Certainly, there are many ways to write. Novels, short stories, comics, and more, much more. You can write alone, with four hands, at night, in a train station hall, in an office, on your desk, in bed, with eight hands, with or without constraints.
And for multiple reasons: to avoid meals with the mother-in-law (to give meaning to one’s life), to deliver messages to the world’s face (messages with revolutionary, nihilistic, social, love, peace connotations or – perhaps the worst – those with humanistic connotations), to cheat boredom (this connects with “avoiding meals with the mother-in-law”), etc. The best, at least the most commendable, is perhaps to start writing to attract a girl because you can’t join a rock band. And the craziest is thinking, “Write to make some money” (but that is exceptionally rare).
In short, it goes without saying that, whether black or white literatures, the motivations and sources of inspiration are inexhaustible.
The proof: what happens when 18 crime writers, invited to the festival, agree to collectively write a short story? And that this story is written backward? That is, the first author imagined the end of the story, and then each author, knowing only the paragraph following theirs, has to write what happened before, respecting a limited number of characters.
Well, this gives us this Upside-Down Story, on the theme “The Territories of Crime Fiction,” which we offer here for you to follow along with the final work done in the manner of a “work in progress.”
Not forgetting that here, the beginning is the end.
Fabrice Rinaudo
Learn all about the Polar Salon in Drap: https://www.salon-polar-drap.fr/dotclear/
It was winter. A real suburban winter with torrents of rain pouring down on you and a damn north wind freezing the rain instantly on your body and the tears on your face. Almost the entire town was there, and we were all watching Kader’s body slowly slide into the hole while the imam rambled on. The cops were there too. An entire battalion of helmets and batons wading through the small muddy square reserved for Muslim dead. The funniest thing is that these bastards were freezing for nothing. Nothing would happen. I had promised Rissa. Rissa, Kader’s widow, whom a cruel cancer was finishing off. Rissa, who had begged me never to abandon her son Moussa.
Patrick Raynal, January 2013
Summer came and went by.
Autumn was drowned under torrents of rain. El Kibir, my cellmate, died of cancer two weeks before Christmas. The next day, I received my parole papers handed to me by my lawyer.
I searched for reasons to rejoice, but found none.
On the day of my release, Moussa arranged to find me in the courtyard. The guys from Block D stepped aside, snickering as he passed by and pointing fingers at me, as if to say:
“— Don’t worry, man. We’ll take gooood care of your buddy once you’re no longer here to watch over him!”
I stopped against the back fence, with my back to the enclosing wall, lit two cigarettes, and handed one to my friend.
Marin Ledun, January 2013
For half an hour, I searched for something clever to say to Moussa. He did too. But nothing. I was leaving, maybe for the better — who knows -, he was staying for the worse and that, for sure. He finally pulled an envelope from his pocket.
“— Could you take this directly to the person concerned?”
“— Does it pass the check?”
“— How would I know? I’ve never been out…”
“— It’s just a letter, huh? You’re not sending me to the slaughter?”
“— Hey, don’t fool yourself, man, you’re leaving the slaughterhouse.”
“— OK. If you don’t hear any news, just think that it’s because it’s good news…”
I slapped his shoulder and walked towards the gate.
Ch. Roux, December 2012
The guard pulled my meager belongings from the big plastic box and dumped them, randomly, slightly disgusted, into my small canvas bag.
“— Can I give you some advice?”
“— Absolutely not,” I replied.
It was not the time. No way I’d clutter myself with idle considerations that would throw me back into the rotten world I was about to rejoin.
“— Well, I’m giving it to you anyway.”
“— You’re wasting your time.”
“— Maybe. Change everything. From A to Z. Forget. Clear off. Redo everything. Start over. Differently.”
“— You’re a funny one…,” I squeaked.
“— I’ve been told that often.”
JB Pouy, December 2012
Go up to her place or not? She never tolerated that I quit my accounting job to, gun in hand, empty the tills. Like a fool, I had started with the supermarket that employed me: a family loaded with money ready to “emigrate” to Belgium. I got caught; one of the cashiers recognized my perfume and my walking style. 5 years in prison for me and tax evasion for my ex-bosses.
I knock. She doesn’t open. I push the door. She’s sitting in her chair. Her blue gaze hasn’t faded.
— Are you hungry, my son?
