La Voix
Humaine

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Of Her and Him we know little. We know they were in love, the relationship lasted five years, they have a dog, they wrote letters to each other that are now kept in one bag. We know He has a new girlfriend. We know they took a trip to Versailles and Marseille. We also know that She tried to commit suicide. That her life was saved thanks to her best friend Marthe. That it happened on the night preceding the telephone conversation we are witnessing.

Let’s imagine that she doesn’t want to be at home alone tonight, she gets in the car and drives around. A strange woman keeps calling her. She keeps hearing the same voice on the phone. Wrong number. This wrong number call will return many times tonight. Finally she gets the call she’s been waiting for all night, the call from Him. She drives around the city at night and hears his voice, just like every day for the past five years. The voice is like air, the conversation brings back memories, they can laugh together again and talk about how they spent the day. But they also have to talk about what’s important now, about giving back things, about what’s necessary when you split up. So, it’s about when, at what time, who will hand over what to whom – all those mundane things it’s so hard to talk about. They also have to say things the other person wants to hear: ‘I’m fine’, ‘everything’s okay’,  ‘just shopping/cooking dinner/making plans for the weekend’. The connection breaks down. She calls back. She calls his home number. He said he was at home, that he was going to bed, but he isn’t at home and he won’t come back for the night. A moment’s inattention. Too much speed, losing control of the car. A crash. The telephone rings again.

From this moment on the conversation is different. The shock of the accident, which she won’t tell him about, pain, fear, everything starts overlapping: images of him with his lover, bodies scattered across the road, the sound of the crash, a terrible headache. The ambulance hasn’t come, there’s no doctor, no one has called the police. Sitting on the hard shoulder is a lonely business, you’re surrounded by visions or ghosts, not quite sure if what you’re experiencing is real or maybe just a dream. Maybe this is that brief moment, that thin thread to which remnants of consciousness, feelings, memory stick, to which they cling before falling into the abyss.