I looked at him levelly until he grew sober. “What does it matter what she thinks? Let her think whatever is easiest for her to believe.”

“Meaning?”

“She needed someone to confide in and, for a time, chose me. Perhaps it was easier for her to do that if she believed I was a woman, also.” He sighed again. “That is one thing that in all my years among your folk I have never become accustomed to. The great importance that you attach to what gender one is.”

“Well, it is important…” I began.

“Rubbish!” he exclaimed. “Mere plumbing, when all is said and done. Why is it important?”

Robin Hobb, Assassin’s Quest

• hot, une photo de cmurtaugh

— Is this a seduction? I said.

— No. The seduction took place a while ago; you didn’t even notice it. We’re past that. We’re at the hiring stage. We’ve come to the bargaining.

— What do I have to do? I said.

— Sleep with me, that goes without saying. I’ll make it worth your while.

— What else?

— I value loyalty. Remember, you’re not a lawyer: don’t fuck the clients.

— I wouldn’t anyway. They always have bad karma. What else?

— Just what you’re already doing, he said. Some routine chores. Inhale some smoke, chew selected plant materials, tell a couple of riddles, write things on leaves. Do the odd incantation; lead a few sightseeing tours of hell. Keep up the tone of the establishment.

— No fooling around with snakes? I can’t, if there’s snakes. I have a phobia.

— Snakes were last year.

Margaret Atwood, The Tent

• Seduction, une photo de Egardo Balduccio.

And then, in the scrapbooking aisle, I see 79¢ sticker packs with little rainbows and unicorns that say DREAMS CAN COME TRUE! and it makes me want to cry the way we feed nonsense crap like this to kids, who are going to inherit a century of ugly wars started by people who died long ago, but who were sick and damaged enough to transmit their hatred down through the centuries. Dreams don’t come true. Dreams die. Dreams get compromised. Dreams end up dealing meth in a booth at the back of the Olive Garden. Dreams choke to death on bay leaves. Dreams get spleen cancer.

Douglas Coupland, The Gum Thief

• Boulevard of broken dreams, une photo de s˜revenge.

Elle était morte très âgée, et pourtant je n’avais pas eu le temps de lui dire que je l’aimais. De combien de temps avons-nous besoin pour dire aux gens que nous les aimons?

Geneviève Letarte, Les vertiges Molino

* Marche finale, une photo de Mathieu Péborde.

In Miss Lutter’s tidy little house everything had been too personal. Everything had meant too much. In the General Washington, nothing was personal and nothing meant anything except what you saw. Except for the top, seventh-floor suites (which Rebecca had never seen) rooms were identically furnished. There were identical bedspreads, lampshades, sheets of stationery and memo pads gilt-embossed with the hotel’s name on identical desks. Even, on the walls, identical reproductions of nineteenth-century paintings depicting scenes on the Erie Barge Canal in the late 1800s.

Maybe, in identical beds, there were identical dreams?

No one would know. For no one would wish to aknowledge, his dreams were identical with the dreams of others.

Joyce Carol Oates, The Gravedigger’s Daughter

* Do You Still Dream? une photo de zenera.

And then I felt sad because I realized that once people are broken in certain ways, they can’t ever be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one. You wonder when your turn is going to be, or if it’s already happened.

Douglas Coupland, Life after God

* Broken Toilet, une photo de borges,.

L’ambition est un truc fascinant. Ça commence subtilement et plus ça va, plus ça prend de l’ampleur. La jouissance que ça procure quand vous atteignez un but, c’est plus fort que tout, ça vous donne l’impression d’exister. Le malheur, c’est qu’on ne peut plus en sortir, on se défonce sans arrêt pour sentir ça à nouveau et on finit par mourir à la tâche. Ça s’appelle se tuer à confirmer son existence.

Stéphane Bourguignon, L’avaleur de sable (Montréal, Québec Amérique)

• ambitions, une photo de yonatan zur.

Je savais que vous étiez un collectionneur, Mister Murphy, je le savais aussitôt que je suis entrée dans votre chambre et peut-être même auparavant, dans cet étang d’inconscience qui imbibe tous nos gestes, j’ai toujours été attirée par les collectionneurs de femmes comme par un trou noir anéantissant et j’attends toujours d’eux qu’ils interrompent pour moi ce qui m’a attiré en eux. Nous sommes des affamés de deux espèces inconciliables, et les affamés sont bien entendu condamnés à chevaucher parallèlement, pour employer une métaphore chevaline qui vous sied, Mister Murphy, condamnés dans leur quête insensée à semer tout le monde en cours de route et à ne parvenir qu’à être seuls, là où ils s’attendaient si fort à être accompagnés.

Monique Proulx, «Blanc», Les aurores montréales (Montréal, Boréal)

Fluoridated Horses at Coleby, une photo de judge_mental.

Il mériterait de recommencer sa vie dans un autre ventre que celui où il a été conçu.

Martine Delvaux, C’est quand le bonheur? (Montréal, Héliotrope)

* Z[é]bre[sse] enceinte et son petit, une photo de m a t t i e u.

Elle rêve d’être chanteuse, actrice, top model, maîtresse de star rock, femme de joueur de hockey, elle se jure de devenir quelqu’un[e] d’autre avant même de savoir qui elle est.

Elle ne s’aime pas.

Je reste figée là, sur le seuil de cette ouverture béante. Qui a fait qu’elle ne s’aime pas, qui est coupable? Il y a forcément un coupable.

Monique Proulx, Le coeur est un muscle involontaire (Montréal, Boréal)

*Blue High Heels, une photo de creativelychallenged.