Short story written in February 2020, in a contest brilliantly won by someone else…  » Final dialogue too short, » I was told. You will judge for yourself. With indulgence, because I have reworked the text quite a bit.

First Monday in April, 10 o’clock, the neighbourhood is quiet, I start my round of home visits. My clients being roughly in the same area, I’m on foot. It’s a bit longer than with the car, but that way, no parking problems, and it’ll be my ecological effort of the week. For the month of April, the weather is particularly mild: the sky is cloudless, the sun is shining, it’s neither hot nor cold. An invigorating weather one might say. I remember when I was a child, my mother used to say, « In April, don’t let April fool you »… now I’m in a shirt with an open sweatshirt, and I’m getting warm. It’s been 20 years since the IPCC warned: the weather is going downhill. There is no longer any doubt about it when you see this weather. I don’t know if it’s warmer or colder, but what is certain is that the seasons are no longer as marked as they used to be. In fact, this winter has been without snow.
And above all, this spring walk will be a good time to think about it. I walk with great strides among the trees that are beginning to take on tender green leaves. Lost in the high branches and in my tangled thoughts, my gaze is still drawn to a cardboard box, placed there on a bench on the avenue. It is filled with books and completed with a small sign: Help yourself! A good novel is always a godsend. So let’s see. Arsène Lupin, bof. Musso, already read everything. 100 easy recipes, re-bof. Holds a little red book. Mao’s? No, older and a bit bigger. « The book of possibilities », Louise Armand, Bordeaux, 1830. Bof-bof, the title is really too much in contradiction with my current mental state, so… I’ll take it.
Visits over, back to the office. A few transmissions on the computer about an old client who is a bit senile and who is doing well… that is to say badly… but not too much… so good all the same. 1pm, my stomach calls me to order, it’s time to take out my lunch box and enjoy the delicious Indian meal lovingly prepared the day before by my sweetheart. I take this opportunity to start this red book. I have to admit that it has been bothering me throughout my visits and that it intrigues me more and more. At the end of lunch, thirty pages of readings. 5:30 pm, end of work, direction metro for bedtime. At the exit of the subway station, sixty more. And at 6:30 pm, comfortably lying on the couch, I finish it. As a conclusion, this sentence: « It’s when everything seems impossible that everything becomes possible, it’s enough to go the other way around, taking different decisions ». Returning to Bordeaux after eight years in Cayenne, it was indeed not a foregone conclusion for Louise. And yet, she managed to do it, and in style. Starting from scratch, she conquered fortune, family, respectability and even national honours. Gosh, it’s strong … but I’m not Louise, and there are two centuries between us. In addition, I’m still not at the point to deserve the prison! I’m only a culinary no-good, unable to take my share for meals … cooking is for me the prison, but in the head. Okay, that sounds a little bit like Louise’s story, a little bit. And what did she do in the face of this destructive and desperate feeling? Let’s see, it’s right at the beginning of the book… Yeah. There’s some idea… why not.
7:30, she should be home soon. Not Louise, but my sweetheart to me. The apartment is clean, because I had time for a little tidying up, and the meal is ready. Well, that’s the real novelty. I’ve done what Louise did, I’ve taken the plunge. Cooking, I am still convinced that I am absolutely incapable of it, and yet the Aloo Gobhi is in the pan, warm, with the spices as indicated in the recipe and absolutely not burnt. It may even be edible. It’s a real paradigm shift for me: deciding that I can follow a recipe, and going for it. Fortiche la Louise.
The apartment door opens, and there’s my sweet, smiling face coming in.
-Whew, what a day! I’m so glad I’m home! But it smells good in here! Did you make dinner? Oh, great! You’ve started a real recipe, that’s a first, bravo!
-…
-Anyway, that’s great, I’m glad. Don’t you feel like a little hug?
-…
-Well, are you dumb or what? What’s happened? What made you decide to go for it? Because I’ve known for a long time that there’s a great cook in you!
-…
Whoo-hoo, you lost your tongue? So, what happened?
-A book I read.
-Ah, you finally read The Gounelle, it’s good, right?
-No, another one.

-« The book of possibilities », by a certain Louise, who recounts a piece of her life, around the beginning of the 19th century.
-And?
-And it wasn’t easy for her, because she was just back from eight years in prison in Cayenne. She goes home to Bordeaux. To sum up, she shows how, by changing the way she sees herself, she was able to regain a place, and a prestigious one at that, in the society of the time. Originally a seamstress, she became a fashion designer and director of a fashion house. She also managed to find the love of her life in the person of the judge who had sentenced her eight years earlier.
-Wow, this book sounds terrible! You make me want to read it!
-Uh, I don’t really…
-Ah, why?
-In fact, she was sentenced to prison because she murdered her first husband, in a fit of rage, a month after marrying him… she thought he was good for nothing, unable to do anything with his ten fingers!

Par Jean-Yves

Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)