The Passengers (Les passagers)

THE PASSENGERS

It was just another day. No better, no worse.

With its fun and surprises, and its monotony,

since the fun and surprises were virtually the same

from day to day.

The tram brings commuters in from the north suburbs...

Tickets!

Your ticket, please. - l don't have one.

I’ll have to fine you.

Do your job. - Don't be insolent.

Either the ticket machine's broken or it says nonsense like :

"Round-trip tickets only."

Who are they kidding!

Technology can't understand that one day we go off

and never come back.

Then use a ticket window.

One window out of 10 is open

for 100 people in a line 25 yards long.

Tag me. l won't be coerced.

And l won't incite society to organised theft.

Sir... - Whose interests are you defending?

If a robot did your job, would they have any qualms

about firing you?

We live in a world of self-interest.

We have to resist : no distributors, no windows

no tickets! You're wasting my time.

If all our users... - I’m not a user.

I’m just a commuter and l mean to stay one.

He's right to make a fuss.

The company should provide enough machines

to meet the demand even a last-minute one.

Otherwise we face an impossible choice :

stay home or pay a fine.

Where's he going with that bouquet? To a hospital?

To church for a ceremony? A wedding, maybe.

No. The wedding is for later.

Does he bite?. - No, he's safe.

Next stop; Main Street,

l could trip over your bag!

There's a seat there, lady.

This is my seat.

She doesn't let up.

You wouldn't know it, but I’m 77.

l can see that. l can hear it, too.

Some people are anti-everything : Young, old, dogs, the weather...

She'll get home bitter, grumbling about her day,

and so disappointed in life.

l finally did it... l handed in the keys, basta!

It wasn't easy. They invaded the place.

They turned everything inside out.

There's not even a ghost left.

Lucky you weren't there to see it.

l just remembered : l should have gone first.

Life is strange, isn't it?.

Remember my fear of being buried alive?

It does happen.

To reassure me you said,

"I’ll prick your foot with a needle. Infallible!"

Who will prick me now?

We'll see.

Right now, I’m talking to you. You hear me.

Sometimes l have regrets.

You made us better people.

l brought you this.

Loving's so hard. Don't be angry.

What made you do it? Were you tired of the soft life?

But you're beyond all that now.

You crossed the threshold.

You look up at the stars now.

When you talk to someone, it means he's alive.

Alive or dead what's the difference?

You lost someone recently. That much is obvious.

It's been a week.

The new treatments were too late to save him.

You come here every day?

As often as possible.

The last time l saw him was in the hospital.

Bruno worries me. The new treatment didn't help.

l know. It doesn't always work.

Speak to his friend.

l won't hide the truth.

But the anti-protease seemed to agree with him.

His body didn't have time to adapt to the therapy.

What will you do now?

Don't worry. I’ve seen to everything.

When I’m gone, open the box

on the record rack. Just follow the instructions.

Stop it! - I’m not afraid.

I’ve accepted the idea.

It’s only an idea, anyway.

Death doesn't exist for the departed.

Once it's over, it's unthinkable.

It’s different for the living.

You sure about cremation?. - Positive!

Fire is good.

When l go, l want to be buried.

l like the idea of the skeleton as a final form.

Too bad about my skeleton, my last reality,

but l can't bear the idea of decomposition.

Imagine a bluebottle landing on your remains...

You're done for.

The coffin queen goes to work

and you're the promised land for vermin.

No, give me fire and ashes.

l brought your Walkman.

Thanks for thinking of it. But you can keep it.

I’ll never use it again.

What a waste of time

isolating me for my protection.

From what?

People? Noise of the outside world?

For the little time l have left.

Kiss me.

Of either end of life's path,

the pain of being born is the most agonising.

, It lasts

and combats

our fear of dying.

We never stop being born,

but the dead die once and for all.

The next night, he asked the night nurse to read to him.

His sight was gone.

He wanted to hear that passage, from Jean-Henri Fabre's book

which his friend had found.

Shall l read to you?

Let me arrange your pillows.

That better?

"It’s mid-July. The hot season is setting in.

In fact, it has come early.

It’s been sizzling for weeks now.

Tonight we celebrate the national holiday.

As the youngsters frolic around a bonfire

whose reflections play on the village belfry,

and as the drums give the fireworks a ceremonial air

, l sit alone in the shadows

in the heat of the evening,

listening to the music of the harvest feast

more majestic than the music of the village fête, the gunpowder,

the firewood, the paper lanterns, and especially the liquor.

As simple as beauty, calm as a strong man.

It’s late. The crickets fall silent.

Sated with light and heat, they sang their music all day.

When night falls, they rest.

But it is often a troubled rest.

From the boughs of the plane trees

a noise is heard like a shrill cry of pain :

it is the desperate lament of the cicada

ambushed by the grasshopper,

, that ardent nocturnal hunter

which leaps at its side,

and tears open its belly.

After the musical orgy...

the carnage."

Sexual activity is millions of years old,

so nothing's new under the sun.

AIDS is not the result of the Sexual Revolution.

It’s the face of mankind on a planet incapable of regeneration.

The ravages of over industrialisation are like Kaposi's sarcoma.

The planet's lungs are sick.

It’s defences were destroyed before those of man.

He wasn't cremated.

At his death his folks came running.

His mother wept and wept.

Learning their son's friend had his flat keys,

they quickly changed the lock.

So his friend couldn't fulfil his last wishes

Next stop; Midtown,

See the snow yesterday? - Weird, with the trees in bloom.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I’m going to brighten your trip with a song.

It may be the same old tune that you heart me and again

But it still makes lovers swoon and consoles the loner's pain

No poem can match it for warmth and simplicity

Remember how you courted me by composing a ditty

There's so much love going around

Put your hand in mine

But love will someday run aground

Why wait to taste the wine?

In the tiny room, Johnny and June

Are in a cocoon lost in their bliss

There's so much love going around

It’s something not to miss

There's so much love going around...

Remember the young man who stared at women's shoes?.

He was after the perfect female foot.

In time his penchant became a mania.

When l find the perfect foot,

I’ll marry its owner.

Don't wear yourself out.

Keep your feet white and pretty.

l don't know where to turn.

l examined hundreds of feet l even worked in a shoe store'.

l met princesses with dream faces and superb bodies.

l tried everything humanly possible.

l loved a dancer

with a voluptuous figure.

My pet dancer...

Why do women's feet repel me so? Where is the foot of my dreams?

All you'll find here are feet with deformities, calluses

corns and so on.