Jean-Marc was French. He stood six feet three inches, had a long face and nose, and spindly arms with knobby elbows.
Voves was a small village where most men were five feet even, stocky, with short arms and a space between their front teeth. So as Jean-Marc stood in que to buy his baguette and vin rouge, he soared above his compatriots, as a beacon of genetic drift.
On grey April mornings I would walk by his house, with its shutters retracted in the lilac mist of dawn, my footsteps echoing against the stucco walls. The road was calm and gleaming, as my neighbors slumbered in the heavy air of dream.
Claude's chair.
And on those warm Saturday mornings when I would open my bedroom window to let the morning air flow across our white-night duvet, I would sometimes see him laying in his garden with his long arms stretched in Christian resignation, his tiny wife Jo helping him to his feet, whispering, "Ses ailes de géant l'empêchent de marcher".
Join In
Comments (0)