Spiridon n°2 - June 1972 - Click and download!

EDITORIAL

"A little word from you..."

I heard the news this morning.
No matter how much I tell myself, no matter how much I know that we are all wisps tossed here and there by the slightest breath. No matter how much I repeat things like that to myself.
Yet, it's stronger than me: he should never have abandoned her, Raphael.
That's what I tell myself.
Just now, a gray and brown hare stood motionless at the edge of the path.
At the sight of me, he made a few jumps towards the grove. Oh no, he didn't go very
far away: we've known each other for so long...I saw him, his muzzle against his paws.
A real stump. But I knew he was eyeing me up, inviting me to play.
Further on, past the group of small, tightly packed fir trees, a squirrel froze
moment, hesitating, not knowing where to run. And then he galloped almost under my
not, embarrassed by his parachute tail.
(God knows what the doctors do to you..)

I saw you on TV once. All alone for a lap of the track, ten meters
ahead of the others. At the finish, far behind them. "Because of TV," as we
had told me.

Maybe for you the race was never just an end, not a
average. What you liked about her was the crowd, the friends, the girls around.
We long-distance runners also eat this bread, but it is the one
holidays. What matters most to us is the rest. It's the little ones
misty mornings, when the sun is barely rising, ...so gently that it seems to
does it for you alone. These are the birds that chirp in the branches, while
that below a freshly risen runner greets a "Securitas" who is returning home.
When you've experienced all that, Raphaël, you can't leave the race.
time maybe, but you come back to it.
Michel Bernard, I saw him on TV one evening. You know what he said, Michel
Bernard? "I'm a running addict," he said. "A running addict."
The others, their faces said he was rather crazy. He was right, Michel.
Bernard: We're all drug addicts, us runners. We have a need.
vital to the race, a need that comes from deep within us. Three days without
run, and everything is wrong. One hour of running, and everything has changed.

So after this failure, you abandoned her? Completely, for years
months...That's what hurt me, Raphael. Because running never left you.
Always present, always faithful beyond the seasons and the years, she would have known
prevent evil, or cure it. She's not far away, you know. At the bottom of
the stairs, she's waiting for you like a dog you'd thrown out. She's there,
ready to take you through the city or the countryside, to bring you back to the stadium among
friends. Or towards squirrels and field mice, depending on the day.

A drug addict, he said... Say, what are they making you swallow now, where
you are? Drugs, no, they give you. If that's not unfortunate... Then
that THE DRUG - the one that makes us crazy and stupid with eyes
of the people - while running, you had it within reach.
You have it at your fingertips, Raphael.
"A little word from you..." your father asked me.
Come back, take some of our drug, Raphael, and you'll never get tired of it again.
Noël Tamini