Michael leaves his hometown in France to find work, leaving behind his wife Sylvie who is pregnant. He works for over 20 years in Nice with Charles de Gaul before deciding to return home. Charles gives him advice to be cautious and not take shortcuts on his journey. Michael encounters a strange receptionist who warns him of dangers, and insists he take a shortcut by motorcycle which he declines. Following the advice, Michael perseveres on his long journey home to his wife Sylvie.

1. SIMON SAYS
+++++++++++
Independently fie on your world of misery, wage your personal war on the terror internal
and external, globally fight against poverty, and fly on the wings of butterflies who flap
and their effects spread internationally ending tragedies.
Simon says, grab the bull by the horn, and blow your trumpet into a happy ending story.
Simon says, be your own drum major.
You may have heard of Arthur Fiedler (1894-1979), US conductor, an accomplished
violist, who played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, 1915-1974, i.e, he spent 59
years of his life, conducting, the Boston Pops Orchestra.
Arthur Fiedler had played this particular game of Simon Says. That is how he must have
survived beyond two world wars.
Ah, how he must have loved the sound of the violin, and the movie The Sound of Music
(1965), that American musical drama film, produced and directed by Robert Wise, and
starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer.
Oh, say, can you see? How much Arthur Fiedler’s conducting career must have
provided him a narrow but a great escape out of the harsh realities of his lifetime, into a
whole new world of non-violence and tranquility?
But he must not have been alone, or the only one who had reimagined the world he was
living in and lived the lifestyle he hoped for and believed in, as in John Lennon’s
Imagine 1971 which featured NDR Symphony Orchestra. Artie was a part of a band, an
orchestra, a brotherhood, a fraternity, a camp, throughout the 70s Pop.
And as it is my mantra to disclose that life is a series of journeys, let us travel through
another timeframe before WWII, entering Europe, and more concretely, French soil.
Il y a eu un homme comme Arthur Fiedler who had the will power and wanted to
overcome les miserables aspects de sa vie. Et, oui, c’est la vie qu’on parle. This man,
just like Arthur Fiedler, wanted to become a part of an orchestra, a wrestling team, a
band of brothers, to get him through the tough times, and so he left his hometown to join
an ensemble.
Truly, the man was very hungry to overcome the miserable aspects of his life. He
wanted to change his status quo, which was his state of poverty. But he knew he could
not become rich overnight. He had to plan and catch his dream like a goal keeper.

2. FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
The poet avant-garde Emmanuel Kojo Baah presents
Sir Simon’s Story entitled Simon Says
Written in two languages, English et Français, mixed, hybrid, mélangé, métissé.
Yes, This is My Story. And if it is my story, meaning, I wrote it, then all authorial
commentaries are intended and motivated.
Oui, Ceci est Mon Roman. Et Si C’est Mon Roman, C’est Si Mon Roman, Simon
Says… I do what I want, you do what you want.
Alright, okay, big fricking deal. I wrote this story and so what? Enough on the wordplay
already.
Ça va?
Ca va.
D’accord, on y va.
The man whose story I am about to tell, Michael, had had an epiphany, just like me, that
life is a series of journeys, and this became his mantra too, which he thought he had to
live out in fullness as in the representations of both German Expressionism and French
Impressionism.
Michèle was a hardly working Gaulois and hardly earning money in his hometown de
Gaul feeling trapped and cornered by his wife, Sylvie, who also felt conquered and
trampled upon by the harsh reality of life. At the time, every Gaulois could relate
especially, les gens racinées et aussi les gens métissé, les migrants, de la plupart, les
Gypsies de l’Éurope were facing the monarchy, et les peuples était pauvres comme des
gens sans abris dans les rues de Paris.
And so for a new year’s resolution, Michael proposed to his wife, his indispensable
companion, Sylvia, his desire to embark on an inevitable journey for work and to earn a
better living.
Thus, he motioned leaving Gual, débatablement, not as a suggestion for discussion, but
as an indisputable decision he had made with all seriousness, and he preferred to be
leaving the following day with or without his wife and loving companion, Sylvia’s
approval or recommendation. At the time, Michèle was not interested in compromising.
Sylvie sympathized with Michèle and knew his heart. She had to be supportive of her
husband’s decision.

