It was like a breath of fresh air. The smell of youth, oxygen pixels, a movie she had seen so many time but that she loved, time after time.
There was nothing nostalgic or sad as she was browsing, head titled, weaving the moments, the season, the years, the homes where they lived, the countries where they had moved to.
Most she remembered easily, prompted by the images. But sometimes she would look at strangers, a place she had no recollection of. It was often sunny on the photos and they were leafs on the trees, flowers in the gardens. A string of summers, vacations, travels with seas and rivers and mountains and castles and statues in parks and on fountains, bas reliefs on the building. She would smell the summer air, the scent of the garden flowers, the iodine breeze of the ocean.
The rain had not stopped for days. Luke slept better on rainy days, window wide open. The regular soothing noise, the soft moisture in the air. In his lung and eyes.
He would forget his umbrella in places he could not remember. Offices and homes and shops may be. They all looked the same. His hair would curl slightly, little unruly hair on his temple. He had curly hair when he was a baby.
It had never occurred to him before that the rain made him look different. His wife Elisa would tell him: "You look different". She did not know why.
Read MoreAfter all those years, his hands have never betrayed him. They firmly caresse the pieces of wood, gage its hardness. He checks for imperfections, rugosities and cracks. He welcomes them, anticipates the meeting shapes they will draw on his creations. He designs around them. Under his hands, they become embroideries, vigorous veins, mysterious maps on the wood.
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Tom never sleeps alone. He always brings someone in my room. Tom is one of my regulars. But there is no pattern or apparent logic to his stays. He just appears occasionally. I do not know much about him.
Read MoreLe passé tressé avec soin et raideur
Caressant la fraîcheur des courbes d’un cou
Se faufile, perdu, loin et en pleurs
Read MoreI trudge through the soaking woods, the lush green stillness trembling in the afternoon shadows. There is no one around me, and the wild desire to pierce the thickness of my solitude is immense. Mother is gone, and I know very well that she will never come home. When she left, I think she was already fading away. It was something I never understood, and that is why I am standing in sheets of rain, vulnerable, and weaker than I have ever been, here in the unknown. The stories she would tell me! Mother, I mean. She would grab me by the waist, slip her hands under my knees, and carry me, breathless, to the old Moroccan rug next to the hissing fire. I think dreams were here favourite thing of all, but the harsh truth of reality confused her.
Read MoreMaria always chooses Room 27 when she visits her dad. For a long time, I assumed that her Dad could not host her. Maybe his flat or house was too small. But I understood after listening to a couple of conversations over the phone that Maria's dad was married with someone who did not want to meet his children.
Read MoreA Jean-Pierre Bellan, 25 Mai 2017
Le bleu d’un jean usé, bleu des pigments
Palettes éparpillées, ocres et carmins
La mer bleue d'Alger, dans le lointain d’avant
Le bleu des campanules, jardin après jardin
Read MoreIt was a small provincial hotel, in Marseille "vieux port". In the guides, they called it "hôtel de charme". Its original name was "hôtel Beauséjour". It was renamed "hôtel du Vieux Port". Room 27 remained room 27.
Read MoreThey would meet every Easter Sunday at Kew Gardens. Family tradition. The kids were running ahead, laughing and chasing each other. The adults were walking in a disorganised line, peacefully, and Emma would move from one to another.
Read More‘She is a fish’, Tom had said to Lea one day, looking at their little girl, Marine.
Marine had loved being under water since she was a baby. From the moment she was born, Marine’s bath was the most extraordinary moment. Marine would not mind at all having her head under water. She would open her eyes, her face covered by water, and giggle.
Read MoreThere I was, my feet curled around the windowsill, twitching as unpleasantly cold night air came to greet them. The window was three stories up, it was extremely long, rimmed in washed-away white wood. I had flung it open, shortly after settling the cream envelopes (I ran out of white ones) onto the large mahogany desk of my father’s office.
Read MoreThey had picked the wrong season. It was a rainy late autumn vacation. Julia lived on the East Coast before and the fall was the most beautiful time of the year. The colours and the trees. The softness of the sun. She remembered of times were her extended family had Thanksgiving lunch on the deck, kids playing in the backyard.
Read MoreMia decided to give birth in the inaccessible remote corner of the entrance cupboard. In the middle of Margot's most expensive shoes. Pierre and Margot had prepared a comfortable place in a warm corner of the kitchen with a stack of old woolen jumpers in a basket. Mia even seemed to like it and sniffed around the basket for a couple of days.
Read More-"Clare, we all die one day" Leon would say.
She found him particularly annoying in those moments. As if nothing mattered.
Since Alex was born, she could sense the shadows. At night they would come in the form of terrible stories; Alex would die in his sleep, swallow one of his toys, fall from his bike, be knidnapped whilts she was asleep. They were millions of stories, like dark birds flying towards her, keeping her awake and terrified.
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