This short lyrical prose I wrote in memory of S. Beckett, J. Prévert and R. Magritte

MEMORY OF THE FOURTH LETTER 

It’s the weekend... The dogs are frozen, everything is silent, and the pigeons are frozen above the trees in the park, in Montsouris Park. People sit on the grass like wooden statues, sitting around a tablecloth. On it are apples. People make the sounds of old trains. Instead of eyes, they have clocks.The park is like a bed, the city is a story, the people are sentences. It’s beautiful... Everything is quiet. Is the first letter G? No. Is the first letter D? No. It’s beautiful... It’s quiet in the park... In Montsouris Park. The sand is cold, the lake is green. And the travelers on bicycles are green... The sky is green. Only the grass is yellow. The grass... It’s beautiful... It’s warm, everything is quiet again. She comes without words. An old lady. Who is she? She remembers her first three letters. It’s a gift. It’s effort. A struggle. Her fingers are a cure. These are moments without fear. It’s beautiful... Beautiful... It’s warm... The walls are no longer painted with shame. Trash has become art. Thirty-seven pigeons play on the rooftops, jumping, singing, in Montsouris Park. Everything is calm. The scent of croissants spreads from the newspapers, the smell of Turkish coffee and lemon, the smell of Chinese food, the smell of muffins. It’s beautiful... It’s quiet... Time is no longer time, space is no longer space. Squares are no longer squares. Factories aren’t factories. But it’s beautiful... Quiet... Calm... Shadows walk without bodies, curtains dance without wind. In Montsouris Park, everything is slowed down through the cracks. A white rose dreams the music that doesn’t exist. A little girl sits on a bench. In her hands, she holds a plastic bottle, spins it, and laughs. She just laughs. Her laughter is a whisper of the past. The sky is cloudless. Cats turn, spinning in circles, looking for something, looking for a new sky. All the windows are closed, but flowers hang from their edges. A song can be heard, maybe a prayer. It’s beautiful... Quiet... Time has stopped again, spilled across the road like wine on a tablecloth. The old lady remembered. She remembered the fourth letter. She remembered the smell of mandarins and the ink. She remembered a glass full of sunlight on the childhood table. Everything is quiet... again... It’s beautiful... It’s beautiful... It’s silent in Montsouris Park.

Paris, 2023.