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What a narrow escape!

I’ve had my cat castrated, without warning him and without asking his permission. Without explaining the advantages and drawbacks to him. I just told him he was having his tonsils out. I get the feeling he’s been sulking at me ever since. I don’t dare look him in the eye now. I feel remorseful.

I think back to the days when they wanted to sterilize handicapped children. Well, polite society can relax, my children won’t reproduce. I won’t have grandchildren, I won’t go for walks with a little hand bobbing up and down in my old bony hand. No one will ask me where the sun goes when it sets, no one will call me Grandpa, except for young assholes in the car behind telling me I’m not driving fast enough. The lineage will come to an end, we’ll stop there. And it’s better that way.

Parents should only have normal children; they could all win equal first place at the beautiful baby competition and, later, in their school exams. Abnormal children should be banned.

It’s not really a problem for my little birds, no one need worry. They’ll never cause much trouble with their tiny little willies.

I’ve just bought a secondhand American car, a Camaro. It’s dark green with a white leatherette interior, a bit flashy.

We’re going to Portugal for a holiday.

We’re taking Thomas with us, he’s going to see the sea. We’ve picked him up from La Source, the special school he attends near Tours.

The Camaro glides along the road, silently.

After spending a night in Spain, we arrive in Sagres, our destination. The hotel is white, the sky blue, and the light over the sea intense, almost African.

How wonderful to be here at last. We get Thomas out and he’s thrilled; he looks at the hotel and claps his hands and cries, “La Source, La Source!” He thinks he’s back at his school. Perhaps he’s dazzled by the sun, or it’s a joke, he’s saying it to make us laugh.

The hotel is a bit precious, the staff are dressed in wine-colored uniforms with gold buttons. The waiters all wear badges with their names on them, ours is called Victor Hugo. Thomas wants to kiss everyone.

Thomas is served at the table like a little prince. What he doesn’t like is the way the maître d’ removes the presentation plates from the table before serving us. He gets angry, hangs onto his plate, won’t let anyone take it from him and cries, “No, mister man! Not my plate, not my plate!” He must think that if someone takes his plate he won’t get anything to eat.

Thomas is frightened of the ocean, the noise of its great waves. I try to get him used to it. I walk into the water with him in my arms, he clings to me, terrified. I’ll never forget the terror in his eyes. One day he finds a trick to stop this torture and make us take him out of the water: he adopts a tragic expression and—shouting really loudly so we can hear him over the crashing waves—says “Poop!” Thinking it’s urgent, I take him out of the water.

I soon realize it isn’t true. I’m overcome. Thomas is no fool, there are a few sparks in his little birdbrain.

He is capable of lying.

Mathieu and Thomas will never have subway cards or prepaid parking cards in their wallets. They’ll never have wallets and their only card will be a disability card.

It’s the color orange, to be cheerful. It has the words “marked musculoskeletal impairment” in green letters.

It was supplied by the local authorities in Paris.

Their degree of disability, in percentage terms, is 80 percent.

The local authority has no illusions about their development, it has supplied the cards for an “indefinite” period.

The cards have their pictures on them. Their funny faces, their vacant expressions … What are they thinking about?

I still use them now. I sometimes put them on my windshield when I’ve parked illegally. Thanks to them I can avoid a fine.

My children will never have a résumé. What have they done? Nothing. Kind of convenient, no one will ever ask anything of them.

What could you put on their résumés? Abnormal childhood, admitted long-term to special school, first La Source, then Le Cèdre—The Source