10/05/2048
(Past)
"Miss Karima, it's your turn. I sincerely hope all these hours spent looking by the window will finally be helpful to you."
The students burst out laughing.
Leïla doesn't react. She doesn't furrow her brows, she doesn't sigh, nothing, as if the mockeries were like water off a duck's back to her. She stands up calmly, slowly, without any notes or notebooks. Her steps slightly reverberate in the room while she's walking to the board, her hands empty and her eyes still somewhere else. When she's right in front of the teacher, she looks up to her with a hint of indifference.
"And… What was the question?"
A silence. The class holds its breath, wavering between amazement and fascination.
The teacher lets a slight sigh out, a mix up of weariness and resignation. She puts her hand on her forehead, as if she was gathering some patience.
"You were supposed to do some research about freedom… and give a presentation about it in front of the class" she says, insisting on her last words.
Leïla slowly nods, as if it was her first time discovering this information. There is still no hint of panic in her eyes. Nothing.
She just stands straight, here, in front of everyone, as if she was only half-concerned by her situation.
"Ha… Yes, freedom." she mumbles. The word seems to float in front of her, strange but not uninteresting.
She glances absent-mindedly at the board, grabs a pencil on its edge and starts to draw without a word. Silence falls in the room. The teacher looks at her, her arms folded, not knowing if she should intervene or wait. Students are whispering, sniggering at times, until curiosity gradually gets the upper hand. Laughters fade.
She's drawing simple, soft lines. No hurry. Only a… light shape.
When she's done, she finally turns towards the class.
"In your opinion, what can we find in almost every single representation of freedom?"
Class, as much as me, is destabilized by her strange way of starting her presentation. Without saying a single word of introduction, without even introducing herself, she directly asks a question to the class. A moment of wavering passes by. Glances are exchanged. No one really understands what is happening. In the bottom of the classroom, a student finally breaks the silence:
"An eagle?"
Leïla slightly shakes her head.
"No."
Another one tries:
"Sky?"
She barely smiles, almost encouraging.
"Neither… But we're getting closer."
She turns back to the board, pointing at her drawing with a light finger.
"A cloud!"
A silence floats in the room, hanging on, as if we all needed a moment to understand.
"Always here, always moving, elusive… It changes its shape, it goes with the wind. It belongs to no one."
Leïla takes a step aside, still looking at her drawing, then speaks to the class with more solemnity than we were expecting:
"Freedom isn't something one can keep in his hand. It's intangible: we can feel it, we can make it out… but it has no steady shape. You can see it, you can follow it, you can even believe you're getting nearer to it… but you never can really touch it. Above all: it's uncontrollable. It goes where it wants, it shifts without warning us. It obeys no one."
"Yeah… A little like you, then" replies Mrs. Falker with a smirk.
She folds her arms, visibly entertained by what she just heard.
Discreet laughs are flying in the class.
Leïla slowly turns her head towards her. Her face hardened, without aggressiveness. A simple truth slips from her lips:
"Unfortunately… Yes."
A silence follows. This time, nobody laughs anymore.
She doesn't really smile, but there is something gentle in her expression. A quietness, a silence that stands out from the restlessness of the room. She's not the kind of girl you notice right away.
It was not her appearance that hit me. Not at first.
It was… something else.
That's when I understand that this feeling of fickleness, those slightly lost eyes, this false air of a girl who has her head in the clouds… All of this was only superficial. She doesn't look like she usually thinks, no. It's a cover, almost intentional. Behind this mask, something else is floating. A thoughtful quietness. A deliberate gap. A peaceful intelligence, well hidden, but here.
***
10/12/2048
Love is a power greater than the law, sometimes even greater than respect. It's a strength that could bury us or give us wings. We could say that love is an improvised weapon.
In terms of law, an improvised weapon is an object that was not designed to be used as a weapon but can be put to that use. A screwdriver, a broken bottle, a rock… Ordinary objects that could become fearsome in some hands.
We often associate the image of a heart to love. Ironically, this harmless symbol might be the most powerful weapon on Earth. This heart, metaphorically, can give a meaning to everything around us. It can tell whether something is good or bad, pleasant or not. It can even bring a reality into existence… or make it disappear.
What I truly think about love is that it is a weapon. A weapon we never really take seriously. Yet, it's central. For a lot of people, love is something difficult to describe, an experience that plunges us into an almost indescribable state.
I personally think of it differently: love is the oldest weapon in the world.
When I turn back to the class, there is no sound. A heavy silence. Frozen stares.
Ha, here we are…
Even the teacher remains silent in the face of the situation. I look down and walk to my desk without a word. Then, coming from the back of the class, I hear something. Applause. Weak, lazy ones. They slowly take shape, as if they were not sure they wanted to be.
I look up.
That's her.
Her, again. Leïla.
Her face is marked with notebook pages, her hair disheveled as if she fought against her sleep and lost, her eye is half-closed, apparently still away. She claps. Alone. When she realizes no one is following her, she slows down… and stops, without conviction.
The teacher then speaks again:
"Thank you, Cedric, for this presentation. You'll come to see me at the end of the class. And, Leïla… You don't even know why you're clapping, you slept the whole presentation."
The class bursts out laughing.
She just smiles. As if this situation wasn't embarrassing. As if she perfectly belonged here, even amidst the ridicule.
This girl…
How is it possible to ease times so complex without even being aware of it? She doesn't make her way through the situation without broaching it, she simply gives it a breath of fresh air.
She glances at me, then quickly turns around to her group of friends. They sartre at me with contempt before going back to their talk. I don't hear everything but through the murmurs something is clear: Leïla doesn't agree with whatever they're saying.
She puts her headphones back and her head on the notebook again.
I can't find the words to explain this. She's not charming like a girl from whom you can't look away. She's rather a girl you can search without ever finding her. She's here and she's not really within your reach. Yet I see her, I hear her. She makes us laugh, she makes us smile, she warms our hearts. So, why ?
Why do I have this feeling she's not really here?