NUMBER 8
A story told by Sophie Astrabie
When she moves, she does so on tiptoe, but at a rapid pace. She’s in a hurry. She repeats things mechanically, to acquaintances on the street, to her mother on the phone, to the cab driver taking her to a meeting for work. She’s in a hurry, when what she really wants is for time to stop. She dreams of a slower way of life. She dreams of the long days of her childhood, lying on the grass, imagining what lies behind the clouds.
She sometimes feels like her body is inhabited by two people. She’s everything at once – and its opposite. She thinks of the song her mother used to listen to over and over again in the car, windows open, on the winding road during summer vacations. She’s strong yet fragile at the same time.
She speaks in a single breath and breathes silently. She doesn’t touch things, she skims them. She’s a whisper in the ear, a shiver down the spine. Her presence is felt long before she appears, which makes her impossible to miss and forget.
When she got back from the store, she placed a bouquet of chamomile flowers in a vase. She gently spread out the stems to give them space, to let the flowers breathe, and to show off their pretty, rounded shapes. She’s always loved the color yellow. Its softness and its power. Once again, that ambivalence. She suddenly thinks of honeybush, a plant originating from South Africa that she discovered while on a trip before graduating from university. A wild flower that looks like a ball of honey.
She likes round things, curves. She loves hilly landscapes and waves rolling over the sand. She loves the number 8, biting into a juicy apple, and the “o” shape that forms on her daughter’s mouth when she says “oh la la.”
She thinks about all this while sitting in the corner of the raw wood table that faces the window of her apartment. She wraps her hands around a stoneware cup inherited from her grandmother and watches the wisps of smoke that rise from her infusion. She watches them dance and mingle with the ray of light that shines through the window. The sun warms her face, she closes her eyes. The summer will soon be over, and that means subways, business meetings, and files to hand in at work. But for now, a blade of grass tickles her right ear and a cloud takes the shape of a swallow. She sinks her lips into her cup one last time, letting the sweet mixture take hold, and with it, that fleeting feeling of infinity.
She loves interminable summer evenings as much as curling up in a blanket by the fire.
About Sophie Astrabie
Sophie Astrabie is the author of three novels. Her latest, “Les bruits du souvenir“ (“The sounds of memory”), has just been published by Flammarion. At L’infuseur, we follow and love her stories about her life – about our lives. Like Sophie, we love skateboarding, and we’re impressed by the fact that she has moved 17 times! Want to discover more? We highly recommend her books, and you can also follow her on Instagram: @sophieastrabie