The bed sheets

It is an unbearable thing to live in the same town as our worst enemy. It is enough to force us to move away, leaving the town, our friends, country, language. So off we go across the ocean.
Each day we live in the hope of finding the strength to go back. But we never do. We stay in bed. And as there is no limit to cowardice, we make anonymous phone calls to our worst enemy. We wrap the receiver in a corner of the sheet to disguise our voice.
Time passes and we gradually forget. So we tie a knot in our sheet to remind us to call our enemy tomorrow morning. But tomorrow morning we don't call him. However, each day we tie another knot. Then when our sheet is no more than a string of knots we cannot sleep in, we call without disguising our voice. And our enemy says "Come home, my friend, there's been a misunderstanding."
And as cowardice is a bottomless pit, we untie our sheet to pack up our bundle, and we set off back home, knowing fine well that we will be getting no explanations. We're going home because we never managed to go away in the first place. Because we hope to find a bed with no knots in it. But back home, it's all different now. Our friends have forgotten who we are, or else don't understand us any more, we no longer speak the same language. So we put the sheet over our head, wrap ourselves up in it. And we run around the streets in it. we feel ourselves flying. For the first time we discover how gutless we really are.

One morning, we find ourselves face to face with a bed sheet we have put out to dry. And we feel no thicker than it. And we feel just as taut as it is. But, unlike the sheet, we do not have this little puddle at our feet that would give meaning to our situation. We should like to have a puddle of sweat at our feet. It would prove that we were not insensitive; that, despite our lack of depth, we are still capable of having feelings.
So we go to see the person with whom we slept in the sheet. But she is not in. We force open the door. We want to leave something personal behind, to say we are still alive, but are unable to find words to express it. So we put the plug in the sink and turn on the tap, and let the water run until it overflows onto the floor. We splash about a bit, and then leave.
We go home. We get undressed, coil up in the still damp sheet and go to bed. We wait. We are soon running a fever. We become hot and sticky. And when we hear someone knocking at the door, although feverish, we know who it is. And even though we do not feel very much alive, we have the courage to open, because now at last we are sweating through every pore of our skin.

One morning, we wake up glued to the daylight coming through under the front door, shrouded in the sheet used to keep out the draught. We are not particularly expecting anything. No crucial letter, no unusual visit. We do not know what we are waiting for. But we stay there. The cold gets under the door. After a while, the part of our body exposed to they daylight becomes so cold that we turn over. We put the cold side of ourself to the inside and the hot side towards the outside. Now it is as if it were cold in the house and warm outside. So we say to ourself it is time to leave home. We go out. We don't even bother to shut the door. We walk in the streets. Then, when we are feeling too cold, we lie down in front of the front door of a house. Our whole body is cold. We try to pass our fingers under the door to catch the sheet keeping out the draught. But there is someone inside jealously holding onto it. Then we are cold no longer. This presence is what we were waiting for.

If we buy a house, it is to try and do what everyone else does.
And if our friends set our house on fire, it is merely to find out whether we trust them enough to jump into the sheet they hold out for us.
As soon as they catch us, they burst out laughing, looking each other in the eye. They think they have got us back. They shake the sheet as hard as they can to make us jump up in the air like a Jumping-jack.
We laugh too, but not with them. We laugh because each time they throw us up in the air, we feel far away from everything.