SEASON : FALL / YEAR : 2021 / PHOTOS : @tomhgn_ / VIDEO : @Adgency_mediagroup 

 

CHAPTER 1 - FANCY SHOOTING

I have no time to understand, no time to move, the room is now filled with shards of glittering glass. The Kalashnikov bullets had no trouble getting through the glass window. My ears are ringing, I can’t hear anything. Sarah is still in my arms, her frightened eyes meet mine, I pull her behind the central island of the kitchen, she speaks to me, screams, but I still hear nothing but this unbearable whistling. The two escorts try to take cover. The first one takes a bullet in the head. The second one is luckier; a bullet explodes the glass of whiskey in her hand, then she manages to escape screaming while I grab my gun from the kitchen drawer. I fire a few shots, trying to figure out a strategy to get out of this mess. I glance over to see if Sarah is okay, but she is lying in a pool of blood. I check her pulse, as if I have any experience in this area, but her face and her wide eyes say more than a possible heartbeat. I’ve just lost her a second time. The back door is half open, I have to think about my survival. I’m out of here.

 

CHAPTER 2 - STORM

The sight is impressive. The house is completely turned upside down, I feel like a tornado has passed through there, extinguishing all forms of life, destroying everything in its path. Here I am, still a young wanker a few days ago, but now freshly graduated in organized crime and a perfect suspect in a murder story. They found me... I figured someone was going to miss the five hundred thousand bucks. And it is for these that I take the risk of returning to the scene only minutes after the carnage. Of course, the bags are gone. I look at the inert body of Sarah lying on the ground. It’s impossible to know what role she played in the killing, but the shooting that occurred a few hours after her arrival was not a coincidence. The smell of blood has replaced that of alcohol, it is 6am. While the thunder rumbles, lightning illuminates this scene of war, as if the atmosphere was not electric enough. I’m poor again, but I’ll feel sorry for myself later, I can hear police sirens in the distance. I won’t linger.

 

CHAPTER 3 - FRIED CHICKEN

The closer the sirens get, the more I realize that I can’t escape them. Only one road leads to the city, and even if I managed to reach it, I couldn’t get down without running into their ugly faces. I need a plan. I run into the garage, hoping to find a solution. I scan its content with one look: an old two-horse car under a tarpaulin, a more or less tidy workbench where car parts and various tools are lying around, some dismantled furniture in a corner, a gas can. This last one will do the trick. I grab it and run into the kitchen. The sirens are close, too close. I hear them entering the property. I grab an empty vodka bottle, fill it with gasoline, grab an old tea towel and that’s it. Luckily, there is only one car with two cops inside. I wait for them to get out, I won’t worsen my sentence. While they enter the house and smash the front door, I go behind and with a big gesture, I throw the flaming cocktail under the Scenic (editor’s note: type of car used by the police in France). Without turning around, I run towards my car, leaving behind me a magnificent blaze.

CHAPTER 4 - ENDLESS FALLING

Getting up after repeated falls is the story of my life. Perseverance, skateboarding taught me this quality. Recovering after a fracture, a sprain, or a few scratches, fighting for hours in front of the complexity and the ingratitude of this discipline, all that had forged me a strong mental. But this time, I have to face a different kind of fall. The bottom is near, and I will need more than good will to escape the infernal spiral that swirls under my feet. Facing the sea, I try to put things into perspective. After all, I didn’t do anything wrong except for shooting a few guys who were trying to kill me. The cops were not going to take long to circulate my description. They had seen my car, and even in Cannes, it is difficult to go unnoticed with a ‘69 Corvette Stingray, bought in cash from an Armenian a few days earlier. On the Croisette, I enjoy my last minutes of tranquility, before a run that would surely last forever.

CHAPTER 5 - PARANOID

In a hurry, I stroll in the streets of Cannes to buy something to start my run properly. A carton of Camel, and about twenty triangle sandwiches, that’s enough to survive a few days. The cashier stares at me as if I had killed someone. The passers-by, the shopkeepers, the children: nobody takes their eyes off me. Why are they all staring at me like that? Do they know? Is a police sketch already circulating on all the news channels? I’m in the middle of a paranoia attack, and the drugs I took the day before are not helping. My cell phone! I have it on me since the beginning as if I wasn’t being watched by the police, the Moroccan mafia, Google and all the fucking social networks combined. I have to throw away this damn phone. What the hell am I going to do without internet, without GPS? Me, who spends all my time boasting about how I can do without this technology whenever I want, now that I’m up against the wall, it’s not the same story. After spending 15 minutes to get the SIM card out of this fucking phone, I cut it in two, and then I explode the phone against a wall. It feels good. I’m finally free of technology. I get in the car and start the V8.

CHAPTER 6 - DRIVERS CLUB

The stars shine, the headlights of the car are reflected on the glazed tarmac that the rain has transformed into a huge mirror. I hang around, in the middle of the night, aimlessly. It reminds me of my first my first hours with a steering wheel in my hands, alone and free. Those moments of solitude with a radio and French rap compilations burned on a CR-R as my only companion. But this time, the V8’s sound has replaced the rhymes of Le Rat Luciano (editor’s note: French rapper). I can’t listen to music, my brain will explode, I need silence. Every kilometer I drive takes me further away from the crime scene. Every liter of gasoline I consume takes me further away from jail. I am an alien wandering among the stars, whose planet was destroyed, or rather who destroyed his planet while trying to get closer to the sun. A lost soul on the run, with no fear, no money, and full of remorse. I won’t sleep tonight, I have to keep on driving, to go far, far away. The traffic, rather fluid until now, is getting more intense, the cars are slowing down, on the horizon the moonlight is giving way to bluish reflections. The run will not have lasted long...