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.

ghosts

I just realized that to my grandmother, this house is full of ghosts.

Not being able to remember anything, the sounds she hears from above, with Anh and her children on the upper floor, and the noises she hears from below, with me living in the basement with the radio going, are a quiet commotion that cannot be attributed to two octogenarians lying in their bed.

At times I am walking in and out of the living room, and perhaps she glimpses my comings and goings. She is surprised every time, and does not call out. Who does she think I am? Some phantom who stalks a path from basement to sofa then back?

The walls are covered in photos of past celebrations- birthday parties, anniversaries, and the like. There are grandchildren she cannot recognize, their pictures changing every so often as they age. All around the house there are families of strangers- happy, smiling people, all of them foreign and unknown.

Even as I sit here writing this, the door creaks open and a pair of eyes peer out of a darkened room. Before I can even raise a hand to wave the door is shut again.

Perhaps, taking this into account, it is my grandmother who is the ghost- haunting a house that does not belong to her.

birds of par[ad]is[e]

April Thirtieth, Two-thousand Nine.

The morning sunlight is warm and gentle, and falls lightly upon the Parc des Buttes Chaumont. Known to be a perfect spot for slow, romantic walks, couples walk through just as they would at any other hour, graceful and meandering. The walkways take you beneath the sun’s rays, and where it passes beneath the trees it is just cool enough to remind you that the day has just begun, and that the evening is a long way off.

The wall that borders the park is accompanied by trees, shading the sidewalk at intervals. On the pavement a man limps along, his big, brown boots worn and dirty. His left foot is slightly askew, and the sole of his left foot does not quite touch the ground with each step. A crutch under his left arm, he leans heavily against it, using it to take the weight of the bag on his left shoulder. His right arm is held against his body- twisted like a broken wing. He’s balding, and his thick beard has jumped straight from red to white in certain parts.

The man’s eyes are tired, but he continues to lurch forward, making his way down the sidewalk to some unknown destination. His awkward gait attracts glances, but on such a beautiful day as this there are not many walking along the outside of the park. His day has just started, and it will not end for many hours still.

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May Fourth, Two-thousand Nine.

Pigeons are dirty birds. The rats of the sky they are, always swooping down and pecking about at scraps on the sidewalk. They are completely shameless, flaunting their insolence as they waddle forward, eager to pick at crumbs by your feet.

She wears a ratty red sweater, the worn spots in the wool highlighted by the rays of the setting sun. She sits with her legs to the side, and underneath her is a large black sheet, like a theatre curtain. Beside her is a pile of twisted, broken baguettes. One is torn in half, and chunks of stale bread fill her hands.

The pigeons feast on the bread she throws before her, flapping their wings and strutting back and forth. Their heads bob up and down, as do their throats as they gorge themselves frantically. However some are already leaving; gratified or bored they have had their fill.

Old and worn, she watches them. Pigeons are dirty birds.

coming home

May Ninth, Two-thousand Nine.

-I sit in the bus station, beginning the two hour wait until my bus arrives. Staring through the glass, between the brick buildings, I catch a glimpse of a park and see petals dancing in the wind. Fluttering back and forth, they look like tiny white butterflies.

-A man buys a ticket for a friend, and spells his surname out ay ell bee ay are ay dee oh. It sounds like El Dorado, like the name of some lost city of gold.

- As the bus pulls out I spot some more of the petals riding the wind. One of them flies upwards, flies over the large brick building that houses the bus station. I don’t think wind should work like that. Maybe they were butterflies.

- The rain drums its fingers on the emergency hatch on the roof of the bus, and trying to peer out of the windows makes it seem like we’re underwater. The world outside is a complete blur, nothing but water.

- Passing by a field, I see a dead dear crowning a rubbish pile. The world is grey.

- Traffic lights hang on cables that run back and forth at an intersection. The wind blows them back and forth and they inform us that we can go as they wave good-bye.

- The sun comes out while we are at the Buffalo Airport. The clouds float over the air like giants. A stop sign motions us back, but we carry on.

- There is a tree, strong-looking yet leafless far below us. It is surrounded by the lanes of the highway, fenced in and dead.

- The clouds before us blanket the horizon, lying lazily above the city skyline. They resemble a slow-motion explosion, like some sort of natural nuclear bomb has erupted at our eventual destination. We head straight for them.

- At the border we disembark for customs. The wind makes the door weigh one hundred pounds- we all become weaklings.

- We wait in line, and as the door is closing it is blown open again- it closes slowly, shakily.

- I see a hill- the grass is long and has been smoothed over. The wind has brushed it lovingly, like a giant palm petting an equally giant cat.

- We are coming underneath the mass.

- A woman talking to someone on her cellphone says the word “beauty” and puts a lot of emphasis on the “u.” There is something in her world that is a “beauuuty!”

-There is a lake and it is probably Lake Ontario. Large clouds dominate the sky and the sun makes its way through like a spotlight on the steely grey water.

just dance.

