Set down Tuesday on the west bank of the Vacherie pond, the new chestnut bench has the village in a boil. According to sunset enthusiasts, it deviates by 17 degrees from the sacred axis that lines up, on August 14 at 7:42 p.m., the sun, the twisted poplar, and the red buoy.
It’s a plank, two legs, and four lag bolts. Nothing that, in principle, would justify a gathering of fifteen people armed with anglers’ compasses, a plumb line, and an old smoked-plastic protractor. But here, the orientation of the pond bench is not taken lightly: since 2009, an unofficial protocol — the “great poppy line” — prescribed a precise azimuth to capture, three evenings a year, the orange glow that cuts the silhouette of the bell tower in the carp’s reflection. The new piece, delivered by an itinerant carpenter “who swears only by the true sun,” apparently, in good faith, took the north wind as his reference.
On Wednesday, at coffee time, the mood flipped when the first tests with smartphone level apps confirmed an “unacceptable” 17-degree error. “We didn’t come to look at the bank, we came for the 7:42 p.m. orange, period,” whispers Odette G., 78, who keeps in her tote the date-stamped slips from every successful shot over thirteen summers. In the wake of that, a corrugated cardboard template, kept under the sink in the landing-net shed, resurfaced: laid on the ground, it no longer straddles the bench leg as expected. The frogs jumped, voices rose, and a pike missed its leap, distracted by the decibels.
Thursday morning, a spontaneous mediation was held in the shade of the plum tree: proposal for a quarter-turn? Rejected, “too radical for Thursday lower backs.” Chalk marks and a hand rotation? Attempted, but the freshly set bench feet won’t give without damaging the checkerboard lawn. Final option on the table: slip under the right leg the historic cork shim from the old bench — a gain of 7.5 mm — and, for the three evenings in question, provide an asymmetrical “cowhide” cushion stamped 7:42 p.m. Verdict expected before Sunday, the day of the local stone-skipping contest, which requires a completely clear line of sight over the six-bounce zone.
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