And once upon a time a she-ass with very white skin, who carried the black earth trotting along, the trees accompanied her in their way, greening again despite the ends of the world. Some cicadas, and kinds of crickets still there, a glass of water stayed there too. Humans, few in number, hid in caves, the lower body, arms, hindered by veils bought for centuries at low prices. Some had given or sold their tongue to science, others had tossed it roadside, a train platform, some put it out to dry, pinned on an invisible clothesline so that from faraway you could believe, with the breeze, a memory of a seagull.
If someone could've seen her, he would have been astonished by the whiteness of this animal, of her solitude all the same so incomprehensible, was she really the last of her species? With her stubborn refusal to move, a legendary stubbornness certainly but never proven in such extreme conditions.
Red the hero!
One day, she stopped under the noon sun and sweating, worn out, she spoke to it a long time. How to understand what she said to it?
Another day, she drank in a canal which started to flow again mysteriously under her tongue, what did the water of this canal become then, how to know? The she-ass turned with the earth, or really perhaps was it, her four hooves shining, that made the globe turn round. She was going. At last, (this at the end of a very stifling afternoon) she came to a height where there had been an opulent town on the south-west coast of Africa. Two dogs were sleeping in the dust.
One, particularly old or ailing, lifted its head and tried to open its swollen eyes. The other, much younger or a little crazy, and doubtless happy to see someone, jumped on her paws yapping like never before. Better than a good-natured royal, and tender, the she-ass, far from kicking or biting, laughed with the dog neighing a little sound. And gazing at each other, walked together as far as the sea.
Red the hero!
White the line waiting!
There was a very pure and blonde sand which bore their curious games of hide-and-seek and their unlikely exchange of themed jokes. For hours. It was so fine this sand and so soft that without consulting one another the two new friends decided to spend the night there, under several faraway stars which did not shine unless the wind returned in a gust.
The night stayed black but the she-ass's coat so intensely white was enough to give light and the dog seemed totally reassured by its glow.
The infinite sound of waves calmed them. Then it was the populated silence of sleep, on the shore the sea rolled.
And that, the strange companionship, lasted a long time, undoubtedly for years.
One evening, one very old evening, the dog was designated to die or he died suddenly, that's to say that he felt in all his body an immense weight that held him immobile on the tar of the road and finally made him close his eyes forever. And the little body—little in relationship to all that surrounded it, so big the countryside —sunk in a block and came back immediately in the slim pocket of himself which shrunk almost from eyesight. (The dog had come in again).
White the line waiting!
Green the homecoming cheers!
The she-ass once again found her old solitude, that before the dog, after the canal, another end of the world. She had aged perhaps, how to know with such an animal? How to tell if her fur had whitened, she who was so white? Had it tarnished? Her step was really still lively, finally the same. Her eyes: immense and tender lashes, like before.
The road was straight and a little winding. Below, in the valley, a great agitation reigned, because there were men again or really shapes that strongly resembled them. The animal was considerably astonished by them, she who had not met whoever may be in such a long time.
FORWARD! FORWARD! As if the command could come from the mountain above, or the far horizon, the sea with its waves powerful and soft, that is to say, from oneself, from inside, the loins ready to bite. Her hooves ricocheted on the iced tar, because it was suddenly very cold, and even something of a fine layer of frost covered the countryside. In her descent, she slipped and had a hard time taking the last bend which opened on a space immense and flat: deserted. Where then had gone those that she had seen? And what silence! Where to stop to lay down a little, sleep a little? A cabin appeared from which rose smoke straight into the pale sky. The animal, suddenly happy, approached it.
Green the homecoming cheers!
Black for the silence of bees
as soon as it snows and no one!
This was not a cabin but a kind of box without any visible exit, forming a lid, laid down on the ground. The smoke nevertheless escaped above, from nowhere. An indescribable sadness came from there. The white she-ass butted her head and again butted her head, furiously, to shake the whole as if to pop a cork. Impossible. This was harder and heavier than a cast-iron block.
Black for the silence of bees
as soon as it snows and no one!
She trembled, covered all over by a very very great fatigue, against which there was nothing to do. The air absorbed all of her, diluting her whiteness in a sky turned gray. Or snow, in dense flakes? She did not have a second's hesitation, closed her splendid eyes. Tiny, cold, silent, she had found her place again between the bear and the giraffe at the bottom of a valise for pygmies, on a storage shelf.
