Conquering a space

Soon in the belly of the big airship Generator

I'm not going to continue, as I intended this morning, nor force the writing of the post D-5 written in a hurry and in the continuity of the overwork of the night, spent to finalize the maximum of details left until then in building sites - for some at 99,9 % completed, but waiting, we don't know why yet, their stamp: "Good to be put in case".

Caprices of my own administration or real questions pushed to the last minute which, as usual, waited until the day before loading to be decided.

I therefore assume the crude brevity of these few sentences of the morning, already supposed to respond to the execution of the previous day's article, which testify to the change of gear and the entry into another reality: that of full concreteness. I personally have never escaped it, on any project of my own.

The supersonic bang of the entrance - not yet on stage, but already in play - of my whole being, through the multitude of these accessories suddenly taken out of their room to be put in the truck, shook me once again to the point of feeling a strong emotion just before leaving to join the team that was punctually waiting for me at the place of the given appointment.

From the outside, it may have seemed like a small move, not much bigger than a student's; from my point of view, it represented the hundred or so parts that made up my kit mobile, which were suddenly transported to the place of their assembly. I had the image of a single-seater biplane, with the quantity of small and large parts distributed in various boxes of different sizes, adapted to each of them. Rudder, stabilizer... all made of canvas and bamboo canes; all the components, from the tiniest to the most voluminous, went together in a single line, to be assembled according to a well-established plan, in the big aeronautical hangar. Having just digested its last exhibition, the huge zeppelin hall of the GeneratorIt was almost empty and dormant again when we arrived.

We unloaded truck and cars, quickly and without shouting, taking care not to wake it from its temporary torpor. The monster will be alerted to our presence in its entrails soon enough. Jérôme Allart's first hooks have probably only tickled it slightly for the moment, as have Guillaume Junot's still discreet video tests. Valérie Brancq, Any Tingay and myself, who are in the middle of the race, didn't irritate him either with our modest preparations. Tomorrow will be a more adventurous day and we will infest his anaesthetized mucosa much more. But it will take more, surely, for him to respond with the full extent of his power. It is for Friday, then all day Saturday, that he reserves us toothache and stomach ache; annoyances on all sides that will start to make him violently shake his tail, before ranting completely. He will then be perfectly available to start the heterogeneous ride that we will graft to him so that all our engines benefit from the energy expenditure of the colossus.

With its large, resolutely empty space, hostile to any trace on its walls of previous passages, the Generator doesn't care much about the itchiness caused by the vermin that sometimes infest it.

He knows well, in his voluminous sperm whale head, that everything will be forgotten tomorrow, once the event is over, as if nothing had ever happened. Not a shadow of an artist will loom again then, greyish, white or dark, when he will have decided to spit out the impeccably cleaned bones outside. He will find his calm and his time suspended, once the adventure is over, concluding it with a terrible burp of satisfied disdain.

Emptiness of the Generator, abrupt emptiness of my familiar places, usually drowned by the profusion and chaos of their landscape invaded by objects, flying leaves and technological instruments. For a few days, my apartment and premises will resound, like churches, with the absence of any permanent presence, apart from my own, finally free of hindrance. Since this morning, I can actually take my small living room for a ballroom, without having to contort myself between the trunks to go brush my teeth. The transition from dream business to realization is good, if only for this reason.

The big airship is parked a few meters above the ground, waiting for us, waiting for you, waiting for the accelerator of my partners, to inflate its disproportionate balloon in great pomp. Sleep, whose incisive pressure is tormenting me, is also beckoning me, impatient with my obstinacy in writing against its reminders. I write his last lines, no longer resisting giving in to him. Tomorrow will be another long day. I leave once again earlier than usual, the familiar haunt of this blog and some of its warm readers, to, I feel in advance, be caught up in the nocturnal continuation of this incongruously waking dream, where the skeleton and the envelope of the Hindenburg are no longer consumed by the fearsome devouring of the flames, but take place, levitating in the gullet of a creature of concrete and steel, swallowing it whole as much as it lends itself to its construction.

Beasts within the beast, Russian dolls with prehistoric gigantism, Grandgousier, Gargantua and Pantagruel climb up the fantastic rope of my childhood record books to take me in their giant hands like sand merchants with bulimic and ferociously funny smiles. The countdown of the big heads is launched. Maybe finally, the fire will come and set fire to the festive pyre of his Majesty Carnival, to bring him to perish with dignity in the crackling of his buffoonish fantasy. Perhaps the dream will tell me more as the good reporter of the night that he always is. If so, I'll be sure to let you know.

Good night, then, little ones. That's it, the Big Dipper of midnight, big cart or big pot, is taking me away. I must be careful to follow its injunctions and its more tempting than terrible growls, without going around even one dial, so inclined would I be to do ten.