released December 7, 2013

THE NIGHT OF EXTERNAL TOADS'

…By chance, that night, the spies from distant planets had disappeared. Chance: it was me. A real howling prairie, with vegetation like furious tentacles, clay inhabitants with red, staring, astonished eyes: this was what I had planned. For their party.

…. Yes, what luck!… Gone, they were, the spies from distant planets… Humans too often forget to fear toads with translucent skin and little red eyes… Indeed: I’ve often spoken of it, but I can never repeat it too often; toads are the worst of all spies. They are without pity. They are silent. They look at the world and hawk with satisfaction: their masters from distant planets will give them ample compensation on their return.

...So, the spies from distant planets had disappeared. Anyhow, for a long time, no one paid the least attention to the comings and goings of the red-eyed toads. As for me, I watched them run like madmen after the mysterious music that swarmed about my prairie made of labyrinths of dust: then the toads ripped out their tongues on the weeds, sounding their death throes from the depths of their ruts - ancient ruts, what's more, dug by the chariots of men at the moment of their defeat, at the moment of the the fall of the mountains, at the moment of the fall of the seas, at the moment of their own fall, when their own faces became strange to them and made them die of fear.

… In short: such was the sight that delighted the Grim Reaper, a thin and patient spider, who drew succor from the last cry of the dying beasts, keeping watch over their tears of grief in order to drink them, digging his great paws into closing eyes, savouring the death rattle more than all else. Because that’s his way of life. The toads know it, and run about in groups. What could be more natural, amongst spies?

…Yes… The toads had disappeared on the prairie, that night: but it was just a brief respite. No one can be ignorant of their tenacity, their cruelty. When, beneath their helmets bristling with spikes, they look at humans, they adopt a neutral gaze, a defeated countenance, mouth agape: and the humans throw stones at them. Naturally, the toad doesn’t even try to resist, and man rejoices when he sees the ground strewn with bloody entrails, all the while observing how the toads’ eyes have really sprung out of their sockets.

But, precisely: no one ever finds the eyes of the dead spy. Only the eyes were living: the body was simply a shell, and the eyes have returned to outer planets… “We must answer, we must answer…” Such are the orders that the toads’ eyes sing over two notes, always the same, in the cold of space, when they return to distant planets…

Translation of the text 'LA NUIT DES CRAPAUDS EXTERIEURS' as found in the insert. Translated by Clodagh Kinsella.