3. And so Sylvia played the big girl helping Michael prepare for his long journey into the
illusively relative oblivion par rapport time and traveling through space.
However, there was some ambiguity on the side of Sylvie, as to why she did not fight
her husband’s decision, for usually, she would fight him and challenge him Ruthlessly,
the big girl way à la française.
She had a secret. Peut-être, there was something she was uncertain about. The secret,
which she might have chosen to put in the back of her left brain, and decided to keep
from Michèle was that she was three months pregnant for him.
Quand Michèle est arrivé à Nice au sud de la France, he found work in the Military or
Defense Administration, on dit, les gendarmes de la France, as an architect of frames
and new forms of construction and engineering projects, working besides the foreman
on the frontier, Charles de Gaul, in the post revolutionary reconstruction of France, and
was stationed to be commuting amongst the Mediterranean cities of Marseilles, Aix-en-
Provence, Toulon, Cannes, et Nice. Et voila, les maestros, entre les murs, pittoresques,
et des autres chefs-d’oeuvre.
Michèle a travaillé fortement avec Charles de Gaul for three years.
He had saved all his money with the foreman of the construction work, and as a man of
great knowledge and integrity, Michael’s contract was extended for Eighteen more
years.
It was after these years of maturity and experience that Michael decided to be
retrospective. He remembered the young face de la belle Sylvie, whom he had left in
solitary, who could do nothing but stay faithful, read the bible, and play solitaire. At least
that is what Michael had hoped for, but he could not wait to find out how time had tested
the fate of their marriage. He was hoping to renew his vows avec Sylvie au retour.
Michael went to see the foreman, Charles de Gaul about his wages and Charlie told him
to give him one more day to balance all accounts and interests so that he could
withdraw in full the following day.
Michèle était d’accord and waited one more day for departure.
When he arrived the following day, Charlie gave Michèle some baguettes dans un sac-à
dos, which he hoped he would take with him, in addition to three advices, but he also
realized that perhaps, Michèle might just want to take his money and refuse the three
advices and the provisions for his amiable company and services comme un frère,
lumière, en fraternité, avec la liberté, et la fois dans l’égalité parmi les êtres humains.
Michael settled down first and foremost for the three advices from the foreman, because
he had great regard for the man who had taken care of his finances throughout the
twenty-one years of his time en exile.

4. According to the foreman, these three advices could ensure his safe arrival home and a
happy ending to his journey. And so Charles de Gaul told Michèle:
Do not be too curious, for you might not like what you find, when you go out of your way
being too curious. Be very pre-cautious not to take shortcuts, for a shortcut could lead to
an untimely death. And finally, not to make a rash decision or pass judgement when
angry, for that could result in depression and a lifetime baggage of melancholy, if
mistaken.
In addition to the three advices, the foreman gave Michael some bread and moringa
omelettes, one for le petit-déjeuner, one for le déjeuner, and un dernier for le dinner with
his family when he had reached home in the evening.
The foreman handed to Michael a last envelop, that was wrapped, and parceled like a
thank you card, with a big smile across his face, and gave him a big hug, and told him
not to open it en transit but must wait to open it before laying down in bed in his own
house au terminal.
Au depart, Michèle felt very self-fulfilled, and grateful, whispering his mantra, life is a
series of journeys, to himself, and pleased with himself for all that he had accomplished
in exile.
The homecoming had finally come and with the hours passing.
Dans l’après midi, Michèle checked into a hotel where he could definitely shower off
some more of the sweat and toil of the last twenty-one years. He turned on the radio
and started listening to Jimi Hendrix’s Are You Experienced?
A l’hotel de ville, while, Michèle was in the shower, shaving with cream and steam from
his hot water bath, il y a eu des bruits psychotiques, which scared the hell out of him,
and he almost cut himself rushing to the door, and running for cover.
He quickly locked the door from the inside instead of opening to come outside wearing
nothing but a towel around his waist.
Although he was curious to find out what the psycho in the hallway was fuzzing about,
he remembered Charlie’s advice not to be too curious. He stayed indoors, and waited
for the terrible shrieking noise and the lunatic bang bang frenzy to die down. He finished
shaving, showered, applied deodorant and dressed in two star fashion.
Some hours later, when Michael stepped out of his hide-out, the receptionist asked him,
“Ça va?”
“Ça va.”
Then the receptionist went further and inquired, “How is it possible you are still alive?

