Flash Fiction (Paris)

Bone

“Conquered”, Francois thinks to himself as he finishes posing the new skeleton of the Nesophontidae, commonly known as the extinct West Indian shrew. His white mustache curls upwards and grazes the bottom of his bronze eyeglass frames, his eyes squint, skin near the eyes folding in on itself like an accordion. He looks over at the others that people before him have sculpted back to life: the wild Urus cow, the Hyracotherium dawn horse, the Archelon sea turtle. Their skeletons smirk in the witching hour light at him, beckoning life to be brought back to their dusty, brittle bones. Steel pins rammed through their joints, the others before him have taken pains to make the dead seem lively. A clattering is heard from the Triassic section of the museum, all people but he have gone home by now and Francois turns, begins walking cautiously towards it.

The Allosaurus crosses the doorway in the lessening light. It has grabbed a sheet from the light-sensitive exhibits and wrapped it around its bony waist, holds it with each little limb’s three curved and pointy claws. Looks right to Francois, with a ‘Hmph’ lifts its massive chin up, saunters out of sight. The Josephoartigasia Monesi mega-rats tumble into one another playing tag, weaving in and out of the piles of toppled bones left in the wake of the Allosaurus. Francois is not amused. With squeaks of ossified glee, they disappear into the plastic bramble lining the Brontosaurus exhibit. The Brontosaurus is not there. It’s bobbing head crosses the window frame to the right from outside. It casually dines.

Francois moves closer, sees the sun setting over the city of Paris, suddenly hears the pounding of repetitive beats upon the centuries-old wooden floors. Faster they get and he turns, only to see the three pointed bulldozer head on the Styracoaurus headed straight for him, dives to the side into the glass casings of mutated baby human skulls. Shattering glass goes everywhere, the Styracoaurus can’t stop and continues on, through the wall and into the gardens of the City of Love. The baby skulls all turn downwards and look at him, begin to talk amongst themselves and cackle. Francois gets up, shakes off the shards of glass, regains his dignity.

The twisting of metal, crashing of glass and bones, sparks begin to shower down. He looks upwards to the prehistoric-themed fresco, sees six Pterosaurs dangling upside down from the broken chandelier on the ceiling. Hears them squawking until without warning, they are brutally smashed against the wall by the head of the beast herself, the female Tyrannosaurus Rex who has risen with a vengeance. Their bones topple to the floor below in cacophonous chaos. The floors fill with the blood-curdling shrieks of the newly-awaken. Within ten seconds, she is alone but for Francois who has now wet himself. She turns her head to the side, glances at him with impunity. Begins opening and closing her jaws lined with 60 dulled teeth, clicking her claws against her ribs. Scratches her head with her segmented tail and stops. She looks to the left, to the right, up, down and then to Francois again. Runs suddenly to the cafe on the outer perimeter, comes back with a table and a chair dangling from her tail and throws them down to the marbled floor. They rattle and settle. She carries a bronze candlestick in her left claw, a lighter in her right. Sets the candlestick down, lights the candle, takes a deep breath and sets herself down on the wooden presentation slab near the table. Peers over at Francois. He looks back. She lifts her claw, beckons him to come nearer, sit down. The romance has begun. Her, so empty, yet so graceful and powerful. He, a man of many interests, filled to the brim with dusty particles from his passion. Both of them, old.

As the moon comes out, shining through the circular glass windows of the natural history museum, La Vie En Rose by Edith Piaf saunters into the hallowed halls, fills their imaginary cups with deep hues of red wine. The night is long, their love is new, and they have just begun.

Chagal: Palais Garnier

The red velvet seats, the gold trim, the cherub statues, marble-lined staircases, brightly-light chandeliers, the rounded corners, subtle details and he looks up. A cacophony of color, an explosion of dreaming images, slumbering characters of women and horses, village scenery reminiscent of Chagal’s home village of Vitebsk in la Russie. The cube, the symbol, the Fauvistic, the surrealist: flowing, syncopated madness through the innards of the frenzied palate. The painting screams within the walls of the 19th century Palais Garnier, livens the sterile air, evokes chaotic and sporadic yearnings from above, lining the worn stage with fattened strips of buoyant agitation. Pictures are snapped, tourists come and go. Communion is held.

Quiet. Listen as Mozart’s “Jupiter Symphony” leaks from the images 70 feet above. The ghostly shadows of the corps de ballet continue to dance upon the walls. Singers and musicians, dancers and artists everywhere sway to the movements as Chagal’s paintbrush conducts the piece to our moment in time. Wagner and Ravel, “Der Ring des Nibelungen” and “Bolero”, peel themselves from the chromatic dispositions, lay themselves comfortably within the strings of Apollo’s lyre and play stringed accompaniments to the Parisian’s roaming far below.

The chandelier dims, the skyward musings by Chagal are quieted. Muted scuffling as the players resume their posts and composer’s batons are locked in cases of gold-leaf and ivory. French oak doors creak close, the marble sighs antiquity, Chagal smiles, reposed. Till another day they wait, scheming prismatic brilliance.

