Free La Boutique Obscure: 124 Dreams by Georges Perec Page B

She is genuinely dismayed. Why, we wonder, did she have to leave? She wasn’t fired, but she had to leave. Why does this always happen at that damn company? Always bickering, people leaving, others staying, etc.
    This seems related not so much to any particular newspaper stories as to life, in a much more general sense.
    A gigantic snake creeps out from behind the counter and begins to swing above my head. First I tell myself I shouldn’t pay it any mind, but it very quickly turns threatening and I am fascinated and frozen in fear. It swings closer and closer,whistling. I notice that its eyes are like projectors. The moment I feel all is totally lost, a gunshot, fired from somewhere unknown by someone unknown, blasts and wakes me up.

No. 84
August 1971
     

The refusal to testify
    I think I’ve found a large room in my apartment, but it turns out it’s not mine, and, in fact, it’s the street.
    Lots of people show up and invade my room. They tell me that F. is in trouble: he shat in front of a public monument; I’m supposed to testify that I witnessed the scene and that I didn’t see him do that, or even more precisely that I saw that he did not do it.
    F. arrives, two cops flanking him. I explain or try to explain that I cannot testify to this.
    I am in a play, but I’m also supposed to introduce the actor to some VIPs. Now, the mayor is senile. I manage to communicate through gestures that it’s his tablemate who should speak: the real mayor keeps mum while the fake one delivers a very well imitated speech.
    Later, I explain to Z. that it’s not really important, thatthe fake was actually the former mayor, and, at the same time, the best friend and worst enemy of the real one.
    We come to a place we’ve already seen: a high fence?
    I make love to Z. Only inside her, all told, do I feel good.

No. 85
August 1971
     

Balls and masks
    Passing by on the street, I stop to watch a tennis match and mix in with the players, who are apparently indistinguishable from the other passersby. At the end of a service, I catch a fairly difficult ball, earning the praise of one of the players (who is none other than Marcel C.). This sets off a chain of events: he thinks I know how to play; I don’t dare disabuse him; he offers me the service.
    Though the ball is terribly large and my racket ridiculously small, at first it doesn’t go too badly. There is no net: the point is to send the ball over the fence in the park. I manage to send my first two balls to the other side and much farther than my opponent can reach (he doesn’t even try), which gets us to 30-love. But the ball grows, finally looking like a slightly flat leather punching bag, and I can no longer get it over the fence. I think we’ve lost only one point, but my partner (Bernard L.) tells me sternly that we’re trailing 50–40 and that if I don’t catch up we will lose the service (just the service, which isn’t so terrible: we’d be one game to one). I explain to him that I can’t send such a heavy ball over withsuch a small racket and he offers to lend me one of his. Sure enough, under his arm he has two rackets that he’s not using, which he has even put back in their presses (high wooden diamonds closed with four butterfly screws). These rackets are strange: they look like “old rackets” (like violas to violins, crumhorns to bassoons); one of them has an extremely large wooden frame and the racket itself (the stringed part) is a tiny round (not oval) hole that is obviously stringless. This is the one Bernard L. hands me; I tell him it has no strings and that I can’t play with it. He begins to unscrew the press of the second racket, then thinks again and, almost angrily, gives me back the first one, insisting that it’s perfectly strung. Sure enough, when I examine it closely I see that the hole is furnished with a fine network of gossamer threads.
    First I try to serve by throwing the ball myself. But the ball and racket are much too heavy. My