5. How did you escape the fate of all those who have stayed here around this timeframe,
and where had you been when the manipulation of the sirens and the gun shots started,
when everything went wacko?”
Perplexed, Michèle stood there processing the questions.
And without waiting for a response, she commented, “You know you are the first man to
come here who has escaped the psycho who attracts attention and kills the dogs who
come after curious cats meowing all wacko in this hotel, forgetting that they are only
guests, and that they are not liable for any of the costs or damages here. I always
wondered, so what if someone transformed nuts and started blowing out some
firecrackers?”
This receptionist was very bizarre. She was quite interesante. She was quite a puzzle to
figure out, and Michael gave up trying.
“Yeah, that noise, what was it? Do you mean it was just some firecrackers and some
blanks? I thought someone busted in here on a shooting spree… I jumped out of my
shower and quickly locked my door.”
“Yo ho. You are the first not to have been fooled. To think that it was just some fireworks,
or some kind of Pirate of the Caribbean movie, action packed with forks, knives, bullets,
and cannonballs, flying, eye-gorging, an absolutely gorgeous adventure or a nightmare
in broad daylight… No, you would have been blown up with your popcorn by now if you
had not been a realist to differentiate diegetic and non-diegetic sounds and visions, the
difference between reality and the manipulation of reality. Illusion, it is such a fine
representation of art. Psycho. Do you like Alfred Hitchcock?”
“Yes, British filmmaker, or was he American? He was le grandeur of Hollywood and film
noir. Well, I am glad and grateful for the film exposure and your exposition. It is always
good to be exposed to all kinds of film cultures.” Michèle played along the
psychodrama.
“Yes, if your door had been open just an inch, like a butt-crack, you would have been
licked and nicked, fusillé et niqué, comme une meuffe, and robbed of your earthly
possessions, for the devil comes to kill, to steal, and to destroy with Guns, Germs, and
Steel, according to Jared Diamond, our Brave New World according to Aldous Huxley. It
is very nice to see you well et vivant.”
She stretched out her hand for a handshake. “Helen of Troy, I live in Paris now, ravi de
te rencontre.”
“Ravi. Vous êtes très convivante.”

6. Michèle was very thankful for listening to Charles de Gaul’s advice, not to be too
curious, and he knew he had to get the heck out as soon as possible, or be sent to the
island of St. Helen like Napoleon Bonaparte. After all, he was no Hector to have a
brotherhood in Paris. He was the one and only Michèle Bernascolle.
On his way out of the hotel, for Michèle could not wait to get home as quickly as
possible, because the receptionist kept bringing up offers, such as le grand prix nobel, a
racehorse, that looked like it came from the Athenians for the Trojans, ou peut-être from
a pastime era of elves, one that Gandalf from The Lord of Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
might have ridden.
Mais, Michèle looked more like an Elvis who refused to ride on a high horse to avoid
unforeseeable hip swinging accidents. He had not ridden on a horse in twenty-one
years.
But the receptionist then insisted and offered him a shortcut deal such that Michael
could get home in less than an hour on a super expensive sports motorcycle.
Michael knew this was another offer he must refuse, for it might lead to a deadly and
untimely ending.
Even if the hotel gave him the biggest, most compact and fastest motorcycle in the
world, and he was a motorcycle ace, with that kind of poetry written on his face,
according to the advice from Charlie, who had watched over his shoulders like Athena
had done for Odysseus of Ithaca, he was to reject it, for that shortcut could absolutely
lead to his being done for, pendants le temps mauvais.
A motorcycle would definitely ensure overspeeding decisions through traffic, since he
would be riding all by himself, and without another person to consider compromising
with, one who could influence his decision making.
He could ride on home like Achilles, wearing no helmet, and keeping his heels on the
accelerator and gassing until he got into a head on collision with a truck driver or better
yet the driver of a slow moving vehicle like a caterpillar in traffic. That would have been
very tragic.
Remembering to follow Charlie’s second advice, he had to persevere and go through
the journey the long distant way. For no matter how long it took him to reach home, he
was destined to reach home eventually, like Odysseus of Ithaca did.
Michael, like a leaver, in Daniel Quinn’s novel, Ishmael, was now transformed and
preserved the practice of receiving advice over all the pleasures of gambling and taking
money for granted, without any hard work towards earning a living. For he understood
that money could also buy many things including death, and coincidentally at the
moment, the music that started playing in the hotel d’Hélène was The Beatles song,
Can’t Buy Me Love.