She stands up and adds:
— You know that Olga…
Mouloud Akkouche, December 2012
5 years already rotting between these four walls. I longed to walk more than the 300 meters of the exercise yard without hitting a wall, almost as much as I did to see Olga again. However, these past five years had been constructive for all my muscles, from the heart to the bicep, along with the brain. It was the second time I was taking the guards’ corridor except that after entering, I was taking it this time to exit. Come on, three little signatures, a nearly empty paper bag to retrieve, and the unlocking of the main door’s central latch nearly gave me an erection.
“Bye Gari and don’t do anything stupid outside!” Marcel, the chief warden who came from the same neighborhood as mine, gave me the last pat on the back and I could venture into the main courtyard heading towards the last door that led to freedom and the boulevard.
Franck Viano, December 2012
I exited after Le Breton and Soupe-au-lait. Finding myself on Boulevard Arago, under the chestnut trees, after 4 years of lockup, was reinvigorating. Especially since on the opposite sidewalk, there was Olga in an appropriate nightgown. She gave me the standard tongue treatment and moved straight to business. She had found us a gig, I don’t know how, but anyway — Olga’s secret —, in an upscale avenue de Ségur restaurant. She managed to convince the owner, relating to our specialized backgrounds (for me, the sauces, and for the others, the charcuterie and soups). We donned the aprons the day after.
I tossed my suitcase into the back of the convertible.
She ran me a bath with onions and placed an octagonal glass… amber on the edge of the tub.
“— Tullibardine, 18 years.”
“— Olga… my love…”
Bordacarre, December 2012
Of course, we immediately recognized him in the kitchen and whipped up a little menu he would remember… Even the dessert was planned. Olga was parked outside, all thighs out. The Fat Man had warned us he would inevitably pass by our place, the best restaurant around. He had given us his photo, and we memorized it well before burning it. This jerk had to absolutely disappear with his duck in his stomach… and the virus we’d just sprinkled on it. Too bad if others died from it. The Fat Man was adamant about it:
“— We too have the right to collateral damage.”
No one dared speak… You don’t mess with the Fat Man. Anyway, this moron was tailed from the beginning and his tourist guide listing good French tables was his ball and chain. No need to put him under surveillance or wire-tap him; he left his trail of drool from restaurant to restaurant. So the contract was ours… The Red Inn had set a good example and all of us, the staff, the Fat Man, employed us as soon as we got out of prison, so we had the gratitude of the stomach.
“— So!!! That cassoulet for table 24?”
“— It’s on its way!”
Hafed Benotman December 2012
He had ordered a cassoulet with Buzet wine. He ate it in small bites, the sausages, the melting beans, and the confit leg. The tastes of childhood are always welcome when something in life isn’t quite right. He could even say things were square, with violent jolts, ever since the man with the big belly and drooping mustache locked his black eyes on his and threatened him.
“— One day I’ll kill you.”
He burped and ordered an Armagnac, which he savored slowly while watching a very blonde and heavily made-up Russian hooker sitting on the hood of a vehicle. He downed his drink in one go and decided to lance the boil. Burst it! He tapped on his cell phone to book a plane ticket and contact someone he knew, for ages, in the old town of Nice. He had already taken down several people without ever getting caught. One more! He settled his bill and left the restaurant. He walked slowly to the hooker who turned her back to him and placed a hand on her long bare thigh. He gave her a wink. He needed sex before sending a bastard to the other side.
Ch. Maria, November 2012
To say that everything had been so neatly orchestrated. To end up here. God damn. He remembered himself the day before, in his rental car rented at the airport under an alias. The purchase of IGN maps from a bookseller in the old town. Choosing a hotel in one of those commercial areas that all look alike. He had settled in and wondered how many nights in his life he’d spent in such places. No receptionist, just a card machine with a code.
Ideal for adulterous couples and hitmen on a mission. He then retrieved the dismantled weapon from a contact in the old town. On his bed, he dismantled and reassembled it. Then he slept for two hours. In the morning, coffee from the vending machine in the hall with three speed pills. All he had to do was reach the long-planned locations. He parked the car as far away as possible, moved across the garrigue, took one last look at his watch, the road below, and positioned himself as a prone shooter.
Jérôme Leroy, November 2012
He had planned everything except for this mosquito. A small one, not even a tiger, a typical local mosquito, a garrigue sucker, a Camargue cousin, a bastard. Bit on the pinky, while his index finger was already on the trigger. He was adjusting his shot on a random car for the scope’s calibration. He fired, a reflex action; barely the pain, it came afterward. The scope must have been well-calibrated, the unfortunate tourist must have noticed nothing. Or not much. A bullet in the temple, direct. Done. After swerving, his Ford Fiesta shredded its right side on a barrier. It took off, losing two hubcaps that played UFOs high in the sky, then vanished into the deep blue after an ungainly aerial and two painful rolls on the sharp limestone of the calanque. The bottom is far down at that spot of the coast. And it wasn’t the seaweed holding the car and its driver with the smashed head. The noise was short-lived, the silence quickly reestablished after that slightly ridiculous splash.
