Prehistoric Times by Eric Chevillard, Alyson Waters Read Free Book Online

it sets itself down where it has no business, in this case on a door that has just been repainted white, rapidly becomes importunate, particularly because, as the paint dries, the gnat gets more and more embedded, incorporated, and it was my intention to recommend in such an instance, rather than fingers, using tweezers to grasp the insect and delicately remove it; there now, that’s done.
    According to the official version, it has been three months since Boborikine left us, but I am sure he is dead, the cave has remained closed ever since: it really needs a good sweeping. They pay me for that, it seems, whereasmy pitiful salary would be just enough to give credence to the idea that I in fact get paid to do nothing. Which would, by the way, justify my lax and relaxed manners – that’s one possible interpretation. For if I get paid to do nothing, as everything would lead us to believe, in particular this pittance of a wage of which I still have not received the first cent, it would be most indelicate of me, and dishonest, to expend any energy counter to the aims of my employers, thereby betraying their trust and the hopes they have placed in me and at the same time ruining their plans. It would therefore be best if I meekly abstained from all initiative and even from the slightest effort. That’s the truth; I’ve been asked again not to move, I’m being held against my will in a state of inactivity that is becoming more and more difficult to put up with for a man of my temperament. One can just imagine that if I could, or if I were to, listen to myself, I would already have gotten down to work, but I’m being paid precisely to curb my zeal and spin my wheels; this is my role in the organization to which I belong, a role all the more thankless in that its meaning completely escapes me: must certain men remain immobile, inert even, so as to serve as reference points for the active ones, as milestones, seamarks, buoys and buffers, foils and bad examples? Consequently, some men would have to be sacrificed, nailed to the spot. But is it not faintly distressing to see my goodwill so scorned? I have been entrusted with an important position, I accept it despite my weakness, determined to show myself worthy, to throw my last strength into my work, and all of a sudden I discover I am being mocked, that in reality I am paid to do nothing; under the pretext that I am housed, whitewashed in navy blue, they are quibbling over a salary that will force me to choose between hunger and thirst.
    Another possible interpretation: they consider on high that I was appointed to this position in recognition of services rendered, or services I might have rendered, that is, out of charity, that I was assigned here the way an old horse that ran well is put in a paddock rather than simply slaughtered, but now it would be out of place if we were to ask for a greener pasture or a higher salary: if we push our luck too far, we might even antagonize our patrons, wear out our welcome, and wind up tossed out on the street or led to the slaughterhouse one morning among the mooing, drooling cows that give off steam like ships about to leave shore; from this perspective, their frantic tails are no longer tails. Instead I see the arms of passengers waving farewell with their hankies, farewell, the cleaver smashes the skulls of all those poor wretches. When one pushes one’s luck too far, it goes overboard, and here I am cruelly ejected from the strict limits of my duties, I land who knows where and to my great surprise find myself debating questions that do not come within my remit: how, for example, are my opinions on the slaughtering of animals and maritime companies worthy of holding our attention for so long? Whence stems this authority? Will my questions in fact be transmitted to the right people and taken into account so that henceforth, on the one hand, cows will be received in more kindly fashion in the slaughterhouses and, on the other, the safety