Les Jeux de l'Esprit

When I was in eleventh grade we had to write a book. Well not really but we had to write a short story in a collection of short stories and have the whole package look like a makeshift book. I'm pretty sure I'm not describing that properly so here's the picture of my "book".

The cover of the book. Beautiful no?

The direct translation of "les jeux de l'esprit" is "the spirit games" which sounds kind of like the Olympics or something but upon re-reading my story I'm pretty sure I meant "mind games". Which makes sense because "esprit" can be used for "mind" as well.


Anyways I realize I've been praising my teenage self for all the wonderful poetry and literature I created but this...this is NOT good. It's actually pretty bad. The artwork, the grammar and spelling mistakes, the arts and crafts aspect. It's just atrocious.


Without further ado I bring you "Les Jeux de l'esprit"


The names of the short stories:

1. Deception; 2. The mysterious Keys (WITH A CAPITAL LETTER. Wish I knew why); 3. Betrayal; 4. The wrong address  (Like the wrong number? I don't know but it's intriguing); 5. Victim; 6. The innocent assassin (HOW? anyways...)

I only had to write the first one though (the rest were made up titles if that wasn't immediately obvious):

kinda blurry

Fourberie

Vincent était très heureux car dans quelques jours il serait libéré. Il y a cinq ans, il avait été un partenaire dans un vol de banque. Ses associés avaient fuit avant que les policiers ne les attrapent. Cependant, Vincent, lui, avait été appréhendé. Ses alliés l’avaient tout simplement délaissé. Il n’oubliera jamais cette dernière trahison.

Le jour arriva et Vincent fut finalement libéré dans les rues de Paris. Ce fut la première fois en cinq ans qu’il respira l’air frais. En marchant sur la rue il entendit des voix familières mais, en semblant de ne pas entendre, il continua sa marche. Tout à coup, Vincent perdit conscience. Quand il réveilla, il se retrouva dans une vieille usine, entouré de quatre hommes habillés comme des bandits. Les hommes se présentèrent à Vincent et il s’aperçut que c’était ses vieux partenaires de crime.

        -  Ronald! Pierre! Jacques! Robert! Comment ça va? Ça fait tellement longtemps!, dit Vincent, essayant de créer un air plus heureux.

        - Arrête les plaisanteries Vincent. Où as-tu mis l’argent? Le demi-million qui t’as mis en prison?, demanda Pierre, le chef des voleurs.

        - Je ne le sais pas. Vous ne l’aviez pas encore trouvé? J’étais en prison pour tellement longtemps que moi, j’ai oublié, déclara Vincent avec un grand sourire à son visage.

Fâchées par cette affirmation, ses alliées commencèrent à le battre. Finalement, Vincent les révéla les lieux où il pensait que l’argent pouvait être. Le lieu principal était sous le plancher de la cuisine de sa vieille maison.

Le lendemain, le gang se précipita vers la vieille maison et chercha sous le plancher de la cuisine mais ils ne trouvèrent rien. Désespérés, ils cherchèrent la maison entière, encore rien. Plus tard, Vincent les conseilla d’aller voir sous le pont de la rue Frontenac.

Les bandits ne trouvèrent rien encore. Vincent pensa, «Peut-être sous la toir Eiffel? », mais encore rien. Vincent les emmena à plusieurs autres places, le zoo, le parc, et encore, zéro. Confus, Vincent se mit à penser à haute voix. Soudainement il commença à murmurer très vite. Ses partenaires sans doute terrifiés de ses agissements étranges le pensèrent fou, et le jeta alors dans une allée et le laissa.

Les jours passèrent et Vincent, encore pris dans la folie vivait en vagabond dans les rues. Chaque jour, les voleurs lui jetèrent un sui, peut-être cinq pour le fâcher. Mais Vincent restait calme et mettais ces sous de coté afin de s’acheter de la nourriture.

Un jour, plusieurs mois plus tard, les gangsters promenaient quand ils s’aperçurent que Vincent n’était plus là. En croyant que le pauvre était mort, ils réjouirent. Ils ne savaient pas cependant que Vincent était bien vivant. Ils ne savaient pas ses capacités.

Ce matin même, Vincent se leva du lit luxueux de l’hôtel le plus chic en Grèce. 

