– There he was, curled up my sergeant, buried between two old rugs, it was I who found him!
– We always find someone lost in the souk of Fez, this is not great news, it is commonplace.
– But it’s Mark Hollis, Mohamed, it’s Mark Hollis, shouf Mohamed it’s Mark Hollis !!!!
– And who is Mark Hollis, a king, a rich man, the son of Muhammad?
– I don’t know, sergeant, but he said ‘I’m Mark Hollis’, and that seemed very important to me.
– He’s got a rat’s face, doesn’t he?
– Well he says he’s 62 and he’s English.
– Yeah, well, with a name like that, he’s not from our area, what worries me is that he has a pimply teenage face, 62 years old, I can’t believe it. Whatever a nearly transparent white guy with a woolen cap and mittens in the middle of the Moroccan market in August, that’s enough to keep us worried for a while, let’s take it to the Rabat police station.
The being between two rugs was indeed all of the shy teenager, shivering as if he had been stolen a kiss and only realized it a few years later, smooth and disheveled hair escaped from the red cap of coarse wool, he had an innate gift for hiding his chin in his neck and his neck in his back. A big black flannel jacket gave a semblance of volume to his body but in fact served as a ballast for the lack of flesh that turned him into air. Along the way he said nothing, his ear listening to the clarinets and tribal rhythms, and sometimes uttering almost sung moans, like ovarian pains, like heretic’s complaints at the stake. A brief smile lit her face like a scene from The Shining, a touch of violent madness that choked on a nervous twitch in the back of the neck. At no time did he resist the orders of oriental accents, knowing in any case no vocable of this North African dialect. He was well treated, drunk, ate, cleaned and emptied, and finally lay down in cell 34 of the Rabat police station, wearing ridiculous short pants the stripes of which seemed to extend the thickness of his shins, of an old shirt. orange where a Hindu elephant was trying to survive despite its extinct red color by gesturing with its eight arms. He had asked for butterflies, here is the pachyderm.
We then found a translator at random in the adjacent street, named Rêda Allali, well known to the local police for saying no to everything, even to the annual jackpot, a rebel of himself what, but a rebel “With studies” and impeccable English from the Czech point of view.
It was useless, Hollis said nothing, burying himself in his thick, doggy-style overcoat on the folding bed of his tiny cell, falling asleep in twisted dreams like seventies posters between Hendricks and Nepal.
Upstairs, in a small office, poorly painted but equipped with good air conditioning, the modernity of which made a cruel contrast with the Arab posters and rugs, the two amiable law enforcement officers reported on the facts. and gestures to their superior, a chubby little man whose only intelligence seemed to lie in wearing glasses and a dozen feathers placed on the desk around an empty inkwell, an abandoned witness to the former tenants.
– How is it written Marc Hauliss? Don’t tell me you haven’t Google searched yet, shit then, I’m surrounded by useless people at the end, if one day we are lucky enough to have a good big case of serial murder, what what will you do, follow the series on tv?
– We didn’t have time, and then the computers, there are only homicides that they have, and then you boss, we know that you like computers, you are there all day , Khaled says you’re there at night too, even without a light, like a pro.
– Yes well… well, let’s see who it is this Mar Kholisse, he had papers on him? – We found sheet music and copyright, Carambar wrappers with puzzles, Kleenex and stamps with the head of the Queen of England, but we don’t know which one.
– And, he was armed?
– A very small Opinel, of those with the colored handle, Farid kept it.
– Mohamed, you’re a scale.
– Calm down, at least I know he didn’t come by plane …
The two men stood there dazed and surprised.
– Logically, these days, taking a plane to the Arab states with a penknife is impossible even for Houdini, and then he probably comes from the south of France, where these porcini knives are made.
– By boat no, chief, impossible!
– And why ?
– Well, we crossed a stream on the way and he was nauseous.
– But he didn’t arrive with wax wings anyway
– Maybe he’s a superhero?
– You stupid Farid, but what are you stupid!
“Silence,” the chief muttered, opening his computer as one would open Ali-Baba’s cellar.
He patted a moment, moaning often, in the frantic search for the perfect spelling of the name. After half an hour without success …
– Chef, chef …
– What ?
– Well his name …
– What ?
– It’s copyright on paper.
– Couldn’t you say it earlier?
– Well I thought you wrote to your wife, you always complain when you write to her.
– That’s why I’m a chef and why you never will, Farid, the art of deduction, give me these papers.
M.A.R.K H.O.L.L.I.S
…
Wikipedia:
Mark David Hollis (born January 4, 1955, London) is a British songwriter, singer and musician best known for having first served as a singer and songwriter in the group Talk Talk in February 1982 (release of the single Mirror Man ) in October 1991 (release of the single New Grass) before embarking on a solo career with the release, in January 1998, of an album: Mark Hollis (Polydor). He and his group were part of the new wave or pop wave in their early days, before gradually moving away in favor of more refined music sometimes referred to as post-rock or experimental. No news in 2000, some accounts point to a possible interstellar abduction in early January while he was picking porcini mushrooms in the Haut-Tarn.
– The photo, chouf, the photo, it’s him, it’s him, but twenty years ago… He’s the same, he… He hasn’t aged !!!
– This is witchcraft, he must be let go, he must go, by Muhammad, it is not good, no, no.