7. And so Michael took off like a fleeing scurried dog intimidated by a cat, as if he was
fleeing l’île de Céres, ou peut-être the cave of Polyphemus the one-eyed cyclops, ou
bien Calypso’s island, headed towards sa propre maison où habite sa femme, Sylvie,
his one and only Penelope.
Alors, Michèle a dit, “Merci.”
“De rien,” Hèlene, la receptionist à répondu.
After the thank you card was laid on the table, Michael said his goodbyes… not really
meaning, “au revoir.”
He had walked in saying hello, returned to the desk to say hi, et maintenant, he had
said, goodbye. And he was gone, never to look back encore or to stop by this hotel de la
villein.
He traversed des boulevards, took a ferry à traverse la rivière de la Seine, passed Les
Champs Élysee, et passé des arcs de triumphs.
Il a pris le métro de la Place d’Italie jusqu’au bout le terminal à la Place des Vincennes.
Il était nuit.
After being in transit for quite a long time, he was exhausted by night fall. He passed
through les bois de la Place de Vincennes.
Far in the distance, he could see his house. But he was bouleversé by the fact that
there was a man siting by the open fire en plein air with Sylvie, keeping her company
chez lui.
All this time that he had been gone, everyday, Sylvie à pensé, “S’il vive, je donne grâce
à Dieu, si non, c’est la vie…”
Michèle était dans l’enfer, en colère, faché. Il s’est caché au lieu d’entrer et se coucher
chez lui.
Michael felt anger building up in his chest. And he almost lost it, when he started to
drown in depression from the disappointment. If he had had a gun on him, he might
have drawn it out to hunt them down from the distance, but then he recalled the third
advice from Charles de Gaul de ne pas prendre un decision quant on est en colère.
He found lodging at another place until le matin.
For the first time in twenty-one years, the rising of the sun became symbolic for Michèle,
just as le peinture Impression Soleil Levant had been immortalized by Claude Monet.

8. Michèle knocked and knocked with music blasting through the door, Knockin’ on
Heaven’s Door by Bob Dylan released in 1973 was playing.
Sylvie opened the door, and to her biggest surprise, Michèle stood before her, like the
return of a ghost from the past. The prodigal husband had returned from the series of
journeys in his life back to his roots. He had come just as he had gone.
Screaming, jumping, and crying tears of happiness, Sylvie embraced Michèle firmly like
never before and kissed him all over the way a shepherd who had lost his sheep might
have done. She called out to the young man, just as Penelope had called Telemachus,
when husband and father Odysseus returned from the Odyssey of Homer.
“Frèderi! Come and meet your father. Ton père est revenu.”
“Je m’en bats les couilles!”
“Frèderi! Ton père est revenu. C’est vrai… Tiens, voila!”
En fait, it was a game Sylvie had been playing with Frèderi for the past eighteen years,
ever since he was three years old, which made the young man now doubt more than
ever, the validity of the statement, that his father had finally arrived home from wherever
he went, and so the young man thought his mother was still kidding around with him.
He turned down the music, and came out. And it was as if he was starring into the eyes
of a mirror. He looked just like his father. He was the photographic replica of the old
man. He was a matching double. Frèderi and Michèle were one de la même terre
comme Ulysses et Telemachus.
Michèle shed tears of joy.
“Oh mon grand Terran, Frèderi. C’est Frèderi Mistral ou Frèderi Bernascolle?”
Michèle kissed Sylvie as she explained to him that she had been three months pregnant
and did not know it. That she had given birth to Frèderi just six months after his
departure.
“Sylvie, ma cherie. Vous êtes la sagesse. Merci. Vous êtes Sage. Vous êtes ma belle et
moi ta bête.”
Sylvie cried more tears of joy.
“Je vous en prie.”
“You waited for me all these years and never cheated on me. I never cheated on you
either.”

