January, 15th. I've spent the morning closed in my bedroom, trying to write the second chapter of my new novel. Without any success, I tryed to develope the character of the antagonist. His state of mind is too close of the hero's one. And I really believe that it's too complicate for a children's tale.
When I finaly went out, my watch indicate two o'clock p.m. and I realized that I've completely forgotten lunchtime. What a pity ! I prefered to walk in the street, hoping to find new idea, maybe to inspirate my tale by the people I could meet. The elevator was out of order, once again, and I had to go down the seven floors by stairs. It was relatively easy, if I considere that I had to crawled, litteraly speaking, to come back to my flat.
The city was shiny, alive, full of people. I should have stay at home this saturday... The crowd bores me so easy... I've walk in the Bethune Street, in the old Lille, came and went between a shop and an other, listening to the speaking of the people I passed. When I came back to my home, it was very late et Lille wore her night cap. When sleeping time arrive, I had a strange feeling, a very sad feeling, very deep inside of me. A kind of melancholy. Probably because of this damn syndrome of the white page. Or perhaps because of the weather. Rain, lighting and thunder are not very far.
Actually, it wasn't the end of the day for me. The storm doesn't wait for me to break and I can't fall asleep til early in the morning. And, to finish my great night in a grand finale, scary nightmare find me and torment me in the strange hollow of my sleep.
I woke up, in the middle of the night, sweating. My blanket was on the ground and the window of the room were suddenly wide-open. I closed them and went to the kitchen for a glass of milk. As usual, it's when you need something particular that you haven't one, whatever it's day or night. No milk. I go down stairs once again to awake the caretaker, and asked him for a bottle of milk. He helped me in spite of the late hour. The grimace on his face discouraged me to tell him about the elevator.
I came back to my flat, tired enough, with the seven floors to go up and the weigh of the bottle of milk, to sleep deeply. Fortunately, today, I feel that it will be different, in spite of the bad weather.

January, 17th. I still didn't find how to resolve the death of the hero's grandfather in my novel, even if I last the third chapter in the afternoon. Rains, again. When I went to shopping, I met Karine. I hid in a dark corner, like a child too shy. I didn't want to speak to her. Some things are too hard. Some things hurt too much. When I came back home, I saw that the apartment next to mine is "FOR SELL". New people, new ideas... Here somes I will give a good reception.

January, 20th. I take five minutes to rest me from my novel, which is at a worse state than ever, just to write this : the flat next to mine is not free anymore. A man moved in, alone if I can trust his mailbox. I didn't meet him for the moment but I have the intention to visit him tomorrow.

January, 22nd. I daren't to tell what's happen yesterday. But I must do it, to leave it behind me. It's so crazy, so unbelievable. Maybe there is an explanation, something really rationnal, but each time I think about it, I feel it like something terribly worrying. I'm afraid of it. This fear sick me, and I can't write anything with this irreal feeling which haunting me. I put it down now, hoping it will leave me and stay on this page. Here was what happened :
I visited my new neighbour like I had planed it. In the middle of the afternoon, I knocked to his door, with the intention to invit him to drink a coffee to know us better. To be on neighbouly terms with him. But the door wasn't closed, and it opened in an awful squeaking, as I pushed it, like it hadn't worked for a long time. I rubbed my eyes, I pinch myself, try to verify that the room which was in front of me wasn't a dream. Or a nightmare. A huge carpet of a bloody red was on the ground, every light was decorated by what seems to be trues humans skull... An evil laugh burst suddenly, from the bedroom, and I gave a jump of fear. However, I didn't make a move and stayed where I was. I looked on all these things with this deep feeling of melancholy and sadness. Bruskly, a man of an unknow age came out of the bedroom and pushed me out. He closed the door of his flat, and let me in the corridor, waiting for... I don't know what I waited. But in the short moment where I see the man, I look on a particular thing, and only on this, a strange red mark on his neck. This red mark, I think I've seen it again when, this morning, I spyed him to see him go out for his newspaper.
Perhaps I'm a little too alarmist, but with his kind of attitude and the possible sickness he carry inside of him, I think I have all the reason in the world to worrying. I wanted to asked to the caretaker about this weird guy, but I didn't find him. What can I do now ? I have to assure my security by myself and... I can't. I need help. I think I will ask to a doctor to come with me, to my new neighbour. It's really bizarre.

January, 23rd. This morning, I chose to call a doctor. Not an unknow one but the psychologist who helped me after my break-up with Karine. He was surprised by what I asked him, and totally against the idea of calling on a patient he didn't know. A patient I didn't know myself. But when I said him how this man was hostile to any visitors in his strange appartment, he was so intrigued that he decided to come with me.
We arrived in front of the door, which was closed this time, and I knocked twice. It wasn't the man of the previous day who opened the door but the caretaker. I was astonished to see him but this surprise was nothing before I discovered the state of the appartment ! The room seemed to be perfectly cleaned and well ordered... What was the cause of my fainting ? The unhealthy weather which reigned for several days ? That's what I want to believe. When I woke up, I was lying in my sofa, my psychologist advising me to take some rest and proposing me a rendezvous... I thanked him and assured him that I was really fine. After a sceptical glance, he said me goodbye and let me alone, so alone...
This feeling is too strong and too incomprehensible to be just a consequence of the weather.
I must stay at home and reflect on what happen to me.

