned into a Hollywood blockbuster

Le Pont de la Morue and inspire an at-the-time unknown mid-night oil burning teetotaller to produce what was to become one of the best selling novels of all time, Lifes stolen fire. The alcoholic portrayed

in the movie was also to trigger a desire for drink in many a youngster who viewed the film along with their drunken couch potato parents. That, though, is another story. Chris has yet to tell.