Chapter 15 — A generation trapped inside

The day after the almost, I worked with the efficiency of a man who had nearly kissed his neighbor and whose cat had saved everyone by attacking a guitar.

Which is to say, very badly.

I wasn’t thinking about Liora.

Obviously.

I was thinking about the guitar. The massacred chord. The necessity of storing instruments more carefully in a studio where cats possessed destructive intent.

I was also thinking about the couch cushion, still slightly indented after she left.

Her hand resting on the fabric.

Her voice when she had said:

“You aren’t absent.”

A simple sentence.

Far too durable.

I deleted a layer by mistake, recovered it, then saved.

Once.
Twice.

The third time was almost embarrassing, so I did it immediately.

The exhibition file was open on the screen.

Five images.

The kitchen.
The table after the meal.
The studio.
The window onto the balcony.
The hallway.

I had sent them to Mathilde, the organizer, the previous day. At 8:42 that morning, she had replied:

“Great, thank you, Aurèl. Very cohesive. I’ll send you the layout for the wall text during the day.”

Very cohesive.

That was supposed to be reassuring.

I had always been slightly suspicious of cohesion, especially when someone attributed it to me.

Eugène was sitting on the edge of the couch, facing the guitar.

Watching it.

Or threatening it.

“You’ve already done enough damage.”

He blinked.

The rabbit ate in almost administrative silence. Since the previous day’s incident, he had been avoiding the cardboard tunnel. I suspected he was reconsidering his interior architecture.

I adjusted the light in the kitchen.

Then undid it.

Then restored the adjustment.

Pointless.

I knew that light by heart. I knew where it needed to fall, how it should skim the tile, where it should stop before making the room too warm.

Too welcoming.

Too legible.

I also knew part of me was working only to avoid thinking about the couch.

A very bad method.

Not particularly profitable.

At 11:20, the computer chimed.

An email.

Mathilde.

“Subject: Wall Text, First Draft.”

My stomach tightened slightly.

The small movement that accompanied client feedback in which the words “very interesting” could announce catastrophe.

I opened it.

“Hi Aurèl,

I’m sending you the proposed general text for the section where your images will appear alongside Nora’s and Malik’s. Let me know if you have any comments, but I think we’ve found a strong direction. Your interiors work really well within this reading. They give the whole section a genuine melancholic breath.”

Melancholic breath.

Okay.

I scrolled down to the attachment.

The layout was clean.

Too clean.

A thin font made every sentence look as though it had thought about itself longer than it really had.

“A GENERATION TRAPPED INSIDE”

I smiled.

Not because it was funny.

My face had not yet found the correct reaction.

I kept reading.

“Between urban solitude and domestic refuge, this section examines interiors as spaces of contemporary confinement. The works of Aurèl, Nora Bessac, and Malik Tran trace the contours of a reclusive generation, confined to reduced spaces where the window becomes less an opening than a reminder of separation. Empty rooms, abandoned chairs, and silent tables form a sensitive cartography of isolation. Here, private space is no longer a refuge, but a gentle, almost familiar cage.”

I didn’t move.

The kettle stopped behind me.

Click.

The studio continued.

The fridge.
The pipes.
The rabbit chewing.
Eugène breathing with the indecency of an animal without a group exhibition.

I read it again.

A generation trapped inside.

Reclusive youth.

A window less an opening than a reminder of separation.

A gentle cage.

I waited for anger.

A laugh.

A sentence.

Nothing.

Only a precise tightening in the middle of my chest.

The kind that began by saying, It’s not a big deal.

Then added, Exactly.

It was well written.

That was the problem.

The text was appealing, readable, marketable. It gave the collection a direction. It placed my images inside a wider conversation, exactly what a group exhibition was supposed to do.

From the outside, it could look flattering.

My interiors had become a “sensitive cartography.”

My windows belonged to a “contemporary perspective.”

My rooms had a theme.

Fine.

Except the theme wasn’t mine.

I turned toward the studio.

The lamp.
The couch.
The guitar.
Demitrius’s corner.
The glass door.
The cluttered desk.
Eugène inside the hollow of the blanket.

A gentle cage?

This is absolute bullshit.

I stopped smiling.

I grabbed my mug, poured in hot water without a tea bag, and stood there holding a cup of clear water.