– This is not witchcraft, let’s calm down, we have in front of us the living proof of the existence of UFOs, we have hit the jackpot… I mean, I have won the jackpot.
Rising up with a good footing, although his smallness leaves him lower than seated, he suddenly came alive, his eyes shining and, bringing his deer to pace, he made his way at full speed to the lower cells, the urge burning. to interview this bewildering Mark Hollis first, and to know the extent of the treasure.
Mark slept humming rather than snoring, choppy sounds like a shy, cold Jane Birkin, a wounded dog whose voice kills with fatigue. His sleep was rudely shaken by the creaking sound of the door opening, and then the reality was violent, in the harsh blow the incandescence of tungsten struck his retina.
– Dear, dear Mark, I can talk to you, eh, dear Mark? said the chef in English worthy of the best Portuguese translator. Well, first of all, express how sorry I am for the treatment my subordinates have given you, beg your pardon from them, and offer you some tea.
– I don’t like tea, I want milk.
He’s going to be boring this one, thought the little chef.
– Okay, okay, milk, I have some… routine… let’s say, questions for you, if you don’t mind.
– I slept there, there were butterflies everywhere, the weather was nice, it smelled of the countryside around Scarborough, there was a painted duck playing the trumpet. He’s gonna be really boring.
– Yes, sorry again, but the jet lag must have jostled you here, it’s a typical time for interrogation … questions. Speaking of jet lag, where are you from?
Mark twisted his neck and fixed his gaze on the bulb, offering a drunken Jack Nicholson look. Smiling he pointed to the light.
– From there …
A sigh, akin to the breath of a locomotive, came out of the chef’s mouth and created crevices in the walls. The nervous leader posed his portrait of twenty years ago in front of the old teenager. Hollis ran her fingers over the picture along her chin, a slight joy filling her face.
– Me, before them, is me.
– Before who?
– Do you really want to know?
– We will have to explain our salaries to the people.
– Farid and I are used to overtime.
– I wanted to retire from the scenes, tired, can be jaded by success, I wanted to stop, my head was playing jazz and my hands rocking, I was tearing myself, so I wanted to disappear, I went south from France, because the south had nothing to do with me. Strangely, I was picking up sounds from walls, fabrics, herbs, a curse and creating symphonies almost without realizing it, my head was exploding in solfeggio, my mouth froze in words, the south was not enough. So I wanted to disappear even more, but I didn’t have the strength to leave myself, I locked myself in my past, in my Renees and my colorful springs, autistic of me. I learned to shut up my life. One day, in a thick wood, while I was hallucinating on my mushrooms, a clear blue light landed on my shoulder, its sudden sting froze me in place, a golden light then came on my forehead, and my heaviness vanished. suddenly, and I floated to a 33 rpm record which flew over me, and merged me in one of its grooves. On a parallel furrow I saw other worn-out singers melt away, their faces exuded peace, their faces exuded fear. I slept in the hollow of a record for too many years, sometimes people came to take snatches of songs from my soul to try best-of from me, then from so many others, from an era, from a time, for any reason, for any party, my memory was ripped out. However, I remained lively, anxious to preserve my life beyond singing, anxious to one day become an ordinary human again. And then three days ago, I was composing an experimental title on the piano, screams were heard everywhere, my one hit wonder neighbors tore their ears, they came then, finally visible, staggering and as if drunk. – Who, who were they?
Silence followed.
– Chief !
– What Mohamed?
– Chief, he fell asleep …
– But what is this guy, a wreck, does he fall asleep when the story gets interesting, is he not that sahib?
– Maybe he’s sick, there are guys who unwittingly fall asleep, I saw a documentary on that.
– Yes, there are some who don’t realize they’re awake like you Farid.
They took the time to go to the toilet, stocking up on tea and Christian smother, as if a commercial break was it. When they returned to their seats, the film had already resumed.
They were both elongated and fat, tanned skinned and dressed in suits and gold, from their pockets emanated papers that begged for signatures and sold as autographs. They told me about their land, called Messinia, told me about sales and events in a language that weighed heavily on me. Their anger was blatant, my composition seemed to have weakened their weapons. When I understood this weakness, I discovered the possibility of an escape, I began to grind all that seemed to be music, without standards, without eras, without feelings, the chaos, the chaos, the impossible listening, the decadence of the ‘hearing. Their costumes cracked, their papers got wet, their heights sagged, their perpetrators escaped. It was when they were trying to kidnap Cheb Khaled in order to spruce up their coats of arms after my lack of success, that I took advantage of their disinterest and let myself fall like a vulgar subway singer in those soft carpets where you found me.
– What a story, eh?
– Is everything recorded Mohamed? We should not lose this opportunity to make ourselves rich, we are the first to have living proof of the existence of other lives.
– Think again !
– How, your story offers no doubt, and the fact that you have not aged is indisputable
– Here you may find it unreal, but on my side, it has nothing irrational or supernatural, with me, we call it marketing, economy or even, business, we do not get rich by showing them with your finger, today you have nothing more and nothing less than before. Go to bed, dream, sing in the shower, duck, squawk, run away from hits, and then let me sleep.
The next day, Farid went to feed Mark Hollis lunch, but the missing man, who was found, had passed out to a song.