Meanwhile, he missed it. That wasn’t Don Carlo’s car resting with the groupers, but at least there were no suspicious traces of this stupid blunder. The shooter accepted it: the capo and his luxury car couldn’t be far.
His phone vibrated in a pocket, a photo showed: that damn cat! Again! Joseph was sending him a picture of his beloved pet, that infuriating creature with the smashed face, likely to remind him of the contract’s stakes.
Philippe Carrese, November 2012
Hiding in the stones, the shooter waited.
He thought about that cat. The veterinarian had said it was done for, a fall from six floors, bones in pieces. But, it seems, some people were attached to this beast. The vet didn’t want to hear about it, he had to convince him in his way. A twist of the arm and the blade of his knife on his throat. In the end, the cat now had about twenty pins and as many plates in its body, a true little Wolverine.
Joseph had screwed up again. An accident? My ass! Don Carlo wanted him dead.
His car wouldn’t take long. He glued his eye to the scope.
Jacques-Olivier Bosco, November 2012
Heat and dryness on repeat in the viewfinder.
Rocks, rocks, more rocks, and a few thorny bushes to show that vegetation hadn’t given up all its rights in this little corner of hell. The track crossed the bed of a forgotten river that even the old-timers couldn’t name. The ambushed shooter was getting bored; Joseph was late.
Not too late: a big vehicle soon appeared in the sights of his Drapnov Sniperskaïa TRG-49 rifle, rolling at cruising speed. A few more meters and his target would be within _ the ambushed shooter cursed under his breath…
Another vehicle was tailing Joseph.
Jean-Hugues Oppel November 2012
“— Fucking hell, it’s Lunapark!” he yelled in a voice chopped up by the bumps of the track. He looked in the panoramic mirror; if it hadn’t been for those thugs trailing them, he would have lingered in a movie scene under the rustling canopies. A first bullet blew out the rear window. Glass shards sprayed the cabin.
“— Ah those bastards!”
Chiara lifted her head from Joseph’s open fly and stood up. The second bullet decorated her neck with a home-grown poppy.
Max Obione, November 2012
The sharp whistling of her breath had faded and the girl beside him wasn’t moving anymore. Joseph shook her by the shoulder without letting go of the wheel. But her head rolled, lifeless, against the window, her hair covering her face. The 4×4 stalled suddenly, before restarting in jolts under the rain. In front of him, a gap opened in the Guyanese jungle, a path of mud and dirt. He braked, glancing at the rearview mirror before getting out, while the door slammed behind him.
Naïri Nahapetian, November 2012
Outside, insects the size of a helicopter, hideous tarantulas, and rain soaking to the bones. Inside, a den of wrecks, a vivarium of drunks, and a sublime paradox in relation to the clients’ faces, La Jeune Gueule flowing in streams, a Guianese beer whose rusty taste proved that here, they didn’t rinse the pipes. Joseph sat at a wobbly table, thinking that his little brother slipped into his trousers’ waistband wouldn’t be superfluous if things went south. Basta, no panic, deals like that, he had seen worse. The guys weren’t smiling, but ten minutes, it took him ten minutes and the deal was done.
Pierre Hanot, November 2012
Joseph rushed out of the bar with a cloth bag. It contained gold dust, his payment for his role as a GPS with two gold prospectors in search of new grounds. At first, the gold diggers had been deaf to paying him, then agreed on a rendezvous in this dive and settled the invoice. Joseph galloped, happy, on the road leading to the forest. A plane circled in the sky. All too happy, he only noticed the aircraft when it turned, releasing a burst that laid Joseph down for eternity.
Claude Mesplède, November 2012
The machine flew very high, drawing elegant arabesques of white vapor in the azure — contrail, for those in the know. And as he peacefully agonized for almost a quarter of an hour, Joseph couldn’t help imagining that it was God sending him a signal. Perhaps a letter of introduction? A welcome message?
He followed the loops and bends of the plane to the end, then read the word thus traced like white chalk on the blue background.
And the final word of the story was: eohlihnculehrk.
Which didn’t mean anything, Joseph noted, exhaling his final breath.
Marcus Malte, November 2012
