One dream in Paris

6. The grape candle (Madara)

I liked walking.

I knew it didn't suit me, really. When I was hanging out with someone and they stopped at the bus station to wait for a bus, I turned to them.

"Can we walk?" I'd ask.

They would look at me with a surprised expression.

"Walk? You?"

"What?" I would ask, irritated, even then. Even Before Everything Happened.

"You just don't seem the type."

I didn't care what type I seemed. I walked anyway. Now, I walked with my hands in my coat pockets, my shoulder bag with my gym clothes slung over my left shoulder. When I was a boy, my mother had always begged me to stop wearing my rucksack only on my right shoulder or my back would become twisted, she said. She also believed basketball players were tall because they played basketball, because they stretched their arms up to goal, which was why I'd never taken her seriously about the rucksack thing. I had shifted rucksack shoulder from time to time anyway, just to keep her happy, a habit that had persisted even if I had stopped growing a long, long time ago and thus my back could not get twisted.

I changed shoulder.

Mother...

As I became older, my understanding about how much she'd suffered had deepened. We had a good relationship, especially now when she had broken contact with my father since he...

I used the tag to unlock the front door of the apartment complex where I lived, the steel plate that read the tag a strange detail on the old, beautiful building, took the stairs up. I just dropped my gym bag in my hallway, then immediately went out again. The wind was pleasant against my face, whispering the promises of the spring to come.

I hoped the wind would keep its promise.

I walked through the bursting streets of Paris, past restaurants and shops and art galleries, past elegant people in their twenties on shopping trips and elderly couples celebrating ruby weddings, further and further, until I reached an area with picturesque little houses with gardens lined by a small leaf forest. My shoes echoed against the tarmac, lonely. At the end of the street, I reached a little path that went to the cemetery.

I felt my entire body relax as I entered the large but beautiful cemetery, that was more of a garden. I didn't feel anxiety, only relief and of course a deep, deep sadness. But that sadness followed me wherever I went. The cemetery was not to blame.

I walked to the end which took a good ten minutes, walking along beautiful headstones and lanterns on urn graves and bushes that would be beautiful in spring the wind was so pleasantly talking about. At the end was the memorial grove where me and my mother had decided to spread his, later her, ashes.

It had been a tough decision. We had wanted a grave at first, something that we could gather around to remember her and talk about her, but at the last second decided against it. We both knew she wouldn't be able to stand the thought of us standing over her remains to cry. A memorial grove was much better. There, her soul was free to escape if she couldn't stand our sorrow that day. If she got enough of our shit. I smiled, imagining her spirit chastising us.

"I've gotten enough of your shit!" her spirit said, turning around with a flick of her long hair, walking away.

I stood at the memorial grove, looked at the beautiful statue of the angel watching over all the dead that had been spread there, turned into angel dust. The angel statue was surrounded by a wide, half-circle stone bench, and behind it was a beautiful little garden that was breath-taking in summer. Out of my pocket I took out a small candle that was grape scented, her favourite, and placed it on the back of the stone bench, where others had already placed their gifts for their dead beloved. I took the box of matches I usually had behind my curtain, next to my cigarettes, out of my pocket, and lit it. That was enough. No flowers. No lantern.