Skywriting

Maguelone, June 2020.

It was no longer a question of gathering under sunshades, as the Mayor had announced. The new world required the beach to be “active and sporty”. The slogan of the liberation of lockdown, including the famous “social distancing”, emphasized — after the suspension of the society during the lockdown — the desire that we do not meet too much and not too closely. It became necessary to make society in a different way, through the mediation of the QR codes and the addresses to the Invisibles workers for example.
The meaning of this “active and sporty beach” was explained by flyers distributed by city officials walking along the seashore. Green pictograms described a swimmer, a walker, a runner and a windsurfer; gatherings, fishing and team sports were depicted in red and crossed out.
The active people and sportspeople who came to the sea that morning seemed suspicious. They were sliding their feet into the water in pursuit of a sense of normalcy, when the roar of an engine was heard. Was a drone came to spot breaches of order? No, it was a small aircraft, able to expel special smoke during flight, to fly in certain patterns that create writing readable by someone on the ground. A little bit of love and lightness for those who looked up and fought against the activation of behavioural units.