Deconfinement: "Yes, I have rabies, and yes, I want to shake hands"

"And now, a few hours before the long-awaited release, of the promised breath, it is a strange feeling of anguish that grips me. This release that was given a term that even my corrector spelling does not recognize: De-confinement

Deconfinement, as if it were still necessary to indicate to me that the confinement is not far, that it prowls within reach of a coughing fit, a postilion or a simple handshake. And this anguish, which I exorcise with this refrain which obsesses me: I want to hold your hand.

Yes, I want to take this hand that I am refused to grasp, no I do not want the scenario that will emerge in a few hours, this world where we will no longer see the face of the other, masked, this world where we no longer have the right to kiss, this world where I may never see my dad again in an ehpad without a separating window, this world where I will read fear in the eyes of the teacher who will hesitate to hug my crying little girl in the playground. So yes, I have rage, and yes, I want to shake hands.

Take a hand so as not to become the machine to simply work and produce that one wants to make me. Going to work masked, in the morning without having a coffee at the counter, arriving at the office without kissing my colleagues, leaving in the evening passing in front of closed cinemas, forced to consume in front of my screen products formatted by the internet industry.

Exchanging balls but no handshake on a tennis court on weekends, watching a football match on the couch without hearing the choir and hearts yelling "you'll never walk alone" from supporters; Cover my hands with gel to choose in less than a quarter of an hour from the Ecalarte Book stalls, the favorite bookstore in my neighborhood, the book that will transport me elsewhere. Yes, Wendy, there is anxiety, and there is rage in me.

I remember our amazement in November 2015, after the night of Bataclan, my anger two days later by going to take a plane blocked for three hours at the airport for unbearable body searches, saying to me then "they won "

But I also remember my beautiful emotion six days later when we met at the Alhambra a few dozen meters from the bataclan for a magnificent Richard Hawley concert. There too we were searched, there too we waited two hours, but this time, we did not say "they won", because we were together, and being there, together, that evening, was a way of to be alive and stronger.

Tomorrow anxiety and rage grip me because, this time, this damn virus has not made the other an ally but a threat. So, to overcome this fear, and to regain a taste for combat, I remember that that evening, on the stage of the Alhambra, ten days after the Bataclan, Richard Hawley had offered us a magnificent version of this song, All you need is love , which we took to heart and which confirms that yes, the Beatles at the beginning of the sixties had already understood everything. May we very quickly resume it, together, in chorus.