IV. The castaway

 

« In the purest moments of joy, the world ceases to be tragic. But when the cry falls silent, everything becomes solemn and clear again. I then understood that it is not enough to live: one must persist. For what bursts forth in the light always ends up dissolving in shadow, and happiness is only the fleeting harmony between man and the world. When that harmony breaks, one must descend to the depths, to the very root of disaster, in order to find again the shared breath.»

Albert Camus, Nuptials at Tipasa

 

 

But there remained thatsilhouette, upon the red rocks. It was becoming less and less unfamiliar to me… And suddenly, everything appeared in a different light: it was not a man, nor a child… struggling, but a man cast ashore. Not confrontation, but the aftermath. The image does not show the action; it shows what is left of the world after the disaster.

Those lost, inhospitable rocks are not a refuge, but a remainder. To be there is already to be too much. The figure no longer lives: he persists. The castaway is the one who has seen the bottom. And the bottom is precisely the monster.

Jonah, Pinocchio, Ahab, all those who have seen the monster have, in a certain way, vanished. For the depths are not a place: they are a passage. The belly of the beast is the inside of the world. Those who go there leave something behind: their innocence, their gaze, their outline. The castaway in the drawing has seen the Leviathan not as a threat, but as the visible form of the inside. And when he rises back to the surface, if he hopes to, he will no longer be separate from it.

He will henceforth share with the monster the same breath: to appear, disappear, reappear.

It was at that moment that I realized, with great astonishment, that the image was constantly changing… I moved much closer to my friend Lucian’s notebook… and what I saw then… left me speechless.

 

To be continued…