« Idiots », pensa-t-il, « Ils m’ont cru, je devrais gagner un prix pour ma performance. Ils pensaient que j’étais fou, ils croyaient que j’étais vraiment pauvre et que je vivais sur la rue mais la ruse la plus satisfaisante est qu’ils pensaient que je leur dirais où se situait l’argent. Ils savaient que c’était sous le plancher de ma cuisine mais ce qu’ils ne savaient pas était que ce n’était pas le compartiment sous le plancher mais plutôt celui d'en dessous! »

Oh god oh god oh god it's so awful! It's so awful! AAHHH! Holy mix of verb tenses. Holy passé simple tense explosion and holy weird use of quotation marks and dialogue grammar. Also holy terrible terrible story with total lack of intrigue and let's face it, total lack of mind games. I mean I maybe tried with the mind games but it totally doesn't come across as anything. Oh and holy French names! Vincent, Pierre, Jacques... Really tried to make this thing French guys.  

Rough translation with comments: 


Title: Deception


A gang robs a bank. They all get away except for one of them who goes to jail for years and years. He does his time and finally gets out of prision (on the streets of Paris! Because, you know, French), gets to breathe the air and smell the roses blablabla. Almost immediately gets kidnapped by his former partners in crime and they want him to tell them where the money they stole is because apparently they never found it. Half a million smackaroos people. Now that's MONEY! (I don't understand how he was the one who was able to hide the exorbitant amounts of cash if he was the one who got caught but whatever... PLOT HOLE). Anyway they try to beat it out of him but he's not talking...He doesn't remember or something. Sends them on a wild goose chase around the city. The compartment under the floor of his kitchen which amazingly comes up empty (whattt? something crazy's going on right? That's a PERFECT hiding spot), the zoo (haha the zoo), the Eiffel Tower (hahaHA the Eiffel TOWER?) and so on. Eventually, I assume to escape their wrath, he starts acting like a crazy lunatic and babbling ('cause apparently that's the mark of a crazy person) and the kidnappers are like "Yeah we've been waiting 20 years for this money but this guy's nuts so let's just throw him on the street and annoy him by throwing between one and five cents (and not a penny more!) at his face every time we see him because his prison sentence wasn't punishment enough". But he's a smart guy though and he saves the money for food or something. Because twenty cents is a fortune in Paris. But wait a minute he's rich! He just pulled off the most fantastical MIND GAMES-Y ruse ever! Or something like that. Whatevs.

One fine day we find out about his ruse... he's not on his street corner anymore and the criminals are like "whut?". Cut to some fancy pants hotel in Greece and Vincent, our hero's all "Dude those guys are idiots did they actually think I'd tell them where the money is? I mean DUH there were two compartments under the floor of my kitchen. They were just too stupid to check for the OTHER ONE UNDERNEATH IT! MUAHAHAHAHA half a million dollars is SO MUCH MONEY!" (Half a million dollars? What was I thinking? That's hardly a successful bank robbery).

So you think that story's great? You should read what I wrote on the back of the book. We had to do the stuff that's on regular books, reviews and descriptions of the author and stuff. Man this stuff is rich. Look:

The spacing's all messed up and there's very basic grammar mistakes. It doesn't seem as if I put any effort into this at all. Also hello high school graduation picture!

Translation:

Laura was born October 25th 1984. She started to write in her seventh year of high school [haha what the hell? I guess I meant seventh grade?]. Her career began when she wrote her first collection of short stories called "Des jeux mal joués" [Games played badly? Badly played games? I don't know]. It was translated into eighteen [haha] different languages and has won several literary prizes." Les jeux de l'esprit" [Mind Games] is her second collection of short stories.

Mind Games is a collection of short stories with mind games being the common theme. It's about the moral complexity of people. These intriguing and fascinating stories will captivate you from the very first page.

These stories will seduce you [...] - La Presse

Of a quality and liveliness that cannot be beat. Mind games demonstrates this new Quebec author's amazing literary talents - Le Devoir

Some more pictures of the masterpiece of grade 11 arts and crafts:

Work of art!

Don't worry. I've written some stuff in French that's actually not bad. This was just too amazingly terrible to not share with the world. I mean look at that lightning bolt! Mind games indeed...