A Heart Among Ink and Flames

Part 20

  "I think the more important question is why were you running so fast?" Complained Camille, hands braced on her knees as she finished dashing after Rem.

  Crack! They all jumped, Remy had taken a hammer from the Cathedral renovation and hit the sign so hard that it shattered into a million tiny fractures so thin that they looked like glass.

  "What are you doing!?" Sam cried, trying to wrench the hammer out of Remy's hands.

  "Trust me, I'm not insane; famous last words, but seriously; the sign doesn't need to be in one place, it's not like some museum artifact or something that's going to lay in dust forever in another bookstore. It deserves to be free, like how the bookshop was. It would want to be scattered by the wind, fly to even the narrowest and dreariest parts of France, it has always been a part of people, and it still deserves to be. Not just locked up in some musty room that people maybe look at once a year. It still deserves to see the happy, the heartbroken, desolate, bright, filthy, and whatever thousand other feelings that people experience in Paris, the city of lights.

  They started mutely at Remy for a second understanding the words that had just been uttered. It made sense, it had seemed wrong to Marci, Sam, Louis, and Camille to just keep the sign whole and put it somewhere lonely in isolation. But they didn't know that smashing a sign into a million pieces was what they needed until they saw it.

  "I agree," Marci said, taking a shard and tucking it into her back pocket.

  "Same" Sam replied, this time tucking the piece into her bra because apparently she had no pockets. "What?" she raised her hands defensively. 

  "Nothin'" Louis smirked, taking a sliver. They all took one and then they put the rest of the pieces into a tote bag and carried it back to Sam's apartment. At ten'oclok that night; when the wind was blowing fiercely, chilling the tips of their fingers and turning their ears red, they stood out on the balcony and unleashed the shards into the twinking sea of stars. There they watched as shards and fractures flew undivided toward the unending horizon like birds soaring through the sky.

  The next day in the news, a small headline that didn't particularly gather anybody's interest read the words 'Strange Wooden Material being found all around France, People Coming Together to Connect the Pieces'. Even today, if you walk around the hilly French countryside, you can still find shards of what was once the bookshop, and if you're lucky, you might even find a letter.

Bibliography

McQuiston, Casey. Red, White & Royal Blue. St. Martin's Press, 2019.

Proust, Marcel. À la Recherche du Temps Perdu. 1913. 7 vols.

Proust, Marcel. "À la recherche du temps perdu." Book Quote. "Giants, immersed in time". 7 vols. Book.

Stanton, Brandon. Humans of New York. St. Martin's Press, 2013.

Schubert, Franz. "Ave Maria''. Lyrics to "Ave Maria''. April 1825. Study.com, .

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I can't thank you enough for anyone who read even a single part! This was the first story I've ever written and it means so much to me! I hope everyone has an amazing day and thanks again!