The best thing I saw last year was in a Parisian back
street.
My girlfriend and I had just left a jazz bar in the Left Bank and as we walked down the alleyway that led back towards the river the back
door of the club flew open and a man strode out in a straight line that
intersected our path, before sitting down on a step on the other side of the
alley.
In the orange light I could see that his long hair was
distinguished by grey in places, his shirt was half unbuttoned, his suit jacket
still on. He looked expensive. He was muttering angrily under his breath.
In that very instance my girlfriend and I turned our heads
toward the door to see a tall and completely naked woman
appear. She was screaming something at the man, that I guessed she'd started screaming some time ago.
Like rabbits in headlights we paused mid-step and looked at
her with disbelief. Unabashed she continued to shout, right over our heads; our
presence not meriting so much as a blink of an eye. Her naked body lit up like an Italian statute.
A whore? A mistress? A wife?
Impossible to tell.
We stood there with the music from the bar accompanying the screams that passed all around us, but somehow couldn’t touch us, and for a moment we
were completely invisible amongst other people’s lives.
I thought to myself then, it doesn’t often happen like this.
Like in the movies.
