Paris Burning: Part XI

Paris Burning: Flight is Freedom

Part XI

(Paris) The night went past when they should have shut it down and gone to bed; but the hours they kept now were like a family at a hospital death-watch. When it would end, they couldn't discern. Gathering together, sifting through the rubble, they hashed out details already known.

During their zig-zagged walk, holding each other's warm hand, gripping like a lifeline but also staring each other down, they discussed her leaving Paris, returning to America. Wine-stained lips expressed to the other how a split would rip them down the middle, or justifying it in the first place. 

Gabriel said, “We don’t split up as easily as you do…” Charlotte confessed, “my ancestors have been doing it for three generations. My dad, his sister, my sister, the uncles, hell. It’s a family tradition.”

“Maybe we can’t love,” she said. “But that’s so sad,” Gabriel replied.

They were different. Too young to realize that where they were unlike, or dissimilar, was where they fit together like puzzle pieces. Their families had contrasting ways of altering, unfamiliar methods of executing conflict. With immature priorities, too selfish right now to see how their unusual relationship might bind them for another chapter; instead, they came apart. 

“Work. We work. That’s for damn sure. We work!” “I’ll go back, and go to work. Study, make money, practice law, maybe some art. Gabriel, maybe I’ll be happy?” Wistful tears gently rolled out of her blue eyes.

Forlorn, he pleaded: “My heart is yours, Charlotte; it’s softer than yours, I couldn’t make the decision you’re making. It is not part of my soul.”

Most of the serious regret wouldn’t surface for decades; doubt planted like a small tree that would grow into a giant oak. Their special enchantment was more substantial and profound than their notion of love at this point in their lives, they were blind to it. And experimenting with this sort of ardor was reckless, presumptuous, like fooling around with hard drugs.

Charlotte: “I know Gabriel, I feel like I’m forfeiting mi âme doing this.” “Do you realize that? I don’t want to defend myself—I’m trying to define myself…”

Gabriel: “But if you give up your soul how will you make art?” She answered, but it was empty, “I’ll have to figure that one out.” She couldn’t speak to how long that would take.

I’m so fâché Charlotte! 

She replied, “Don’t riot, you’re not a tax protester—you’ve got no yellow vest.”

“Maybe I should leave Paris too.” “But where would I go?” “I’m a Frenchman!” They were exhausted and broken, and it was late; but neither of them were petty or belittling. The rioting comment was flippant, she didn’t expect him to compare her nature to the hurricanes back in Houston.

Smoke wafted through the air, sirens screamed in the night, and the CaféSociety changed forever. A peaceful summer they knew along the Seine dissolved into a cold, crisp, dark, winter of discontent. The city, like their relationship, simmered and popped with tension; she was determined by her will, and he was disillusioned by his love. She seemed practically gone, and he lost focus on art because of the vacuum developing in his heart. Paris crumbled before their eyes, and his dreams were now blurred, abstract, and vacuous. He went looking for a pencil.

There were “spaces” in his life, gaps in the story—white canvas, ready to be painted, or in reality blank for a reason. But why? What happened during those gaps? How many white pages can there be between episodes? He questioned himself, meditating on summer’s calm, anxious about next year. He longed for the stillness, the peace, but he felt the isolation, the loneliness, approaching, crouching at the door. Could he start another chapter without Charlotte? How would he fill the gap? He looked to the white; he could see the patterns of the Gods. Sharpening his pencil and going to work; he looked to the white.

(end)

-30-

Fibonacci Sequence

2018©fiction by Mark H. Pillsbury

[this last video talisman is dedicated to the real Gabriel & Charlotte, from Bruce & Bonnie:

https://youtu.be/ZTIu4UbkK94 all these short chapters are read together to say this...]

(Fair use of copyrighted work shown herein above is not an infringement of copyright law, 17 USC  Sec.107)

Part VII: The Journey

The Journey (from the storm chaser saga...) ©Mark H. Pillsbury

Image: Augusta Jones dress/Hilary

Jessica beamed walking down the aisle toward her eager groom, beautiful in an off-the-shoulder dress she bought for a steal in Dallas. Rick’s eyes moistened, not fully comprehending the significance of this day, they had come through so much to arrive at these nuptials. His storm chaser groomsmen grinned and poked at each other agreeing how hot she looked, genuinely happy for this couple they had known for so long, with whom they hunted the terrible twisters of Tornado Alley.

Hazy thoughts merged into one of their house together on a quiet Norman street: dogs yelping, mowers humming, children playing; steady suburban bliss for spouses beginning life together. Rick teaching at the University and Jessica working at KOKH on the weekends, the Tahoe traded for a Honda sedan and a babyseat; their journey ending up in the peaceful outskirts of a college town they knew well, with a conclusion this couple only dreamed of.

After years of dangerous, adrenaline-pumping pursuit of natural weather phenomena, Rick and Jessica settled down into domesticity and routine, eschewing a volatile, reckless lifestyle for one of patterns and predictability, consistency and certainty. They were happy together, comfortable with sameness rather than the adventure of life on the road in the face of death. This was a switch voluntarily made, trading wild mercurial love for marital oneness. Rick pictured himself holding his wife early in the morning, lovingly brushing her hair back over her ear, misty about lost opportunity even as the CRACKLE of the blaze snapped him out of his daydream.

Image: North Carolina

Clay yelled from the fire break, he saw an opening out of the closing circle of flames. Motionless, Rick was quickly rolling through might-have-beens in his mind as he and Jessica stood by the truck. Clay scouted the scene around their dead-end cul-de-sac: no roads, no turns, no water, no helicopter, no GPS, no cell phones, no laptop, no 9-1-1 calls, no fire/rescue teams, no knights riding glistening white steeds would show up where they were trapped whisking them away from peril.

They would have to run to higher ground, some refuge from all this dark, suffocating smoke and burning, oppressive heat.

Rick moved with resignation, sadly, toward Clay, pulling Jessica by the arm, wondering if his soft suburban fantasy would ever come true; gripped by fear that their escape route seemed to be through the a dark tunnel of trees, leading to an unknown destination of indefinite peril. Like devil’s throat off Cozumel, each team member follows the next, linked hand-in-hand, or hand-in-fin, restricted all around, unable to see, or stretch wide, pushing slowly through the passage.

The bed of straw, pine needles, dried leaves, and branches tamped down with each step, crunching and shuffling as they hurried down the trail. With dryness in the air and underfoot, it was understandable why wildfires consumed acre after acre of fuel-rich woodland. Clay led them through a winding journey seemingly going nowhere but at least they were leaving the fire.

photo credit: AP/ J.C. Hong

Rick’s instincts to path-through-plan nagged him as he dragged Jessica bouncily down the path like a rag doll lagging slowly behind, hitting saplings and trunks as if a pinball. While they hurried, Rick wondered if this maze was a question with no answer, a puzzle with a missing piece. His bias toward action included favoritism of maps and planned escape routes via radar tracking, so he was as frustrated as he was frightened!

Were they going downward in elevation, or did it just appear to Jessica that the plunge down devil’s throat this time happened in a dry hot land descending into a dark, smoky grave?

(to be continued in Part 8...)

©Mark H. Pillsbury (this work of fiction was composed on 19 July 2011)