vive la vidés

May First, Two-thousand Nine.

It was early afternoon and the sun was bright, yet she sat beneath the trees, a little before the sidewalk. There weren’t many benches along the Boulevard Saint-Michel- she sat in a wheelchair.

She viewed the May Day processions with her head tilted back slightly, leaning against the chair’s headrest. Her eyes were dim and unemotional, seemingly unmoved by the waving red flags, the crowd adorned with stickers that boldly proclaimed RÊVE GÉNÉRALE on their chests, arms, and knees.

Her long straight brown hair fell over her shoulders, onto her long-sleeved pink top. A white scarf was wrapped around her neck, and on the left side of her upper lip she sported a simple piercing. Her body appeared shrunken, slightly too small for her head; a subtle disproportion. Her legs were encased in jeans, and they were as still as the rest of her body, lying askew on the footrest.

The day was a full one, blaring music, cries of protest, and people everywhere. A jazz band passed by on a float, a troupe of clowns marched down the street; the crowd was colour-coded to identify what they wanted. The chants become a muddle of words: down with Sarkozy, up with socialism, stop the persecution of the Tamil Indians, join the Marxist Leninist Kommunist Partie.

What did she feel? Would she have marched, screamed, danced with the best of them, if she could? She sat beneath the trees, in the shade, watching. From what anyone could tell, she was alone.

Vive la révolution.