Alcide's Night Flight from Touladi

Alcide Bolduc’s night flight from Touladi turns a sudden departure into a lasting absence, leaving Loïc without either of the two fathers around whom his life had been divided.

The Night Departure

A sudden engine rumble came from the direction of the lake. Those present immediately thought of Alcide’s plane; they soon learned that he had taken advantage of the moonlight to fly away. The account gives no destination and no stated reason for his departure.

An Uncertain Absence

Alcide had left, and no one knew when he would be seen again. The open-endedness matters: the flight is reported not as a journey with a known endpoint, but as a disappearance whose duration cannot be predicted.

Consequences for Loïc

The narration places the flight beside the other father’s departure for the hospital, perhaps to die. One father is described as collapsed, the other as gone into the night; Loïc, still very young, is left without a father or a point of reference. The parallel departures make Alcide’s flight part of a broader rupture in the child’s sense of security.