9. “Merci.”
“Je vous en prie.”
Ils ont mangé leur petit-déjeuner à table, ensemble. And as the trinity sat breaking
bread and drinking wine, Michèle shared tales of his homecoming, and how les trois
conseilles de Charles de Gaul had brought him home safely.
Sylvie regarded and respected her husband even more, and her love for him grew
intensely.
After breakfast, and some more merry-making, Sylvie asked how much money Michèle
had been able to sauf-garde in order to secure the future for them, especially for
Frèderi.
Michèle gestured empty handedly, and said he was happy to be home, even if not a lot
had changed with regard to their status quo.
But before he had said too much, he was scared that he might be beating about the
bush, or that he could cause the same melancholy, and depression he had felt
yesterday from being disappointed. And so he stopped to double check everything in his
man-purse ou bien dans son sac-à-dos.
He found and opened the sealed envelop which Charlie had recommended that he must
not open until bedtime in his own home, only to find a huge stash de l’argent. Planted
inside the thank you card were bundles of one hundred Euro bills, which amounted to
tout ses salaraires de la duration des temps qu’il à travaillé au Sud de la France.
“Ça alors!” All three of them exaggerated for they had never seen so much money
packed into a portefeuille comme ça.
“Charlie, est un très bon homme,” Sylvie à dit.
Michèle made love to Sylvie and they felt like they were eighteen and born again to be
wild in the jungle of their own jardins de Gaul.
A few years later, news had reached all of France, that Charles de Gaul had earned the
position to play the role of savior of the Gauls.
And to think that all who believed Michèle’s bit of history were gullible. C’est impossible.
Michèle comme Charlie felt accomplished.
Il y a des gens qui ont pensé que ces nouvelles ne servent à rien que des faits divers.
Mais, moi, j’ai fois dans les contes des fées. C’est Simon qui m’a raconté c’est histoire.
Alors, être optimiste ou pessimiste, Simon says…. On that day, les Gaulois danced to
Paradise City by Guns and Roses, the American Rock & Roll Band of Brothers.

10. Dedicated to my American host family members, Michael Joseph Minnig, Linda
Garrettson, Nana & GG, Rose Koenig, John Koenig, Richard Koenig, Lin Koenig, Kwesi
Koomson, Melissa Koomson, Jan Cauffman, Jay Farrow, Michael Owens Minnig, Eric
and Carol Metzker, Jordan, and Mariana Garrettson, Brian and Brooks Carroll and to my
host sisters, Sage Garrettson, Allison Shepherd, Molly Carroll, Greta Taylor, Kathryn
and Elizabeth Metzker, and my host brothers Terran Garrettson and Andrew Carroll.
Dédié à ma famille d’accueil en France, Daniel Fronza, Florence Bon-Fronza, Sylvie
Bernascolle, Michèle Bernascolle, mes trois frères, Louis Fronza, Frédéri et Philippe
Bernascolle, et mes Professeurs, Kerry Whiteside, Lilli Engle, J. M. Cosse, Marie-Line
Brunet, Nadra Hebouche, Carrie Landfried, Jo Ann Piotroski, Marie-Anne Rossignol, J.
D. Brignoli et al.
NB: To reconnect or stay in contact with the author, Emmanuel Parke Arthur, email,
earthur1@fandm.edu
Franklin and Marshall College '15
International Student Voice (ISV) Ambassador
Ex-President of F&M International Club '12
Bonchek College House PA '12-'13
F&M Film Society
I mind my own business.
My business, Liberal Arts Movie Production, is strictly professional.
Respect given with interest is respect received with interest and returns!