There is something puzzling about Adémard Huberty. The crime that he committed comes from his obstinacy. Like his first name, he inherited it from his great-grand-father ‘the ace of Wallon pastel’as he liked to call himself. Howhever the creative genius of his prestigious ancestor never so much as grazed him. This mystery of lineage makes Adémard’s nostalgia for his years of studying art much clearer; his lack of talent aroused only general indifference.
The sarcasm began with his career and has not let up since. At every new exhibition at the Pavillon de l’Artillerie Adémard is anxious to meet the Circle, a small group of critics whose speciality, besides staring at their own bellybutton, consists in methodically diminishing the exposed personality. One evening however, the probability of finally ending it once and for all made his mind up. Once past the large glass door, Adémard took the old Luger Parabellum he had recently bought on e-bay out of his vest pocket.
He had just noticed across the way a young woman whose vulgarity had made him shiver with horror. So he made ready the weapon and observed her one last time before aiming to shoot. Her hair was like a battelfield, falsely domisticated beneath a shiny red leather hat; she had violet lipstick oozing over the creased corners of her lips, and was wearing a bluish-red scarf with an algorithmic pattern that bordered on discord with her square earrings. Adémard fired, for belief or not, such bad taste must be punished right away. The woman collapsed without a sound, Adémardput away his smoking gun, adjusted his Camel overcoat and, relieved, went on his way.
However, barely behind the wheel, he saw the previous days, haunted by the memory of the conversation with Nicole.
« Who esle knows ? »
He moved aside to get out the slanting light of the lamp that has fallen to the floor.
« I didn’t talk to anyone, but… »
The strain on his formely familiar face frightened Nicole.
She sat down in the shadows on the piano bench, her back to the armchair where he sat.
« Adé, you absolutely have to do something » she said. « Georges won’t be able to handle it… »
« you know very well he no longer has the same vitality that he did five years ago. How could you ask me that ? After so many years! »
The lampposts on the boulevard had just gone out and as he pulled onto the dock, Adémard braked the car sharply, opened the window and threw the revolver towards the river.
He was relieved and started to stop trembling but it took several more minutes for his pounding heart normally once more. He was now out of danger.
It was late when he reached Austerlitz, but he knew that by taking the metro line five he would be at Gare de l’Est in less than twenty minutes, where it would definitely all be over. He often made this trip but itw as with a new clarity the he saw the long undulating green building along the riverbank. He had always like dit without really understanding why. Generally he did’nt quite understand everything that had happened in the last ten years. It was the only building to have resisted the carnage, the overabundant destruction of buildings constructed in the twentieth century. Pro-heritage groups now controlled the economy and public opinion through a popularity-seeking policy of erasing all form of modernity… He had read something on the subject…. « Archimorphing », the word came back to him suddenly… Out of curiosity he would check its definition as soon as he was home.
Getting into his car, his first movement was to turn on the radio, his hunting party had tired him out and the many bends in the road tended to make him sleepy. He drove fast. The headlights of the other cars bothered his vision, he saw the white line in the front of him double.
He croosed the Villemolle south industrial zone. It was the region’s prostitution centre. He had an ideaa to stop for a moment, to let himself enjoy carnal pleasure. After all, she had left him alone. Only hi sanger was stronger than his lust. He was filled with disgust.

« Paris is so small when we return to it swimming » sang the radio. He decided not to stop. He was hungry. He would eat noodles once he go home.
Tired, exhausted by everything haunting him, he thought he saw a sign at the bottom of his plate. It was like a revelation, a stroke of genius that comes to those people in harmony with the world they live in. He got up with a clatter, ran to the bottom of his bag to get the notebook that never left him, opened it to the last empty page that he had reserved for this moment, took a deep breath to calm himself, took the ballpoint pen out of his pocket and put his idea clearly down on a paper. There was a blatant contrast between the non-structured confusion of the past few days and the final result. Sated by his humble meal and especially the result of his search, he started to flip through the pages, which he was starting to think of as his major work. From writing  to drawing, he congratulated himself on the versatility and the depth of his thought his satisfaction was total when he started to to imagine the possible areas of application, and he started to dream. He slowly fell into a stupor and for a moment believed he had become a god. His house was overflowing with useless objects, accumulated during his night-time sprees through the innumerable galleries of the new Fashion City. Pride of the region, it had been unveiled in great pomp by the mayor, a political man respected for his neutrality and absence of political commitments. All of the region’s inhabitants had unanimously voted in favour of this huge project. So much so that any opposition to its construction was regarded as blasphemous.
This imposing and ironic architecture contained the treasures of a day, cleaned out in a few hours by hordes of pilgrims. This morning, a new shop Life Again had opened. This widely successful service chain offered accelerated divorce processes to those who wanted a new life. A voluptuous woman, whose perfectly remodelled body could be seen through a light dress, clicked her heels as she walked along the shop window. She was waiting for him…
Bubbling like a volcano, he moved forward. As the Chinese shadow took shape, a juvenile euphoria took over his body, setting off an explosion of sensations that he had felt long ago but had insisted on burying a thousand feet below ground. The beautifull woman’s curves had not lost their sensuality, and as he moved forward, he was enraptured by her body. How could he not be when he had spent entire nights admiring the slenderness of these arms… the delicate neck… the fine face…
This face that he missed so much, this face that was now only a few metres away from him.
How many times had he imagined this moment ? Adémar dhad not stopped thinking about it throughout his navigations. Their reunion took shape through the landscapes of his travels. He had often believed that he had seenher on one of the many docks where he stopped for a few days. He had even passionately fallen for a tango virtuoso who had the good merit of ressembling her. Now she was looking at him, and what did the past suffering hallucinations and disillusions matter, Veronique was there… for real. For the first time she became aware of the strange mechanics of her brains, which had stopped obeying her long ago. Her space-time discrepancies were the result of a traumatic experience from another life that she no longer remembered. Her consciousness slipped without warning from one reality to an other without a trace of any kind of logic. Time dilated, without her even understanding its mechanism. She had tripped in the stairs of time and entered the tunnel of ubiquity. Her lifee was constantly changing without her realising it ; she would wake up one morning with a phallus between her legs, three hours later she was a zoology professor or a master of go!
She had lived in the past, visited galaxies and seen the future. Her present appeared to her for the first time, and she observedd it without understanding. Tears starting to run down her cheeks and she no longer dared close her eyes out of feart of disappearing once more… He had found her. There was something decidedly puzzling about Adémard Huberty….