Very useful.

I returned to the computer.

“Let me know if you have any comments.”

I could reply:

“Thank you. I’ll take a look and get back to you shortly.”

A perfect sentence.

The sentence of someone who had not yet begun disappearing inside himself.

I wrote it.

Deleted it.

Wrote it again.

Then sent it.

A professional reply.

Calm.

Containing no actual information.

I reopened the PDF.

Mistake.

The words returned.

Behind the document window, my five images were still the same.

And yet something had just settled over them.

What had seemed to be waiting yesterday now looked abandoned.

The table after the meal no longer said, Someone might come back.

It said, No one is here.

The hallway no longer preserved a presence.

It led nowhere.

The window onto the balcony no longer breathed.

It looked outside without leaving.

The text had moved the objects without touching them.

I stood too quickly.

The chair slid backward with a sharp sound.

Eugène opened one eye.

“Nothing.”

A lie addressed to a cat.

A new low.

I walked to the window.

The balcony’s Plexiglas panel reflected the light.

Transparent.
Solid.
A safety measure.

An obstacle.

Before, it stopped Eugène from crossing into Liora’s apartment.

Now it looked like evidence.

Evidence of what?

No idea.

That was precisely the problem.

I returned to the desk and reopened my artist statement.

“I draw places after people have passed through them.”

“Rooms are never empty.”

“They keep habits, forgotten objects, repeated gestures, and presences we no longer notice immediately.”

My sentences suddenly seemed naive.

Almost defensive.

What if Mathilde had seen more clearly?

What if my calm had always looked like confinement from the outside?

What if my rooms signaled absence more than presence?

I looked at the studio.

Small.

Very small.

The couch beside the desk. The kitchen beside the table.

The low mezzanine. The animals.

The guitar. The secured balcony.

Me in the middle.

I thought about Liora’s father.

Is it stable?

You’ve been living alone for two years?

You left school?

I thought about my mother on the phone.

Will you make the effort to visit?

Then Liora.

Your studio is quiet.

Quiet.

Gentle cage.

The distance between those two phrases began to shrink.

I didn’t like it.

I began a reply to Mathilde.

“I think this reading is somewhat removed from my intention. My images aren’t really about confinement.”

Somewhat removed.

Aren’t really.

Magnificent weakness.

I deleted it.

“That isn’t what they’re about.”

Too abrupt.

Deleted.

“I understand the overall cohesion, but I wonder whether ‘confinement’ risks closing down the interpretation.”

Closing down the interpretation.

Unintentional irony.

I deleted that too.

The internal client wanted something more assertive.

The internal artist wanted to flee.

The internal freelancer pointed out that Mathilde was nice, that the exhibition was an opportunity, and that I should avoid becoming difficult before even hanging a single image.

I closed the email.

A courageous response.

I did something else.

Tea.

Actual tea this time.

Eugène’s bowl.

Hay for Lapin.

Dishes.

Pointless cleaning of a counter that was already clean.

I even vacuumed for seven minutes.

At five, Liora knocked.

I wasn’t expecting her.

Really.

Well, I knew she was supposed to come home early because she had mentioned it in the hallway the previous day.

But knowing someone could exist nearby did not constitute waiting for them.

A fragile defense.

I opened the door.

She had a bag over one shoulder, a pale sweatshirt, and her hair tied in a quick bun. Her gaze remained on my face for half a second before she smiled.

Bad sign.

She already saw it.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

She looked behind me.

“I came to check on the Plexiglas victim.”

Eugène appeared immediately.

“He heard you.”

“He has an excellent sense of drama.”

She leaned toward him, maintaining the required distance.

“Hello, prisoner.”

Eugène sat very straight.

As though accepting the title.

Then Liora returned her attention to me.

“You okay?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

I sighed.

“Are you asking the question or giving the answer?”

“Both. Efficiency.”

I let her in.

The studio immediately seemed smaller.

Usually, her presence animated it, made it more alive, more exposed sometimes.

Now, after reading the text, her entrance made its actual size appear like additional evidence.

“Bad day?” she asked.

“Something like that.”

She placed her bag beside the door.

The animal pretext had officially lost a great deal of ground.

“The exhibition?”

I looked at her.

“How do you know?”

“Your face.”

