Shirtless Others

Soumis par Joël Gauthier le mar, 03/08/2011 - 08:54

Auteur·e·s:

Shirtless Others est la remédiatisation d'une courte nouvelle de Jason Ockert parue dans River City en 2001 puis reprise dans le recueil Rabbit Punches en 2006 (Lo Fidelity Press). Lorsque l'internaute accède à l'oeuvre, l'image d'un requin suspendu à une poutre apparaît. Devant, des personnages anonymes semblent poser pour un photographe. Cet étrange portrait, réalisé dans des tons pastels, se déplace légèrement en fonction de la position de la souris de l'internaute. Ce dernier est invité à manipuler le couteau dans le ventre du requin pour le "vider", la progression de la lame faisant apparaître graduellement le texte.

Narrée à la première personne, l'histoire est celle d'un homme venu assister à une compétition de pêche au requin avec son amoureuse. On sent toutefois un malaise certain dans sa description des évènements, surtout lorsque des requins nouveaux-nés tombent du ventre du dernier requin éventré, le requin gagnant.

Le style de Jason Ockert est sobre et minimaliste. Cet écrivain a notamment publié chez McSweeney's, dans l'Oxford American,Witness et Ecotone.

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A thin woman waits to slice the Mako shark with a butcher knife. This is the last shark of the competition and the biggest my lover and I have seen. This one could be a winner.
Come on, my lover says to me, it's almost over.
Her cheekbones are pink in the salty air. I had just told her that I didn't like this. I said it as if I didn't mean it. We've been inside the air-conditioned condo all weekend. Somehow being outside has made me claustrophobic.
The shark's stomach looks like a silver-lined moon glistening there in the stale afternoon heat. The crowd has gathered in a semi-circle around the butcher. Five fishing gentlemen leer at their catch from a rocking boat. They make me seasick bobbing so close to land.
They win. Their Mako carries the most weight. The fishermen thunder. The crowd is all smiles and cheers. My lover lets out a holler and raises her arms, arms that have fingers with nails that left deep and passionate stripes down my back. I've had to wear a shirt in a crowd of shirtless others.
The thin woman cuts into the neck of the Mako to bleed it. She slices the shark's soft underside. She digs into the belly. Several baby sharks spill out onto the pier and gasp. They writhe in the air with unblinking black eyes. My lover doesn't see this, she is moving with the crowd to congratulate the fishermen. Those watching are quiet.
I wait to see what the thin woman will do. I am prepared to cry out if she skewers them, protest, maybe point a finger. But she lets them be, dying like they are, on the dock.

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Shirtless Others

Ockert, Jason