Power in the Night

   Like an astronaut bound for a distant star, awaken from his lethargy in the middle of the journey by the on-board computer which detected an anomaly, I was awakened from my sleep by a strange feeling. It was already evening, and the last lights were disappearing on the wall of the living room, next to the sofa on which I had dozed off, a book in hand. As if obeying an intuition, I then stood up and approached the window, through which I saw, in the distance, the light of the Cape Fréhel lighthouse which illuminated the horizon at regular intervals, like the flash of a distress beacon of a large ship in danger, struggling not to be swallowed up in the falling night. Was this the expected call? When was the last time I heard it?

But it was so weak this time, would it even manage to go through the thickness of the sarcophagus? The time seemed far away when a cloud that clung to the tops of the pine trees in the first light of the day was enough to carry me away. For all these years, every Monday management meeting, every Saturday morning queuing at the super market, every car insurance certificate that we scan and then conscientiously store in the archive folder of our computer, are so many additional strips of plaster which, one by one, come to reinforce the sarcophagus that the banality of everyday life weaves around each of us, and in which, one day, when it is sufficiently thick, we end up expurgated from the very last drop of our vital liquid, like cardboard mummies, having triumphed over death but without having really lived, now incapable of hearing the call of the world opposite and even less of responding to it. The years pass and the call becomes less audible it seems to me. Grabbing a parka and my car keys, I slammed the door of my house on these imbecile doubts: if by chance it was indeed it calling over there on the horizon, at least I had to go and see to make sure of it. Letting myself guided, I drove towards the lighthouse through the wet roads of the Brittany countryside.

Approaching Cape Fréhel is like approaching the event horizon. As the road becomes more and more narrow and bumpy, the villages with well-kept gardens and churches yellowed by lichens are replaced by a few scattered hamlets, and finally by rare isolated and austere farms. The dense forests interspersed with lush pastures turn into bushes of withered broom which themselves eventually give way to the heather moor beaten and burned by the winds. This is the no man’s land, which already no longer belongs to the territory of men, but not yet to that opposite either. And at the end, at the very edge of the earth, like a flag planted in enemy territory as a sign of defiance, the Cape Fréhel lighthouse stood, facing the open sea, scanning the mist with its beam, like a gigantic double blade, to shear through the night in a large rotating movement. And then, the journey stops and you arrive at this point that you thought improbable, like something whose theoretical existence everyone knows but which no one has ever seen and which, however, that evening was clearly there, right in front of me: the end of the road. In reality, the roads do not end by theatrically throwing themselves into the sea or by concrete blocks topped with a red and white barrier but by a parking lot, which was deserted in this season and in which I quickly parked.

I had barely left the comfort of the car to take the small path that leads to the end of the cape, and I knew that I was entering the domain of the wild. The rough gorse intertwined with treacherous brambles scratched my ankles through my thick pants. But I moved forward feverishly, as if irresistibly drawn by an invisible force. I had to go to the end of the cape, touch this lighthouse with its robust and reassuring silhouette. I finally joined it and leaned against its granite wall to watch the waves come out of the darkness like enormous beasts venturing out of the night to come and lick the foot of the cliff in the hope, one day, to make it fall, this bastion, which dares to shed a brazen light on their murderous intentions. Well sheltered in its protective halo, I could then contemplate the world opposite as one looks at a wolf, kept in check by the flame of a campfire, and ask it these questions to which it never answers. Behind me the lighthouse radiated all its power. Once again, this solitary guardian at the end of the world, this last rampart before the unknown would spend the night alone on its rock, keeping watch while on earth, people will sleep soundly.