The Stories of Strangers I Saw in Places
Petit exercise littéraire (ou pas)
The Daydreams of a Daughter I Saw in Primrose Hill
It was quickly, swiftly that it happened. Without noticing, the ride to Primrose Hill was over. Her long damp hair from her early showered helped her stay awake the whole, whole way. Weekends are vast planes that extend with possibilities when you’re about 8, and it smelled like Sunday: the mix of leather seats and the distinct smell of the Irish Setter need for a bath, and that residue of her camomile shampoo lingering along with the dampness… It quickly situates you, behind your small glasses that help your eight-year-old eyes see, just where in the vastness of Before School you are. (You might not get away with wearing a frilly skirt over your trousers tomorrow, you know.) The vastness is ending and it you know anything about going anywhere, except that there are trees that look blurry that interrupt the vision. Everything on your way to London looks beige, and it take forever to get there; and all that cereal makes you sleepy. You can feel the milkyness of it in your belly still, but somehow the vivacious plight of ingesting, “to ingest” being your new favorite verb, different from “slightly” which would become your second-favorite adverb… Well, it disolved, pretty much into a repetition of Are we there yet? And lost in the images of you and your bike, you hear in the blandness of the almost nonexistent interactions that occur inside the car, the sound of the life you want. When I grow up, I’ll be a teacher, and I will be the best teacher. Tomorrow, I will paint a picture of my classroom.
The Ultimatums of a Random Couple I saw in Plaza de España
His tendency to be awful at texting became a problem. What did it say about her that he was dry? The constant attention fosters a better view of herself, and she needs the mirroring-back. Is it so hard fucking hard to say Good night? Somewhere in what was missing in the little tiny screen of her new Samsung was an old boyfriend’s mistakes, and he was not the one getting punished. She sighed, exasperated, and very nearly did her best to keep it to herself everytime he treated her to dinner — because NothingI’mFine. Was it his fault for lacking the foresight…? He consistently took her out and found places she’d like, she’d feel comfortable in, channeling all of the lessons, two generations too old, that his grand-mother had encrypted in his spinal cord at each and every dinner party, birthday gathering, and stuff. She’d like a nice boy, he said. Too focused on the moments, on making her feel good, aiming at maybe another series of moments where they’d feel so good that they kissed, and kissed, and kissed… It’s ok, baby; he’d do anything she’d tell him to, it’s fine I’ll do it… and he had no idea where she was coming from the night she sat all the way on the other side of the couch and didn’t laugh of smile. It was the first ultimatum, and now they have a collection. He had to get better at demostrating where he was coming from, and then there was one about at least grabbing her hand in public, and what about talking to exes, huh? They meet at Plaza de España on weekends. He picks her up, and walks her back. She loves photographs, Instagram and Snapchat. They still have no idea who they’re dating, stubbornly latching on to the idea of what they want this other person to be, another “Other”.
The Ongoing Frustrations of an Old Dude I Saw in Le Jardin Du Luxembourg
It was definetly good for Benoit Yvert to leave the house, for a change; after all…
The business Benoit Yvert was in had change so rapidly, if you asked him. And while –when he looked around, and saw the small green chairs and the flower beds and the tobacco shops which contrubuted directly to keeping him from going insane ever since he quit alcohol, he noticed this– his neighbourhood had not change a bit since the early 80’s, it was all very different.
He was oblivious to the fact that Benoit Yvert sounded so much like Bon Iver, because of how far away in time his tunes were with Bon Iver.
He was lucky that Michelle Poulin had not left him. He was strangely confident about his good taste in art, talent for picking talent, and the weight of his name, because no one in the ever-changing industry had more experience and length and glamour than Benoit Yvert, he could tell you that– BUT when it came to that sort of social interaction and emotional implications, he had his doubts. Under his sunglasses, he squinted and tried to spot someone who could be tolerant to how intolerable his smell sour smell of ripe fruit and tobacco, which he can’t ever wash off. Would anyone, apart from Michelle, really find his dry skin pleasing to the touch?
With alcohol banished from his life and his office now ridden of his presence, Michelle and the marvelous discovery of the Internet was all he had left. It’s a good thing, alas, that he doesn’t have to go in every morning and fight with a younger version of himself, and not see any of his past self, or recognize in a new string of things any of the careful thought-processes that used to define the industry and swallow his exasperation, can’t they just put their computers away?
He’s free to take walks any day.
The Sheer Boredom of an Old-but-Young Lady I Saw on Le Pont de Bir-Hakeim
When life is generally dull, errands are beautiful. Seen under the light of Marianne and her stagnating life (global stagnation that embraced all parts and fragments of her life, after 9 years with Phillippe and 6 years at the campus in Bercy), even errands were dull and grey and crass. Everything felt like a dental apointment, and she did not notice the living and breathing charm around her, and couldn’t imagine or apreciate it. She and Phillippe had studied the same thing, got along fine, and they had aged. It was enough to stick together and ignore the subtle hint of a deeper connection with Raphaël, the new guy at the office. Maybe it’s not about how you feel, or could do. It was, if you thought about it, she thought, really about being comfortable. Can you really exeprience comfort with sticking to barriers? Answering the phone, filing, and never siggesting anything be done different, because the norm is that the Bercy Administration is slow and bureaucratic, and we wouldn’t really want to mess with that, and everything that rolls off her is monotonous and regulated. The only real loophole to enjoyment of any class is when she goes shopping and specifically when she tries on different outfits in front of the mirror. She looks at her body –still stuck between young and old, and everyday leaning towards old, a little further, slightly closer– and examines her skin, and scans her closet in her head for what hues match her skin, and also what fabrics or colors highlight that high-wasted skirt. Black goes with everything, and nothing suits her insecurities more than high-rise apparel that hugs her waist-line. She steps out of the dressing room and forgets about the potential of her lips.
