Free Colour of Dawn by Yanick Lahens

men remind me of Fignolé.
    Fignolé, who has never accepted the rules of any dogma, any uniform, any doctrine. Who at a very early stage began to wrestle with that which we call reality, without really knowing what it entails. And who lived in self-imposed exile in a solitude we believed to be radiant but from where he showed himself to be powerless against the setbacks of the world. Fignolé, who was incapable of becoming part of this life, of following its movements, its hours, minutes and seconds. Fignolé, incapable of growing up overtaken by a fast-flowing flood, preferring to sink. Fignolé now drags behind him a despair that burns his blood. The first trigger was without doubt the arrest of Uncle Octave.
    I remember that incident, at which Fignolé was present, as if it were yesterday. The presidency of the son of the other Prophet-President, President for Life, was coming to an end. It was days before Fignolé was able to tell us about it, his voice a monotone. From the day of that incident on, he was never the same. Mother simply said to me one day: ‘Fignolé will burn himself out, char his flesh to the bone. And it will be one of us, if not all three of us, who will be forced to sweep up his ashes.’
    He told us that a car came to a stop outside Octave’s house. Octave’s only crime was to be the assistant accountant for a paper no-one was supposed to write for and no-one was supposed to read. The incident took place in the district of Gressier to the south of Port-au-Prince. Fignolé was barely thirteen. He and Octave’s two sons immediately recognised Merisié, his high forehead and figure slender as a cane. A kind of legendary ogre whom many could describe but only a few knew. Great powers were attributed to him, and a capacity for inflicting extraordinary tortures. He started as a Tonton Macoute at Fort-Dimanche, the Dungeon of Death with the former Prophet, the President for Life. Some people swear by what they hold most precious that Merisié can turn himself into a cat, disappear or make himself immune to bullets, even those fired from point-blank range. Merisié was accompanied by Gwo Louis. It was the latter who deliberately made the tyres of the car crunch noisily on the gravel in the street.
    Gwo Louis was Merisié’s bodyguard, an armoured regiment on two legs at the exclusive service of his boss. Ex-militia man Merisié had succeeded in surviving another Prophet-President for Life, with round spectacles and a black fedora. Part civil servant, part spy, Merisié was a grand master of base deeds. But just as there is no end to the servility of people on this island, so Gwo Louis was the grand master of deeds even more base than those of Merisié. The absolute low of the low. Gwo Louis, who had a chest substantially broader than the average, leaned his face out of the window, displaying his head for the three youths to admire. A head so big you could imagine it was sculpted from rock. Behind this face you could make out a terrifying reptilian venom, and beneath the thick layer of fat the power of a wildcat. And, of course, a great, boundless stupidity.
    Eyes on fire like two beasts of the Apocalypse, they got out of the car and with their guns on display slammed the doors and advanced towards the boys. Merisié began by pacing up and down, hands behind his back, fixing each of the boys in turn with his stare. From the outset, Merisié accused them of wanting to threaten the safety of peaceable citizens at the instigation of Octave. From wanting to disturb the peace of the neighbourhood to a crime against the security of the State was a small step, which Merisié made in the following seconds, treating the boys as trouble-makers, opponents of an established government. He threatened to cut them up into pieces.
    To break their bones.
    To slit their throats.
    To smash into their chests and gouge out their hearts.
    To open up their stomachs and