*
* *

January 25th. I spent these last two days locked in my flat to calm me, but my state was only worsening. Impossible to work in these conditions notably because of what I saw in at night of 23 to 24... Nobody will believe me... I was lying for several hours when I was woken by a light and by an insistent noise. My shutter had opened again and beat against the wall. I went to the window and I noticed that the light responsible for my waking was the revolving lights of fire brigades. The building which face mine was burning in an immense glowing fire, threatening dangerously its neighbours. This thought instinctively made me turn the head to the window of my mysterious neighbour. Without that I perceive other thing than a shadow, the window in question closed abruptly, letting me observe the flowers of its balcony, totally carbonized. I began suddenly to imagine, to believe that my neighbour was at the origin of this disaster. But a man can't do such a thing ! A man ? Who was this man whom I didn't know anything ? Maybe an ignoble monster... An unknown being of the science and devilish... I'm feeling sick, I'm loosing my head... My imagination goes too far, I become crazy and... well... crazy !
What will I become ?

January 30th. I come back from a magnificent day I passed in Compiegne, far from all the concerns and the daily agonies. All afternoon long, I felt released, broke loose from all my responsibilities. The ideas for my novel fuse again ! All I needed was to run away some times from the urban pressure... I realized it as soon as I came down from car. The air seemed fresher, the herb was more green... I was somewhere else.
I had just eaten when a change occurred in me, a cheerfulness and a well-being unusual lived in me... The bizarre feeling which destroyed me, which had not left me for these two last weeks had disappeared !

February 1st. I claimed victory too quickly... My feeling of sadness and melancholy returned more intense than previously. The more the time passes, the more I cannot refrain from suspecting my neighbour of being the author of these fires ; since the first one, two other fires declared themselves, always in my street. The regional information spoke of a defect in the gas mains of the street and the works began, the noise of pneumatic drills replacing the one of automobiles. I can only hope that their efforts will not remain vain and that they will put an end to these disasters... There were deaths... People that I had already met... And if fire brigades were wrong ? If it was not a gas leak ? Maybe I should go to the police, to speak to them about my neighbour ? No... Why would he make such terrible things ?... I don't know. But there's too many coincidences...

February 22nd. I am dominated by this fear which follows me in my most buried thoughts. Days run away like horses over the hill. Sometimes, I'm not even sure if it's day or night. My novel disappeared. When I fall asleep, I find objects in places different from those where I had left them... That looks like these crises of sleepwalking which I had, being a child. I think that it's not serious, even if the possibility of making some acts that I wouldn't do awakened, and without knowing consciously the reach, worry me seriously.
More worrisome, I wanted to alert the police several times, or even to return to my psychologist's to speak to them about my strange neighbour and about the fire which burst during the works on the gas main, killing several workers... But every time, my legs become heavy and the sleep takes me... I... It's as if I was not the master of my schemes anymore... There's too many questions and none of the answers that I can find are comforting enough.

*
* *

February 24th. I don't know if it's this other one I am who pushed me there or if it's myself, but I visited my neighbour... What for ? Why ? Discuss with him of what I'd seen? Of what I had been the witness ? With the aim of making him admit his crimes? To beat me with him ? To kill him ? It doesn't matter. The souvenirs remain a little bit vague in my mind, but I know what I saw.
I went to his door, a little hesitating in spite of my step, sure ; I knocked but, as an echo in my first visit, the door was not closed and it half-opened in my approach. This time, without grating. As during my coming with my psy, the room was arranged, cleaned and there was no more track of a human passage, not even the burned flowers on the balcony.
When I came out, I noticed that the panel "FOR SELL" was put back in the entrance. Happy but always curious, I asked to the caretaker for what had become my ancient neighbour but, doubtless tired and disturbed by the events which disturbed our every day life, or simply by the elevator, still out of order, he didn't understand what I mean. He sent me to graze by saying to me that there had been no tenant for this flat for more than a month.
Nevertheless intrigued, I did not insist.

February 25th. I am happy, my unusual, inexplicable and unreal feeling had totally disappeared, either than this caricature, this ghost of neighbour. I began to rewrite my novel by changing a little the story, with the aim of adress it to a more grown-up public. But another mystery insinuated itself into my sky without cloud this morning. When I went out of the shower, by cleaning the vapor dawdling on the mirror, I discovered a funny red mark spreading out in my neck...

© Jules - 1998 (for the original text) & 2006 (for the translation).