Parade Night, Counted

sarrazin cut, after the last boat. counted twice.

I went to the parade. I know. I have told you for years that the first weekend of October is the one weekend I stay out of Le Marais Perdu, and I went, and I stood on the bank of the Sarrazin Cut with everybody else and watched the boats come through with their lanterns, and I counted.

Not the boats. The committee counts the boats. I counted the lights that were still out on the water after the last boat had gone through and the crowd had turned around to go find something to eat. You count at the moment the people stop looking. That is when the number is honest.

It was odd.

I am not going to tell you the number, because the number is not the point and because three of you would drive down there to check. The point is that I counted twice, and the second time it was a different odd number, and nothing had come through the cut in between. The rule is the rule. I went inside. I am inside now, typing this, with the coffee on, which is the wrong half of the rule but the half I had.

If you were there and you counted, write me. Do not write me the number. Write me whether it was odd.

I relay. You decide.

In Truth and Terror.
— Beau