“I really need to replace it.”

“Too late. I know this one.”

She approached the desk, then stopped before looking at the screen.

“Can I?”

I hesitated.

Showing her the text would make it real in front of her.

Part of me was afraid she would read it and say:

Yes.

That’s it.

They’re right.

I shrugged.

“It’s the wall text.”

She walked around the chair and read the PDF.

I watched her face.

Bad idea.

She didn’t react to the title.

Or to the urban solitude.

Or to the gentle cage.

When she reached the end, she straightened.

“Oh.”

I laughed without humor.

“You too.”

“What?”

“‘Oh.’ You do that when something happens.”

“Something happened here.”

She reread one sentence.

“Gentle cage?”

“Yes.”

“They’re talking about your drawings?”

“Apparently.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“It’s pretty.”

My stomach dropped slightly.

Then she added:

“And wrong.”

I looked up.

She continued reading.

“I understand why they wrote it. It sounds like an exhibition. It sounds serious. It sounds like people holding their glasses as though the glasses contain opinions.”

Despite myself, I smiled.

Barely.

“But these aren’t your drawings.”

I didn’t answer.

Liora turned toward me.

“Are they?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“I thought I did.”

She leaned against the desk.

“Aurèl.”

“It’s well written.”

“And?”

“Mathilde is competent. She sees things.”

“She can see things and still be wrong.”

“Yes.”

I looked at the title.

“What if that’s what they say from the outside?”

“Your drawings?”

“My drawings. My studio. Everything.”

She frowned.

“Your studio isn’t a cage.”

“You say that because you like it.”

She opened her mouth.

Closed it.

Fine.

We had both heard the sentence.

I regretted it immediately.

Not because it was false.

Because it had escaped too quickly.

Liora looked at the couch.

“I do like it.”

Simply.

I didn’t know what to do with that answer.

So I looked at the PDF.

Classic.

“That isn’t the point,” she continued.

“A little.”

“No.”

Her energy returned, sharper now.

“You have to write to them.”

“It isn’t that simple.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a group exhibition. Because the text also concerns the other artists. Because Mathilde didn’t do this to betray me. Because I’m not going to appear two weeks before the opening and say, ‘That isn’t what it means,’ like some misunderstood genius.”

“You don’t have to say genius.”

“Thank you.”

“You can just say misunderstood.”

I didn’t smile.

She saw.

“Sorry.”

I ran a hand through my hair.

“I don’t know.”

“You know it hurts you.”

I tensed.

“This isn’t about being hurt.”

“Of course it is.”

“Liora.”

“Your face changed as soon as I started reading.”

“You’re becoming very invested in people’s faces.”

“Because you don’t say much.”

“I speak.”

“When you can control the words.”

I looked at her.

She was right.

Which didn’t help her.

Or me.

“It isn’t only that the text hurts me. It moves everything. It gives the images a caption. People are going to see them with those words in their heads.”

“Then change the caption.”

“You say that like it’s a chair.”

“Sometimes chairs need moving.”

“This isn’t a chair.”

“I know.”

“Not completely.”

The sentence came out more sharply than she deserved.

Liora stopped.

Demitrius knocked something over in his corner.

A small sound.

Terribly timed.

Eugène sat down between us as though a mediation committee had become necessary.

“Sorry.”

Liora crossed her arms, then uncrossed them.

“Explain it to me.”

“I don’t feel like explaining.”

She absorbed it.

Not dramatically.

Still, I saw something inside her step back.

“Okay.”

The word should have relieved me.

It didn’t.

Because she had stopped moving toward me.

I looked at the screen.

“What I mean is, if I answer now, I’ll answer the wrong thing. I know I can send an email. I know I can ask them to change it.”

She waited.

“The problem is that now I look at my own images and I don’t know whether they’re still mine.”

Something passed over her face.

The sentence had reached an area she hadn’t seen.

“Oh,” she said softly.

“There.”

She sat on the edge of the couch.

Less certain.

Less prepared to act.

“So it isn’t only the text.”

I shook my head.

“It’s what it does to the drawings.”

“And to you.”

I didn’t answer.

She didn’t insist.

She looked at the images.

“When I saw them, I didn’t think that.”

“I know.”

“Really.”

“Yes.”

