Lycée Chateaubriand de Rome

Mathieu Casanova 2009/2010

Everything starts on the 13th of December 2009, with Edward, an Irish astrophisician. He lives an ordinary life, despite the fact that he is a space shuttle architect. Actually, this particular person we’re talking about here is nobody else but me. In fact, let’s get back in time to when it all begins. One day, I here from my colleagues that the day before, a prisoner (also known as “the duck”) escapes from a jail situated right next to the space centre where I work. Why did he escape ? I couldn’t understand because from what I heard, he was going to get released in a few weeks for good con-ducked. The authorities found him, duck taped to a chair located at the bottom of a launching platform, the one for the next shuttle still being built. I heard they removed “the duck” and made a complete check-up of the whole platform to see if anything had been damaged but they found nothing. A few months have passed now and today the shuttle is on that platform, ready to get launched. Here it goes, lift off. Once in space, a member of the crew notices a system failure in the food compartment. He stands up, goes to check where it comes from, gets to the sort of kitchen-on-board part of the shuttle, opens a cupboard and notices the picture of a duck, looking kind of evil. “You don’t have a too lucky face” he laughs. A few minutes later, another astronaut flies in to join the joke apparently pretty funny, but there doesn’t seem to be anybody, only the opened storage unit for food. He looks for his team mate but finds no one. It is strange he thinks, but he must have gone somewhere else quite in a rush. After a little while, the captain (commander of ship and crew) calls in through radio transmissions but none of the two team members answer. The situation is getting awkward ; they were four astronauts at the beginning of the mission and now there are only two of them left in the control cabin of the shuttle. The captain decides to go and check by himself but at this very moment, he is feeling slightly anxious and quite nervous at the same time. He finally arrives there ; he tells his only team mate apparently left that everything looks fine, but then it’s a total blackout on the frequency and moreover, he is not coming back. The last guy is getting more and more scared, he calls for his colleagues, yells as hard as he can and even calls earth with radio transmissions, but it seems that he can only perceive the echo of his desperate and trembling voice. The commanding centre on earth does not answer, and the mission is obviously failed. He has to face it : with these people missing, the shuttle won’t come back to earth. And it won’t. But wait a minute, how do I know this story then ? I feel strange ; my wife is calling me to join her for diner ; we’re having duck confit and it is served on the table with that same picture they had on the shuttle. I ask my wife the meaning of this whole joke, but she won’t answer…