every man’s path

Sitting on a bench somewhere deep in Paris, right in the heart of the city, you’d never be alone. There would always be pigeons milling around. I’ve been just like that: sitting on my own and thinking about the past, dreaming of the future… then I saw the pigeons. They moved in closer. Once I had finished my sandwich they all went away and I understood that it was hunger that had drawn them in. They all left but one. One had remained and hopped a little closer to me. If I didn’t move he’d get nearer still. Then I considered it from another side: How about me a pigeon and he a man. We both have feet but I got wings while he has hands. Now it seems that we all got brains.

Such a strange scene and the sky, gradually darkening. Now, the setting wherein this scene occurs is a narrow Parisian side-street that crosses or runs parallel to such grand boulevards as Montparnasse or Montmartre. The whole day through, there had been a bright sunny sky and, now that the clear blue gradually became dark blue, and the lights turned on, it created a somehow supernatural effect. Such moments occur frequently during summer in Paris but they never last really long. Nor did it last any longer that specific day, but it seemed that time sort of stood still. And there was just one man who stood out from the rest of the people. All the folks surrounding him were cheerful: laughing and running to and fro, some of them embracing or kissing, some calling out for cheap merchandise... but this man walked straight ahead, not caring what was going on all around him. Perhaps cinema could best describe such a scene: people chattering and doing things in the background and one character walking alone in the foreground, camera aimed straight on him. Something like a G major chord playing on an organ, filtering through the sound of the chilly wind and falling leaves. Then the camera widens its view and you see him walk towards a great modern tower, the one called the Tour Montparnasse. The road he’s walking on seems never to end and he won’t turn his head to those who pass him by. His sight diminishes and everything gets blurred, everything but the high tower he’s heading for. And nothing can make him change his route, he chases the pigeons away.

I heard the beating of wings in the wind. The pigeon that was near me had gone. He was right for a cold wind reinforced the chilly atmosphere which announced winter. How strange, I thought, now Man is trying to be stronger than everything, trying to rule all with his scientific power, and yet Nature is always stronger.

© 2016 Matt Oehler