It was flying low over paradise. Rose des Vents’s squadrons advanced without obstruction or resistance, all horns deployed. With the exception of the infernals, nothing flew, swam, or walked. Not a mosquito. Not an angel. Not a saint. No one but this little group in the earthly garden...

“Hey! Do you hear those little sadistic laughs in the distance?” Henri interrupted abruptly, thus cutting short the teachings of the inventor of proverbs.

Then, with his hand open behind his ear, he looked at Marilyn as though inviting her to listen. Both seemed frightened by those increasingly distinct and demonic sounds.

“I hear abnormal noises... I firmly believe that, by now, the angels must have been alerted to my kidnapping. But those are sadistic laughs,” Marilyn said nervously.

A look of dismay and anger appeared on Tonton Maxime’s darkened face.

“You were kidnapped? Who dared to do such a thing?” raged the hybrid, managing nonetheless to remain composed.

“I did,” Henri admitted simply, realizing that he had no way out.

In his defense, he stated with confidence that it had merely been a mistake... a lapse in judgment. But also, and above all, that he had been cursed by a priest who had reacted badly to the communion wine. Especially the cheap wine!

With one short paw, Tonton Maxime scratched his beak in little strokes, as though to think more clearly about the situation.

“I have no judgment to pass on you, Mr. Henri. Did you know that our Creator loves art, and not merely as a dilettante, believe me. I have often had the chance to admire—and above all to learn from—His masterpieces. He displays original works, but also produces copies which, indeed, are highly successful. By contemplating His works, I learned to understand rather than to judge. Besides, I have not been granted the ability to assess the faults of others, unlike the angels at the entrance.”

“Thank you for your compassion, but what are you going to do with me now?” Henri asked fearfully.

Tonton Maxime was about to answer when Potato Peels interrupted him. The angel approached helplessly on all fours, trying to flap his softened, sticky wings.

His gaze immediately fixed on Henri.

“We can do nothing against you, Mr. Toutrec. You have utterly defeated us! Hell is invading, overrunning, and controlling paradise! Miserable misery!!!” cried the angel Peels, struggling to get back on his feet.

Fortunately, there was not much molasses on his wings. Angels usually prefer to fly, and this forced walk had exhausted him. Yet all the fatigue and sorrow of heaven had not prevented him from finding Henri Toutrec. He believed the little man was somehow involved in the infernal calculations behind the invasion, the surprise attack.

“How did you find me?” Henri asked, intrigued.

“I recognized you by the inuksuks and followed them.”

“Listen, Mr. Peels, I mean you no harm. Just because I made it here doesn’t mean I attacked paradise,” Henri protested, thinking that the little devils were now resolutely after him.

“The truth is that Rose des Vents and his army are spreading chaos and misery everywhere in paradise! The door! They came through the door! We failed in our duty! We should be taking your place, Mr. Toutrec! We should!” the angel cried, trying to catch his breath.

Everyone stood frozen in horror. Even Henri, who had never had the privilege of experiencing paradise in peace. The woman broke the silence and tried to comfort the wounded angel.

“All of this is our fault. But what a state you are in. Do not feel humiliated. Do not cry. Pull yourself together,” Marilyn gently tried to encourage him, crouching beside him. Full of empathy, she let tears fall into the angel’s hair and softly stroked it.

“Half-relieved sorrow inclines the heart toward happiness,” Tonton Maxime coined, with greater or lesser success, as he tried to soften the heavy moment of desolation.

“Tell Toutrec he no longer needs to flee. He is home now. Hell is here,” the angel whispered softly into Marilyn’s compassionate ear.

“With all due respect, Peels, I do not deserve hell. Even if you claim I am fit to settle in this chaos. That it would be my due. All that matters to me is being with Marilyn,” Toutrec said sincerely, having overheard the angel’s dark confidences.

“Nothing compels me to become your concubine. Especially not for eternity,” Marilyn remarked dryly, increasingly unsettled by the persistence of the soul of her suitor and kidnapper.

Had the context of a paradise cursed by the presence of demons suddenly hardened her?

“You’re not going to start that again,” Henri retorted.

His instinctive understanding of things made him sharper. He was thinking more clearly. Realizing that he had much to prove and much to atone for, Henri summoned all his resources for a rather self-serving justification.

“Let’s go and fight them! Let’s destroy these monsters, these dragons!” he shouted, pointing toward every place from which the unpleasant sounds were coming, like some heavenly Don Quixote.

These efforts surprised the angel, who was gradually regaining his strength. After describing what he had witnessed, he had expected Henri Toutrec to try to flee—or even attack him. But he did neither. He was passing the test.

