The Melting Minute

The decent into the clammy cave of the Parisian underground. Running on my tip-toes down the cold steps and quickly glancing at the signs to make sure I’m heading the right direction. I look up at the digital board – NEXT TRAIN 4 MINUTES – fuck, I must’ve just missed one. I stride up the platform; edging away from the bearded, pot-bellied man who is licking his lips whilst glaring down at me. I try to be subtle, it hardly matters. I glance up again at the waiting period – NEXT TRAIN 2 MINUTES – man, that went fast. I pull out some gum, check my BlackBerry and push my sunglasses back up my nose. Then the air is rustling in anticipation, the walls reverberating, people start shuffling forward. That was never four minutes! But here it is. My carriage awaits me.

I release myself with the crowd onto the stone floors at Concorde, looking for the signs for Chateau de Vincennes. I’m heading back to St-Paul for some thrift stores, cocktail bars and hunk-spotting. NEXT TRAIN 1 MINUTE – before I know it my metal steed has ridden in once again. I begin to wonder about these metro minutes. These Parisian metro minutes which pass faster than any other. Not wasting a second for the time-conscious Parisians, we must move fast, nothing can get in our way – not even the Grand Master of Life himself. I swear it’s contrived.

After rattling my last cent out onto the counter of coiffer, I march down to the Seine. The sun is beating down on us like a thug in a backstreet of Brooklyn. I come across something I never thought I’d see. A sandy bank, not far from the Louvre, where people sit and... relax. They have friends, or maybe just a book. They dangle their feet over the edges of the river wall, waving at passing tour boats. They take photographs. They just sit. I joined them in their hub. Hours passed and not once did I get a book out, reach for my phone or listen to an I-pod. I just dispersed into pockets in the air, in that light, fresh air.

Knowing I had to get back to feed the dog, I started back. The evening passed slowly, I wanted it to end as I couldn’t escape the nothingness that consumed the empty nights. I had nowhere I dare go, nothing to do. Analogue laughed, day ain’t coming sweetheart.

I realize our harness is in a constant state of flux, as fluid as the water in the Seine.

The great Dalian minute never felt more applicable, than when spent at the vendor of France. The minute. The token life gives you to squander as you wish. Put it in your pocket and run, run as fast you can and you’ll find it will slip out. Sit and cradle it, like a cold beer in the hot summer and it will melt through your fingers. Put it in a cupboard and save it for a rainy day, but it will become moth eaten and weary. So you might as well spend it, be profligate; it’s the only way to make it last forever.