“Then keep that somewhere too.”

She placed the sentence between us without trying to win.

That version, I could hear.

A little.

Not enough to repair anything.

Enough to keep the room from closing completely.

“I’m not saying you should do nothing,” she added.

“I know.”

“I’m bad at doing nothing.”

“I had noticed.”

A small smile passed between us.

“I can try.”

I remained silent.

“Not for long,” she clarified.

This time, I genuinely smiled.

Not much.

She saw.

The misalignment hadn’t disappeared.

She had wanted to respond by moving forward.

I had stopped abruptly.

Neither of us was entirely wrong.

Clear blame was more convenient.

Eugène chose that moment to climb onto the desk and place a paw on the mouse.

The PDF scrolled to the bottom of the page.

“Eugène, not now.”

Liora leaned over to move him and sneezed.

“Fine. Immunological punishment.”

I placed Eugène on the floor.

He turned his back on me.

“Clear response.”

Liora stood.

“I’m going to leave you alone.”

I turned too quickly.

She noticed.

“Not like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like, ‘I’m leaving because this is awkward.’ I’m leaving because if I stay, I’ll want to help you too hard, and apparently that’s a high-risk sport.”

“It isn’t exactly...”

“I know. Well, I think I know part of it.”

She pulled the strap of her bag over her shoulder.

Then walked to the door.

The usual moment.

Less smiling.

More caution.

“Are you going to answer them?”

“I don’t know.”

She nodded.

A sentence rose into her face.

She held it back.

That mattered.

“Okay.”

Her hand settled on the handle.

“I still think you should.”

I lowered my eyes.

“I know.”

“Not because you’re afraid.”

I looked up.

She was watching me seriously.

“Because you know it isn’t right.”

The word remained between us.

She added nothing.

“Have a good evening, Aurèl.”

“You too.”

She left.

The door closed.

Not softly, the way it usually did.

Not violently either.

After some conversations, that was enough to make noise.

I remained in front of the computer.

The PDF was still open.

At the bottom of the page, the exhibition logo appeared beneath the text.

Very clean. Very serious.

Very ready to be printed.

I scrolled back to the title.

A Generation Trapped Inside.

Liora had said it was wrong.

Mathilde thought it was powerful.

I no longer knew exactly what I saw.

I closed the PDF.

The images returned.

What was gentle looked sad.

What was quiet looked suspicious.

Someone had just shown me one possible translation of my own perspective.

Even if I rejected it, it had left subtitles.

I opened the drawing of the studio.

The couch.
The light.
The balcony.
Eugène on the blanket.

Everything I had wanted to preserve.

I thought about Liora sitting there the previous evening.

About what had almost happened.

Her laughter after the atrocious chord.

Her sentence:

You aren’t absent.

And I wondered whether she still meant it.

An absurd question.

Unfair.

It had nothing to do with the text.

My brain placed it there anyway.

I closed the image.

Then the folder.

Then the program.

I reopened Mathilde’s email.

The cursor blinked.

Nothing came.

On the other side of the wall, I heard Liora’s door.

Footsteps.

Her voice, low, probably speaking with her mother.

I couldn’t make out the words.

I almost wanted to try.

I didn’t.

Not out of virtue.

Because I was afraid I would hear my name.

I picked up the guitar.

Then put it back down.

Not tonight.

Even the silence seemed open to interpretation.

I returned to the desk one final time and reopened the PDF.

A Generation Trapped Inside.

The phrase didn’t change.

Obviously.

I shut the computer.

The dark screen reflected the studio.

The glass door. The secured balcony.

The guitar. The couch.

Eugène. Me.

Everything fit inside the reflection.

Everything seemed too close.

The exhibition had been a goal.

Difficult. Anxiety-inducing. Too personal.

Still positive.

Now it looked like a room where my images would be hung beside a caption that didn’t belong to them.

People would look at my spaces and say confinement.

At my traces and say solitude.

At my quiet and say cage.

I no longer wanted to exhibit.

Not because I was afraid of being seen.

Because I didn’t want to be translated backward.

I placed one hand on the closed computer.

The plastic was still warm.

A brief laugh crossed through the wall.

Liora.

I recognized it without listening.

The laugh remained in the room for a moment.

Then disappeared.

The studio became quiet again.