After quenching their thirst with great gulps of spiritual nourishment, the journey resumed with even greater urgency. The syrupy liquid of the river gave them the energy and, above all, the grace they needed to reach the multicolored mountains, so they pressed farther into paradise. They crossed enchanting and marvelous lands, lush valleys, and fragrant plains. A delight for the eyes, a voluptuous feast for the nose.
Whenever they passed harmonious half-moons, he would ask Marilyn to hold his hand. She never refused. The ruse served a double purpose: to avoid drawing attention and to feel Marilyn’s aura.
Everything had become an excuse for his soul to brush against that of his beloved captive. He even claimed that a splinter had lodged itself in his thumb. She, seemingly compliant, pretended to remove it. She handled what did not exist as though it were invisible porcelain. Her gesture was so delicate that the injury seemed real.
At times, he tried to impress her or make her laugh, in hopes of winning her over a little more.
Playful by nature, Henri amused himself by building inuksuks in the hollows of certain trees, using small stones from paradise. He even made one that represented himself as he was: naked. Thanks to a small oblong stone.
They advanced in this way, with few obstacles, until they reached the mountainous region. According to the half-moons Isaac Newton and his partner, Madame McIntosh, a forbidden zone lay nearby.
Nothing suggested that they were entering a “forbidden zone.” The area was bordered by a long path. Furrows had been carved into the ground by frequent herds of cows with soft, translucent horns. Just before crossing the perimeter, they heard a cavernous voice transmitted through thought. The message was a recommendation to turn back.
— Turn back! And quickly!
With no real choice but to break the rule, and ignoring the stern warning, they stepped into the zone. Stunned, they then heard the voice again, quite clearly. This time, it addressed them directly…
— Now that you’re here, walk on tiptoe. False steps… Better a discreet visitor than a noisy voyeur. What am I saying?!
Henri grew agitated, for anything might happen to him. Marilyn, for her part, seemed more bewildered and intrigued. She looked at her strange captor, waiting for him to reassure her. They had just entered an unfrequented realm. No blessed souls, no half-moons, and certainly no angels were anywhere to be seen.
Hooded in ignorance, the two of them had stepped into this marvelous domain of God: the earthly paradise. Once, human beings had lived here in innocence. No surnames, only two well-known first names—doubtless to protect their privacy: Eve and Adam. (In paradise, they say it the other way around, out of politeness.)
Out of nostalgia, God had transplanted this temporal garden into eternity. It was the place where the infamous apple had been bitten. Despite its impressive scale, the place looked like a tiny bonsai lost within a vast, untouched Amazon forest filled with countless sequoias.
With no knowledge of it, and no celestial legends to guide her, Marilyn had never heard a word about this divine land lost in eternity. Nothing had ever been revealed to her—except a lingering suspicion. The white clouds in the blue sky, always shifting and reforming, served as maps of eternity in motion. One day… she had noticed one cloud that never changed. Motionless.
The voice spoke no more. A total calm reigned. There was not a soul in sight… Henri almost imagined that nothing unfortunate could happen anymore. Death could no longer frighten him—but eternity could. He feared it might tip him into hell.
Oblivious to all this, he climbed one of the hills in humanity’s very first park, whistling. Then he stopped. Zen-like. Gazing at the horizon, tears welled up like gentle waterfalls upon his cheeks.
In the distance, more than magnificent, a sunset adorned one corner of paradise. As witnesses, as accomplices, thousands of other suns joined the spectacle. This one, which for the moment amused the others, illuminated paradise. Taking turns, those stars played hide-and-seek with the horizon.
All of it formed a phenomenal, endless display. It reminded Henri of the mobiles hung above newborns’ cradles: waltzing in carousel motion, revolving around a greater light. It looked like a choreography of energy. Lovers offered themselves to the stars. Depending on one’s angle, one could enjoy a direct vision of reality—the cosmos, or simply a starry sky, depending on the degree of ecstasy.
Marilyn had caught up with Henri. Despite the situation that separated them, this makeshift couple contemplated that magical horizon together.
At the foot of the hill, poorly concealed behind a tree missing one of its fruits, a strange animal was watching them. A hybrid. The beast, motionless, seemed the result of some improbable crossbreeding. It resembled a massive penguin with platypus genes, one of whose grandparents must have frolicked with a linnet, leaving it its mannerisms. And yet its gaze was curiously endearing.
Wide-eyed, the mismatched pair slowly turned. “What is that?” they asked one another, all while keeping an eye on the oddity.
The creature still did not move. Unflinching. As though in a trance. Hypnotized by the unusual presence of visitors in this secluded corner of the realm.
Toutrec finally snapped out of his daze. Proud and delighted to act as protector of his lady, he puffed out his chest like a peacock on steroids. He addressed the animal in a tone that, for a man like him, was meant to sound extremely authoritative. It was anything but intimidating. “Boo! Boo!” Henri hooted like a hoarse owl.
The beast, having inherited from the platypus a duck-like bill, struggled greatly with articulation—the difficulty of speaking clearly was considerable. Despite this verbal handicap, the animal addressed them in language and expressions that were fairly understandable.
— No fear! Don’t hyde… hide yourselves. No panic you. What am I saying?! Clap! Clap! As though adjusting his beak, the way someone might readjust a loose partial denture.
— Luckily, I have the gift of tongues! Henri boasted.
Then he fell silent, realizing the stupidity of his remark. Especially since he had just noticed that the creature’s mouth was completely empty. No tongue, no teeth. Not even a trace of tonsils.
— Not easy… easy to speak with beak. Especially, when plack… lack of practice. Wait small poment… moment. What am I saying?!
The beast, just as intimidated by their presence, turned its back on them. Then, for quite a while, it launched into rhythmic vocal warm-ups, diction exercises, facial stretches, and random clacking of its beak. When it finally turned back around, it found the two onlookers doubled over with laughter. They were bent in two from hearing the creature—who was in fact rather friendly—trying to warm up its speech. Like children caught red-handed in a jam jar, they tilted their heads and looked sideways in whimsical flirtation.
— A mocking spirit does not deserve a spirit’s mockery. What am I saying?! I won’t scold you. But would you rather I speak to you through telepathy, as I did earlier? the beast asked, with surprising clarity.
Out of breath and somewhat ashamed, the pair shook their heads no.
— God Himself authorized me to come here to clear my mind. To peck at a few good moments in this corner of paradise. What? And I stand guard. You know, eternity in the void is long and monotonous.
— I cannot imagine what could have driven God to create the void, Henri and Marilyn asked at the same moment, as though conducting a solemn interrogation.
— It was not driven by anything, it was a bazar… What am I saying?! A hazard. I do not recall the day, but once, when He was on the verge of creating, He had a blank moment… His mind suddenly emptied of ideas, and by creating nothing, He invented the void. Fearing that beings might get lost in it, He shouted me. What am I saying?! Created me… so that I might forbid anyone to enter.
— If you are inside it, then it is no longer a void, since something is in it! Don’t you think? Marilyn interrupted, trying to find logic in Tonton Maxime’s irrational speech.
— Ah, right! I hadn’t bandaged that. Thought! What am I saying?! Anyway, the void is so vast, just as infinite as infinity itself, that I am nothing at all within it. God motorized me. What am I saying?! Authorized me to come here and relax in His domain. May I ask your opinion of my latest maxims? offered Tonton Maxime.
Marilyn, quite intrigued, needed no further encouragement.
Henri, meanwhile, was listening absentmindedly to Tonton as he recited his latest inventions. In truth, he was wondering how this storyteller might be able to help him.