Narrative #4

I have never been able to go to sleep early, as I always find the most sincere silence late at night. Since I have been living in Paris, I walk out onto the balcony usually around 1am when I am having trouble sleeping. It is there that I observe the people and apartments below ours in Montmartre. Most of the windows are black with darkness, some lit up by fluorescent French television, while a single apartment window across from ours commonly shows a woman reading the newspaper in her kitchen.

Down on the street are the movements of intoxicated individuals. What I experience in Paris after midnight is a view from my practically hidden balcony of an unknown Paris to most: a humble, real, unwatched population of Montmartre. I think the reason these "creatures" of the night interest me is because they remind me of this idea of the unknown... I myself can guess where they are coming from or where they are going but I dont really know for sure.

Last night I watched as a hooded man walked towards Rue Lepic in a drunken zig zag, like a kind of snail. He had no air of danger or aggression, he was just happily drunk eating some finger food out of a styrofoam to go box.

Up on my balcony I feel safe, hidden and free to observe the world through my own looking glass. Some walk down the street with purpose - other's merely wander. The top of Sacre Couer peeps up above apartment rooftops like a soft serve vanilla ice cream.

More characters I have observed on 7/1/2013:
A woman walking down the middle of the street, happily pushing her hair back behind her ers, smiling at a friend on the sidewalk, the black tails of her coat flowing weightlessly behind her body.

A drunk man opening the passenger side door of a green car, looking inside for 20 seconds, closing the door and walking calmly back to his friend (I assume) down the street. Now they are talking. Now he is stumbling back towards Rue Lepic, opening the door again, seems to be reaching for something. Before walking back to his friend, looks in the front of his car.

An older man comes out from the back of a large, white delivery truck. Carrying his backpack and a huge pile of folded white sheets, he walks up a side street.

The wetness of the gutter shines a street down, looking as if it's illuminated from something below it, rather, within it.