“Judging by the joy with which those fork-collectors are making themselves heard, they will surely want to celebrate soon. We might take advantage of that to bring down a few of them. What do you think of preparing a guerrilla attack?” suggested the antihero.

The angel, regaining his composure, began to study Tonton Maxime, whose appearance was leaving him increasingly perplexed.

“We would like to know whether you are a defector from hell,” he asked bluntly, attempting to reassure himself, even at the risk of creating an awkward silence.

“Angels don’t eat coconuts shell and all! My name is Tonton Maxime. I don’t understand what troubles you... What am I saying?! Disturbs you. You are no better at speaking than several others. How do you conduct a self-examination? Do you say, ‘We made a mistake...’ or ‘I committed a fault of pretension?’”

“At such moments, we speak in the third person. We use ‘he.’ Then we say, ‘He made a small blunder...’ The Order of Angels thought this would help us avoid remorse or guilt. But this tragedy is becoming far too much of an apocalypse for us to evade responsibility,” replied Peels, turning his face aside to dry a tear.

Despite the pain, the gravity of the situation, and his damaged feathers, the angel gave the little man a playful wink. Through humor, he wished to support the naïve recklessness Henri had shown.

With great eagerness, Tonton Maxime made a surprising suggestion—indeed, an unimaginable proposal.

“We shall all take refuge at my place, in the void. What am I saying?! In the nothingness.”

“We! We did not know that nothingness existed! We... We...” stammered the astonished angel.

“Do you think this is the time to hesitate? We do not have a miracle to get us out of this!” Marilyn and Henri hurried to protest together, as a duo.

— In my big mill... What am I saying?! My mouth, quickly.

— Your mouth? asked the companions in misfortune, astonished.

— What? You do not find it large and welcoming enough? I shall empty my mind in order to draw closer to nothingness. You will jump into my mouth. Then I shall turn through the back of my ass, not forgetting the... What am I saying?! The feet. Then, taking care not to suffocate... the rest of my fate... What am I saying?! My body... all the way to the beak, which I shall turn last. Finally, when I am no longer, we shall meet at the center of nothingness. There will remain only a tiny hole, as small as a speck of dust, at the place of my disappearance, once I am no more. Do not worry! Even if I empty my head, there is my friend Clarence. She is my little spider on the ceiling... when we are but an endless abyss, she will weave a web over the tiny hole to keep me from swallowing spoons... What am I saying?! Flies. That is what I call my zirgouille!

All three were fascinated, but only Henri still managed to find a way to tease and trap Tonton Maxime.

— I understand. It is like rolling your socks into a ball to store them.

— I do not have a stomach! Inside me, everything is... noble... What am I saying?! Everything is empty. An incalculable emptiness. In truth, I nourish the void with my presence whenever I am within it. And in return, I nourish myself on its emptiness. Especially when I possess an apparent existence, as I do here and now before you.

— Complicated!… Will we be absent or present in the nothingness? Marilyn tried to understand, scratching her soul with anxiety.

— You will be and not be, without being entirely either. We shall communicate with one another by lips... What am I saying?! By dreams! Only dreams can accommodate nothingness, Tonton Maxime explained with all the logic possible.

— We... We can hear them coming closer in great strides. We... We find your explanations enriching and fascinating, but we remain concerned with the moment when we may hide, the angel trembled.

— It seems that this corner of paradise is protected. But for how long? The hordes of demons will sense our presence sooner or later, said an anxious Marilyn, who, despite herself, was analyzing the situation.

The answer came immediately. Shrill and hoarse voices nearby.

— That’s it! It’s the end, they’ve spotted us! Marilyn exclaimed in a hushed voice, terrified.

— Now! Now I take you in. I shall turn myself inside out right after. Go... jump! Fear nothing! ordered Tonton Maxime, who, startled by the nearby noise, demonstrated the abnormal extensibility of his mouth.

The hybrid, guardian of the void, had, so to speak, a very large mouth... There were courtesies, even fears and doubts about being swallowed... But as Marilyn, the first to seek refuge in nothingness, put it:

— There is only one way out... Exit into nothingness!

The angel entered second, reciting psalms and still shaking his head in repentance. Henri, the last to leap into Tonton Maxime’s mouth, whistled bravely, imagining he would impress Marilyn, who was no longer listening. Then Tonton Maxime turned in on himself.

A narrow escape.

A few seconds later, many demons—the most sordid of them all—had managed to infiltrate the earthly garden, running in every direction like bounty hunters.

Rose des Vents, carried by his kin and smiling broadly beneath his adolescent goatee, roared with vanity. They say time erases many things. But to such an extent!? Rose no longer recognized the Garden of Eden he had once frequented, in the form of a convincing reptile, in his youth.