If you have ever sat beneath Nelson’s Column facing south, then I’m sure you have had the immensity of the National Gallery fill your vision; just like on any other day. However, if you had been doing the same this afternoon, and if you have been so fortunate as to have been blessed with particularly keen eyesight, something peculiar might have caught your eye.

If you had been outside the main entrance of the National Gallery, your back to countless works of art and multitudes of noisy schoolchildren, leaning over the railing of the balcony, it would not have taken much for your gaze to be drawn down towards the square grounds.

Often times the section of pavement located before the Gallery was occupied by a street performer or some other not-as-entertaining individual trying to scrounge the public for their spare change. However, today was a Tuesday, and the likelihood of there being a crowd gathered around some street magician or people-pleaser was greatly diminished.

Beneath the hulk of the National Gallery one man stood where so many others had before and did it without an open hat or guitar case, without chains to escape from, without gimmicks and without music.

Without music anyone else could hear, to be precise.

In his right hand he clutched a Walkman, the record player of the 21st century. He wore headphones that swung back and forth with each and every step, every smooth, energetic step.

His feet stepped left and right, clad in black dress shoes. Moving upwards, dark slacks encased a pair of swaying legs. Despite his bulky frame, a too-large leather jacket came down mid-thigh, worn over a dark blue shirt. His hair was buzzed short, and all his emotion was shown in his dark-chocolate face and the movement of his body.

Eyes closed in confidence, his right foot came down, toe first, and his heel snapped left once, twice, three times. He spun around completely, fingers flung outwards on his left hand, Walkman again his chest.

The man jived and bucked his hips, and kept within that little patch of pavement. A kick left with the right foot, a step right, back, left, another spin around. He did the moonwalk, and from the sound his shoes made against the pavement you would have expected skid marks on the cement.

Every now and then there were a few spectators, people who stood and watched, both on the ground and from up on the Gallery. People snapped photos and spoke to each other under their breath; they were amused, confused.

If you had walked past him you would have seen the front of his shirt was dark with sweat.

breakfast.

The boy had seen her, of course. He was staying at a hotel with his family- and over a day of that would have most teenagers begging for any kind of social interaction with similarly aged people; even if it was only imaginary.

Having only seen her, he wasn’t ready for the second of eye contact that sprung up on him when he caught her face-to-face, standing by the buffet table. He panicked. Though to say that that was his initial reaction wouldn’t be entirely true.

She had straight, blonde, perfect hair. Her big, brown eyes were rimmed with eyeliner, and they stared straight back at him. Everything about this girl screamed that she had found what she was looking for, whether it was on TV, or the Internet, or a magazine, and she had taken it, and owned it. And because of this, he felt an emotion that was a cross between disgust and disappointment, that halfway through that second, almost lapsed into anger.

Then he remembered panic, and the near-anger faded away into ambivalence and into that hair-raising feeling he should’ve been experiencing. Frantically searching his mind for some sort of action, he raised the right side of his mouth a fraction, raised his eyebrows, and walked off to where the drinks were, as slowly as he could.

And as the first half of the second was the disgust-into-anger and the second half was panic, so the next second was devoted to a mild curiosity. As he had turned away he had seen her talk to a dark-skinned Asian man. He wondered to himself. Does she know him? Are they related? Is she just asking some random guy something?

Walking back to his table with a plate in one hand and a glass in the other, he scanned the nearby tables, searching to see if she sat nearby. Sitting down, he ate, ignoring the breakfast conversation and thinking, thinking, thinking.

Finishing his food, he grabbed a key card and headed back to the room. Keeping an eye out, he was rewarded for his efforts when he saw her at a full table, on a lower level. Walking down the stairs he noticed that everyone else at her table appeared to be Indian.

He walked past them as slow and as fast as he dared. After walking through the doorway he came to a halt. He turned around, staring past the concierge-type person at the girl. Her profile was lit up by the bright morning sunlight streaming through the window, and she looked silent and out of place.

Heading towards the growing crowd by the elevator, he hoped that he would bump into her again; he didn’t know what he would do if he did, but- he wanted to. And never did.

subway.

Four people walk past, eager to be off the train and on to their business, or the one headed in another direction.

Walking left, and in somewhat of a hurry stomps a heft black man wearing a brown suit a little too large for him. It makes one wonder what larger man could have owned the suit previously, or how the tailor did such a terrible job. He is carrying a leather handbag, and rushes off to the escalator.

Following behind him, at a considerably slower pace, is a woman all in black. She is not one to skimp on the perfume, and all who are within three feet of her are offered the chance to smell her. It is an exotic, alluring odour, somewhat ill fitted to the overly curvaceous figure departing the station.

Coming from the other direction is a curious individual, clad in black t-shirt and jeans. Large black sunglasses take up much of his face, and a piece of folded paper sticks out of his front pocket. He marches forward, back completely straight as if in the military; the exposed skin is wrinkled, and weathered.

Striding forward with an awkward gait, the next person stares forward with a blank stare. His mouth remains slightly ajar all the while, and his left arm swings back and forth in time to his steps. Wearing a nondescript red shirt and jeans, his right palm lies on his stomach, never moving.