The Sunday Series: Sunday November 15, 2015

The Sunday Series
Sunday November 15, 2015

“Fantômas.   What did you say?  I said: Fantômas.  And what does that mean?   Nothing…Everything!  But what is it?  No one…And yet, yes, it is someone!  And what does this someone do?  Spreads terror! ”

The Lord of Terror called out to me by sending his calling card to my home, which doesn’t have an official address.  Once I opened the envelope, and saw the card with the name “Fantômas” on it with an address where I am supposed to meet him, the ink eventually dissolves and I’m just left with a blank white card.   I left my quarters and walked towards the address he sent me, which is the Cirque d’hiver in the 11th arrondissement.  I was told to wait by the front entrance of the theater.

Oddly enough, I heard a great deal of police sirens in the night air, but didn’t see anything.  The street was also deserted with very little traffic.  From the distance, I saw what looked like un old woman hunched over, dragging a suitcase with wheels on rue Amelot, heading towards me.   As she walked by me, I tipped my hat towards her direction and didn’t think nothing more of her.  As I was looking in the other direction I felt a tap on my shoulder, and it was the woman.   She pulled my head toward her lips and kissed me.  She then said, “Follow me to the inside of the theater, and take my suitcase.” I was first struck that she kissed me, and second, she has a rather masculine voice.  As I followed her from the behind, I noticed each step she took, she got taller.  The blouse was thrown by the side, as well as the skirt, which left a male figure in a tight black silk body suit.  He opened the door, and we both entered the empty and very dark theater.  A small light from his flashlight came on, and what appeared in front of me was Fantômas, wearing a dark hood, that matched perfectly with the rest of his clothing.   There were only two holes in the hooded mask for his eyes, and he said to me “In all things, one must consider the end.”

One is always encouraged to go from the beginning to a middle, and all hopes, an end.  Narration, like time on a digital clock, are factual points, where one reflects on the direction and how long they should spend on obtaining that destiny.  The reason I follow Fantômas, is because there is no time, destination, or narrative.  He brings grief and destruction to allow space that throws off a direction of a narrative.  To be totally free from a restricted life, with no adventure or a world with meaning, is to be a leaf in a typhoon storm.

Fantômas’ genius is the ability to look at a culture, as if it was a map on a work-table.    He knows exactly where to disrupt or attack, which will cause a bigger effect in the end.   The map to get to the end, is a street full of detours and badly made roads.   Logic thrown aside, because we can, is the object of our desires.  Fantômas pulls me closer, and gives me instructions into my ear.   He then takes my shoulders, and directs me to a specific direction.  I go into the night.