:: Carbon dreams ::

The train hurled itself into the Gare de I'Est station like an acrid glob of spit from a cranky old man. Our train had torn through the Austrian-German-French countrysides like a languid slug in a metal cocoon: it was now a mauve-coloured morning, and the sky was a tensed canvas of spring-winter pigments, and―

'We're here,' T said, eyes shining―exhaustion, excitement!―'we're in Paris.'

It didn't look like Paris, not at first; the train station was non-descript and dirty, and the mad jumble of foreign voices mingled with the philharmonic bustle of activity into a triad tune of noise.

But we were there. I was there. In Paris. With or without you.

Paris was the dream of old by the very young; we were barely out of our teens, and the future―our future―was to be a glorious utopia of infinite possibilities. Paris. You. Me. 2007, remember?

Ah, numbers, pledges, the memory of your kiss―all blown to fractured atoms by the Parisien wind. This morning, today, this March, this year, I'm here, with or without you.

I ached, but not with grave romantic sentiment. I ached for our ruptured innocence, our plundered promises, our crippled couplehood―I ached with carefully administered dosages. The ache didn't dull my experience of Paris, it didn't demolish any bit of joy walking down the quaint little alleys of St Michel, it didn't dampen my awe of art at the Louvre, it didn't stop me from laughing and it didn't spoil my cheerful companionship with T.

But. As we strolled down Champ d'Elysee, amidst the Parisien poise, holograms of a parallel world flashed like remote demons through my mind. We could have been here. And here. And here. Walking down these same streets. Sitting at the same cafés. Watching the same sun set behind the Arc d'Triomphe.

Holograms. Smoke and mirrors. You are far away now, and we are a dissipated past. But no matter; Paris, my dear, is still the sultry, sensuous mistress of Europe I've always imagined it to be. With or without you, the Notre Dame still stands with the same saintly dignity. With or without you, the Louvre is still a wondrous home to history and art. With or without you, Paris is Paris, and the reality of me being there―without you!―spurred the wheels of memories to a broken stop.

I didn't need to look for the metaphysical symbol to know of its existence. Goodbye.