Grégoire Courtois

Law number one,” said the assembly of birds.

‘“The skies belong to birds and birds alone,” the seagull said, snapping his dented beak a few centimetres from the mouse’s snout.

Suddenly, the old bird jammed the tip of his beak in the little mouse’s eye.’

‘The little mouse felt the large bird remove his foot from hers. But she was aware of nothing else, because she couldn’t see anything, and that horrible, piercing, awful scream kept ringing in her ears, her own scream, which came from the depths of her wounded throat, such a penetrating cry, which held so much sadness that no one could hear, or at least no one but her, because she alone could understand how filled it was with woe.’