Free The Reader on the 6.27 by Jean-Paul Didierlaurent Page A

you find in the morning all puffed-up and sweet-smelling. And to my ears, the clicking of the keys on my keyboard is the most beautiful music. When I’ve finished, I put my computer away in its case and don the sky-blue overall that is my uniform. A hideous polyester thing that makes me look like a post-office clerk from the 1970s. If people judge by appearances, then as my aunt would say, “Let Saint Harpic, the patron saint of lavatory attendants, be damned!”
    It’s time for Josy and breakfast. Josy (she hates being called Josiane) is the shampoo girl at the hair salon on the first floor. She is everything that I am not. She’s in beauty; my world is ugly. She’s frivolous; I’m more of the serious type. She’s exuberant; I’m more uptight and repressed. Maybe that’s why Josy and I get on so well. When she walks in, it’s like a ray of sunshine. We tell each other our woes and our joys over a croissant and a coffee. We chat, we talk about our customers. How this one asked for his hair to be dyed apple green, how another broke one of my flushes because the idiot hadn’t realized you had to push not pull. We solve all the world’s problems, tell each other our dreams and giggle like pubescent schoolgirls, then say have a nice day and see you tomorrow. Her day off is Tuesday. Tuesdays don’t have the same flavour; there’s an indefinable something missing, like a herb left out when cooking. I don’t like Tuesdays. ’
    Before leaving home, Guylain had substituted Julie’s writings for the previous day’s live skins. He did it without even asking himself why. It seemed completely natural to reconstitute little fragments of the young woman in the place where he had found them. He liked the idea that maybe one day, Julie herself would be sitting among them in that packed carriage listening to her own words.
    ‘The 10 a.m. lard-arse came today. Always the same tactic. He charges down the stairs with his moronic hippopotamus tread and goes straight to his cubicle without even saying hello, nearly knocking over the table as he goes past. The 10 a.m. lard-arse never says hello or goodbye. Without a word, without a look, he dives into the last cubicle, number 8. I’ve never seen him use any other cubicle. And if number 8 is occupied, then he waits, stamping his feet and kicking his heels outside the door, champing at the bit. This guy exudes smugness and uncouthness. The mug of an SUV driver who parks in the disabled parking bays. That guy’s been coming once a week on the dot of ten to mess up number 8, making a racket that sounds like Armageddon, and I still haven’t plucked up the courage to rebuke him even slightly even though he deserves it, he really does. Because when I say “mess up”, it’s not just a turn of phrase. Not to mention that this oaf uses up an entire roll of toilet paper each time and, of course, never takes the trouble to flush. I have to go in after his majesty’s backside and spend nearly ten minutes making the place decent again. The worst thing is that this disgusting individual comes out of my cubicle number 8 as clean as a new pin, his jacket immaculate, the crease in his trousers in the right place, all hunky-dory. But the drop of water that made the bidet overflow, as Aunty always says, is the tip. That adipose miser never leaves me more than one of those tiny five-cent coins, which he casually drops into my saucer. I always try to catch his eye, to signal my indignation, but that bastard has never dared look in my direction. For him, I am barely more than the china saucer in which he leaves his charitable donation. That guy is a first-class bastard. The sort who always comes up smelling of roses. But I will not despair. I’ll get him one day, as they say. ’
    Reading the description of the 10 a.m. lard-arse, Guylain couldn’t help thinking of Felix Kowalski. He could not have come up with a better description of his boss.
    When he reached the plant, the perimeter wall