“We could buy some cigarettes and live dangerously,” he says.
Simone says okay. It’s been years since she’s smoked. At one time, lots of people said it was bad for your health. Without thinking too much about it, she had gradually abandoned that little pleasure.
They agree to go on foot. Édouard puts his clothes on, cautiously so as not to jostle his testicles—though the swelling has gone down quite a bit. Before going out the door, he stops to think for a moment. He looks at the yard, the magnificent close-cropped, green square of lawn sparkling with dew, neat, clean, civilized, and then at the house, still dark, damp and wild. “Transfiguration” is the word that pops into his head.
“Coming?” she asks.
“I feel like I’m forgetting something … ”
But there are a few crumpled banknotes in the bottom of his pocket. His keys are in there too, although he no longer needs them. So what could he possibly be missing?
Then it comes to him.
“Oh, remind me to feed my larvae when we get back.”
“I’ll try. I didn’t know you were still raising insects.”
“Just a few Bruce spanworms,” he says. “You never know when they’ll come in handy.”
It’s true, you never know.
About Talonbooks
Thank you for purchasing and reading A Slight Case of Fatigue.
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Talonbooks is a small, independent, Canadian book publishing company. We have been publishing works of the highest literary merit since the 1960s. With more than 500 books in print, we offer drama, poetry, fiction, and non-fiction by local playwrights, poets, and authors from the mainstream and margins of Canada’s three founding nations, as well as both visible and invisible minorities within Canada’s cultural mosaic.
Learn more about us or about the playwright, Stéphane Bourguignon, or the translators, Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott.
Copyright © 2002 Stéphane Bourguignon
Translation copyright © 2008 Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott
Talonbooks
P.O. Box 2076, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6B 3S3
www.talonbooks.com
Cover design by Adam Swica.
First Printing: 2008
Ebook edition: July 2014
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts; the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program; and the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council for our publishing activities.
No part of this book, covered by the copyright hereon, may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical—without prior permission of the publisher, except for excerpts in a review. Any request for photocopying of any part of this book shall be directed in writing to Access Copyright (The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), 1 Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, Ontario, Canada m5e 1e5; tel.: (416) 868-1620; fax: (416) 868-1621.
Un peu de fatigue by Stéphane Bourguignon was first published in French in 2002 by Québec Amérique in Montreal. Financial support for this translation provided by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Department of Canadian Heritage through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program.
Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada
ISBN: 978-0-88922-917-4
A Slight Case of Fatigue Page 19