CHAPTER 16:
CHAPTER 16:
THE VIRTUAL CRASH AND THE ALCHEMY OF CONTEMPT
In the plane, the moment I plugged in my cell phone, the screen went completely grey, suddenly filled with Korean script. It was impossible to put it into airplane mode, let alone turn it off. The flight attendants, too busy with boarding, were unreachable. It was serious: a wave of fear washed over me that my entire life was disappearing in an instant. My travel photos, my safari memories, and especially my many songs—more than ninety in total—everything was about to be erased. I felt as if I were about to disappear myself.
Sitting in that aircraft, the torture of reality was intense. Between a dying phone, the incredible images of my safari, and a drift toward the fiction of my failed loves, I felt the universe drastically cutting me off from my virtual world. My life had just shifted. To clear my mind, I reached for my brown bag and took my frustrations out on a kilogram of wagyu biltong during my nineteen-hour flight.
I finally notified the flight attendant when he brought my tray. To say he seemed not to care would be an understatement. It was unbelievable. I told him I wanted to speak to the supervisor: my phone worked perfectly before I plugged it into the United Airlines outlet. If it was "capout," I wanted compensation. It was unacceptable to lose my songs, my photos, and, of course, Andy's number. You can't cut off a heart overnight, like a butcher would with a beef heart!
Believe it or not, they waited until I finally fell asleep to wake me up. Dammit! Seeing that the device was indeed stuck on that grey Korean screen, they lent me their own charger, hoping it would put it back in a "good mood." I looked for my bag of biltong, my camera… I consoled myself by thinking that at least I had a backup for my photos.
Back home, I was happy to recount my journey to South Africa and throw my other disappointments into the memory hole. Autumn had settled in; the leaves were slowly turning red. I kept busy closing the garden for winter, but once seated in my Adirondack chair, facing the sunset, tears would flow. I had to face the facts: it had been quite a trip, and I was happy to be back in one piece.
Love had never really been present in my life, except for a few rare occasions: a cocaine addict, an Englishman who dragged his feet, a macho Australian, a married Frenchman who wanted to marry me, or that Croatian who was kidnapped just before our Christmas engagement… Ultimately, I felt lucky to still be able to have a little fun at my age.
I lost myself heart and soul in writing my songs. They overwhelmed me, they bruised me, but they were my therapy. Writing provides moments so profound that satisfaction is only found in eternalizing one's feelings in melodies, like my musicals Tanger or Vittoria de l’amore—monumental works for me.
And Andy… one day, always. Would I forgive him? Would my solitude push me to seek a little balm for my wounded woman’s heart? Would I seek other adventures or try to contact Bon Jovi again? I think with this book, the real ones—Bon Jovi, Keanu, Bryan, Criss, Aerosmith, Josh—will understand that the marketing of fake accounts only worsens the lack of respect for fans and the sincere love they have for their stars. As for Andy, I still didn't know what he was up to.
By then, contact with him had become more than heated. He, this bizarre lover, had transformed into a judge. He blamed me incessantly for going to South Africa. He was furious that I had used my teacher's pension—savings hard-earned after years of service in Quebec—to finally treat myself to this escape. It was my money, the fruit of my career, but he was jealous of it. He reproached me for no longer contributing to his "well-being" and for spending a fortune on myself instead of keeping it for him. According to his logic, I should have prioritized his "rescue," financing his departure from the Marines so he could finally join me in Canada, as he constantly claimed he would. In his eyes, my trip was a betrayal of his needs.
His messages were a toxic blend of armchair philosophy and verbal aggression. He would write: “Love scares us all… my love for you isn’t a prison,” only to later call me a demon who was “draining his energy” (demon farming) simply because I understood nothing of his "Marine circus." He demanded money to fix an eSIM card, while threatening to find "someone else" if I didn't help him. Between sending ridiculous videos, he would crawl back with an “I’m sorry, I’m lost without you.”
In the moment, I deleted everything. I wanted to scrub my screen clean of his violence. But what he didn't understand was that this bizarre lover had become, despite himself, my darkest muse. He was my tormentor and my muse. In the morning, he despised and blamed me; at night, his darkness became the fuel for my creative vigils. He didn't write with me, but he wrote through me. I took his violence and passed it through the sieve of my talent to turn it into light. While he vented his rage on me, I composed tirelessly for Tanger. Every insult became a melody, every reproach an incredible proof of love that I flung onto the paper. I was creating monumental musical phenomena, never suspecting that the thread binding us was already stretching to its breaking point.
Autumn had settled over Quebec, painting the leaves in shades of deep red and orange. Upon my return from South Africa, I should have been savoring the peace of my home, but the torture of reality had followed me onto the plane. I kept seeing that grey screen from United Airlines, filled with Korean script, threatening to erase my safari photos and my ninety songs. It felt as though the universe itself was trying to delete my very existence.
Sitting in my Adirondack chair, I tried to clear my mind while closing the garden for the winter. But the silence of nature was constantly shattered by the vibration of my phone. Contact with Andy had become more than heatedit was nearly unbearable.
He, this bizarre lover, had transformed into a judge. He blamed me incessantly for going to South Africa. He was furious that I had used my teacher's pension—savings hard-earned after years of service in Quebec—to finally treat myself to this escape. It was my money, the fruit of my career, but he was jealous of it. He reproached me for no longer contributing to his "well-being" and for spending a fortune on myself instead of keeping it for him. According to his logic, I should have prioritized his "rescue," financing his departure from the Marines so he could finally join me in Canada, as he constantly claimed he would. In his eyes, my trip was a betrayal of his needs.
His messages were a toxic blend of armchair philosophy and verbal aggression. He would write: “Love scares us all… my love for you isn’t a prison,” only to later call me a demon who was “draining his energy” (demon farming) simply because I understood nothing of his "Marine circus." He demanded money to fix an eSIM card, while threatening to find "someone else" if I didn't help him. Between sending ridiculous videos, he would crawl back with an “I’m sorry, I’m lost without you.”
In the moment, I deleted everything. I wanted to scrub my screen clean of his violence. But what he didn't understand was that this bizarre lover had become, despite himself, my darkest muse.
He was my tormentor and my muse. In the morning, he despised and blamed me; at night, his darkness became the fuel for my creative vigils. He didn't write with me, but he wrote through me. I took his violence and passed it through the sieve of my talent to turn it into light. He thought he was draining me, but I was recycling his contempt to give birth to masterpieces.
While he vented his rage on me, I composed tirelessly for my musical Tanger. Every insult became a melody, every reproach an incredible proof of love that I flung onto the paper. I was creating monumental musical phenomena, inhabited by an urgency to create, never suspecting that the thread binding us was already stretching to its breaking point.
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