The Northville Review
an online literary journal
North of Paris

bl pawelek

I pull on your arm and you finally follow along, away from Monet’s garden and toward the metro. You look back every now and then. The metro starts full and slowly loses its passengers as we head north. I watch the trees pass, and a three person band comes from another cart. They start their slow stuff.

“Is it this important?” you ask.

“To me, yes.” I state softly. Hopefully I will have a boy, and I will name him James.

The metro finally comes to a halt, and a few of us get out and walk to the cemetery gates. You ask about this one and that one. I shake my head, and we follow the marks on the other graves. Some in pen, charcoal, lipstick, blood, who knows what else. A definite smell of piss that travelled from the green metro, and the rain lightly falling – constant and painless.

With a flower stolen from Monet in your hair, you push on, non wanting and non caring. We weave in and out of the graves, you still so young, me unshaven and faulty. But we find it, stand hand in hand, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this will not last, we will not last, and these words will come.

I trace my fingers on the graved letters. The two French police watch me, and the kids off in the corner finish their wine. As I rise, you pull Rimbaud from under your shirt and place it on the grave. “He seemed to like him,” you whisper to me then mention the small bridge, the lillipads, and the green lake. “Can we go back?”

“I don’t think so. It’s too late.”

I pull her close and wrap my arms around her neck. I wish it wasn’t, but it was too late. I drop my arms and grab her hand. We start to walk away from them all, back to the metro, back to the final drinks at the Lapin Agile, back to the life before us.

About the author

Bl Pawelek is a dad, hiker and writer. He tries to show mad love to everyone, especially you.