Sometimes it's just a smell. Well I guess it depends. It can also be a sound. A song maybe. Rarely an image. Images give deja-vu illusions but they usually don't revive old burried anecdotic memories. Odeurs do. Sounds do. But sometimes images can do that in their own way. They do not respect the convention. The smell or the sound envelop you. They penetrate you, slowly taking control of the central system. They take you by the hand and ride your memory with you, gently until the whole sensation comes back, the environment, the feelings. Almost overwhelming but controlable. Images slap you in the face. Electrochoc.
I just saw an image of someone driving a car and shot from just behind his left shoulder. The car frame, half the driver's head and wheel are in the screen. Rain falls on the windshield. The driver exhales condensation.
Such a live sensation. Rewind. You're sixteen again. It's a cold early morning of december. The muffler of the car exhausts a white heavy smoke in the street light. The instructor opens the door, greets you ("Bonjour mon garcon, comment ca va ce matin? Fait frais hein?"), and invites you to seat in the car. No, young man, in the passenger seat today. He seems like a nice guy. You enter the car and the first thing you notice is the smell. The new car smell.
And you remember how excited you were when your parents came home with the first new car.
You close the door, a coton sound, like muttered, almost as if the door was caughing when you closed it, to cover the slamming noise. From that moment on you now you'll remember that sound for ever. It's your first driving lesson.
Looking in a mirror. What is the reflexion of a reflexion. I am an image of an image of an image. The memory of my life clones me. Every memories I have are souvenirs of things lived by an image of me. A copy made at a instant t. This is such a french expression. I like to translate french expression in english but this is not the subject and I said I wouldn't digress anymore.
Sometimes I like to think that my images now have a life of their own. And as time goes by I'm multiplying myself, exponentially. Maybe that way I'll have the time to live life to its fullest before that night of december 2016. I don't know if it will be because of the cold and foggy weather or because of a lack of reflexes due to a narcoleptic crisis, but I sure will look like a deer when this truck will catch me first in his headlights and finally on its bumper.
