MacGuffin hurried into the half light of the empty room where the backs of the seats formed a homogeneous, quiet mass. He sat down comfortably in the armchair, it quickly became dark and a beam of light pierced the wall behind him projecting on the screen a light that was almost white and even dazzling. MacGuffin turned his head in the direction of the object when a face appeared that looked at him he recognized it he remained staring at this image which was also looking at him but already its outline was fading away melting into the train’s smoke that invaded the screen.

MacGuffin looked at his watch. The train was running slightly late. The platform was empty. The train crossed the countryside, but since it was night, he was guessing the landscape. The train stopped. A traveler got on and came to sit on the seat opposite him with the window on the right. This man would doubtless have a package of difficult to define dimensions but which seemed empty and useless of those that would provide you with capacity. He asked him what it contained. MacGuffin felt sad. A whistle was heard. The train came into the station.MacGuffin looked at his watch. The train was running slightly late. The platform was empty. The train crossed the countryside, but since it was night, he was guessing the landscape. The train stopped. A traveler got on and came to sit on the seat opposite him with the window on the right. This man would doubtless have a package of difficult to define dimensions but which seemed empty and useless of those that would provide you with capacity. He asked him what it contained. MacGuffin felt sad. A whistle was heard. The train came into the station.

MacGuffin tell me, so I woke up with a start I was not at home. I didn’t recognize the place where I had spent the night a constant banging filled the room, I easily recognized the rhythm of the train but I couldn’t place the scene. An indescribable presence was crouching in the shadow, so you understand me, a sort of reflection of my own face that was reflected in the windows of the carriage that passed slowly before me. For a very brief moment our looks crossed then the train speeded up. But tell me MacGuffin at what point did you open the window?

MacGuffin, MacGuffin, your name rings a bell. I think I know you. But I can’t be sure. I didn’t stop looking at him. However, I was overcome by doubt. How much time has passed since we last met? But what has happened to you? MacGuffin seemed smaller, his hips rounded, his hands more delicate, he emitted a sort of softness as he was there on the station platform thick white smoke filled the air around him. His silhouette became blurred because he was only a vague shadow just the hand was moving about as though he was chasing something the shadow rushed onto the train the engine left the station.

MacGuffin looked in the pockets of his jacket. He went on to those of his trousers. He pulled out from the back pocket a small photograph of the sort used in identity cards. The photograph had lost a bit of its clarity. The colors had melted in a yellow-orange shade that had absorbed the original colors. He didn’t let himself look at it. The fascination was so great that he was overcome with worry at the idea that he risked losing it and having to live without it. The thought was unbearable. The platform was empty. He was distracted by the arrival of the train; he grasped the fist very tightly over the piece of paper.

MacGuffin was awake but he had the feeling he was sleeping standing up. Leaning on the table he constantly restarted the same drawing for the eleventh time, always with the same train that each time overran a bit more of the area of the sheet. He yawned and added a person he considered indispensable who held something at arm’s length that MacGuffin reduced to make it nothing more than a hardly noticeable point. MacGuffin felt sleep was winning. He yawned again when he gave a jump at the sound of a whistle that was heard. Suddenly the train left the station and thick white steam filled the room, blotting out everything in it. MacGuffin started another drawing.

MacGuffin had been in bed for over an hour, it should have been 11 o’clock in the evening, he wasn’t sleeping, he was lying in the dark, outside it was night. Someone knocked on the door, he got up to open. A man was there, he had never seen him, and yet it seemed to him he had already met him. He strangely resembled him. MacGuffin lived next to the station. The man must have got off the last train. He was carrying a parcel.

MacGuffin was the first word I wrote on the envelope. Nothing let one assume what happened next. I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw nothing, so I decided to move forward a bit more to the center to be certain about the frame of the mirror. I choose an item at random in the room, some sort of package whose contents I didn’t know, the parcel was suspended between heaven and earth, alone, present in the mirror. The need to leave a trace, some sort of evidence, was vital. A doodle on a piece of paper. I addressed it to my name and address.

MacGuffin lit a large fire in which he threw his table, his chair, his bed, his bedside lamp, his rocking chair, his credit card, his driving license, his entry ticket to the National Library, the phone number of his dentist, the spare button for his suit trousers, his shaving cream, his screwdriver, the program of the annual tightrope walkers’ festival, the photograph of his cat 3 days before its death. He got up, left the room filled by thick, black smoke. He went out, went hurriedly in the direction of the station, a train was waiting for him, he got on and disappeared.

MacGuffin has disappeared without trace. Everyone remembers the place where he lived, the friends he used to mix with, the office where he went every morning at 11 o’clock exactly. MacGuffin never contradicted anyone, he was a quiet man. His silent, mute presence made him indispensable at worldly receptions but also those that no one dared access. MacGuffin only left behind him a few things that he used every day. But strangely, among them was no photograph confirming he could have existed.