Le Marais: 6 Train

Humid air washes down and over him after the rain, slinks into the metro below with him, hand-in-hand. Boarding at Charles de Gaulle Etoille directly under the Arc de Triomphe, headed southbound to Chevalret. The faces of Paris seem less daunting after NYC, less directly confrontational and speak more of internalized tragedy and existential interrogation. He looks out to the yellow and red wires lining the metro walls. Twish-twish, twish-twish of the wheels below. Past metro stops. People come, people go. The train glides over the Seine, the Eiffel tower flashes across the cloudy afternoon sky to the right. Bir-Hakeim and the metro plummets and he is traversing centuries of sedimented history. The dreams of Paris twist upwards through the entrails of the city of love. Music resounds from deep below as men hop on with Arabic beats. The lights lining the algae-ridden walls bounce off of the black rims of his glasses. He rides silently, creeps towards home with clarity. 5 more stations.

Foreign and Familiar

Traveling to a land of the foreign and familiar rattled his brain, caused dissonance in the everyday operations of life. To think at one second that he knew what was around him was his first mistake, the next moment the streets and buildings exploding into stratified histories completely unknown to him. He listened to people speaking, understood naught but a few words here and there and felt again the overwhelming feeling of complete isolation, the ebbing anxiety on the fringe of existence. To travel the lands with foreign words is to become infantile once again, emasculated, thrown into the effervescent existences of pure joy and wondrous fear.

Gargoyle Nights

The rain pours from the weathered mouths of the algae-ridden gargoyles high above. He watches them in the early evening light, wonders what they are thinking and what sights they have seen from atop the Notre Dame. He pauses, thinks he hears them speaking to him, realizes it is just the muffled cries of children from along the Seine. Slowly he looks down to his emboldened espresso, breathes deep, and takes another sip. He thinks of how many years they have been there, watching over Paris, how many years they have endured. All around him, the foreign and familiar waltz along the cobblestone streets. Espresso and cigarette smoke line his mouth, live up to the stereotypes of Paris. He contemplates the youth of America, how little it has progressed in its young life, how so much of its existence is backwards and works against its people’s quality of life. He quietly thinks of moving to Paris, wonders how he would make it work, takes another sip. All his prior views of Paris from his trips there in his youth melt away, he enjoys the hospitable company of their host from Tunisia, listens to the gliding cars along Blvd. Saint-Michel, sees the vendors closing their covers, lining up their books, and covering them with plastic for the long rest before the new day begins.

Paris is another place, another city like so many others. The people, although of a different language, are people nonetheless with dreams and aspirations, problems and annoyances not unlike any others. The cultural differences that many claim to be clear differences worth separating French from American are merely different choices from the same pallet of cultural choices, decisions on how to live life. On this quickly darkening night as the last espresso drips from the cup to his lips, he knows that although so many love to separate and cordon off particular cultures from one another, such differences exist only as a long-washed dream, a sense-ridden ride down the pathways of what is possible within the purview of humanity. Choices. He thinks of this in light of the watchful gargoyles. The rain has stopped, their mouths now dry. The city pauses in beams of spotty moonlight shooting downward from the spaces in between the drifting clouds.

The B Train

Charles De Gaulle airport shrinks in the distance as they glide along silently in the B train splashed primary red, blue and yellow headed to St-Michel Notre Dame. The accordion music drips through the fingers of the Algerian man looking for change. Edith Piaf, La Vie en Rose, and its suddenly just like the movies. Rocking back and forth, passing the rainbow graffiti of the children and Parisian gangs on the concrete walls separating train tracks from homes, the red Spanish tiled roofs and failing walls of the lower-income homes of the Parisian suburbs: it all floods in and rests itself on his jet-lagged brow, passes by in surreal, dream-like fashion, a blur of colors and senses that he imagines he may forget once rested. The Drancy stop comes and goes, makeshift sandbags piled high on the platform sides and tall, skinny trees droop to the right, their leaves melting into golden brown. Their bodies marked by the pains of last winter cringe for the cold weather to come.

Ebbing tiredness shreds the backs of his eyelids and the beating of his temples rolls Bongo-Bongo through his brain. Le Bourget and the income starts to rise with better apartment complexes, cleaner streets and nicer clothing. He closes his eyes and the images of forgotten rural America as it is passes by by the Amtrak trains plays repetitive beats to the universal story of the tread-mark tracks of trains through neighborhoods.

He opens his eyes. The accordion exits. An Iranian man donning dark glasses and torn gray jeans gets on, flips on his beat-box of Arabesque-musings that drift through the crisp Parisian morning and the white, weathered man to his right turns his hooked nose and downward-curving lips to the man and scowls. The train chugs on past Gare du Nord, Chatelet Les Halles, the tiredness sweeps in like a vulture and picks at their last remaining energies and they are there: St-Michel Notre-Dame. The next five hours are marked by smokey cups of espresso as they wait to find a bed to rest and their lives and the Notre Dame blur together like a Pissarro painting unleashed.