If I Can't Have Easter Eggs, I'll Settle for a Magic Carpet

Monday 13 April 2020

Today is Easter Monday, but that's only what the calendar says. Although chocolate stores might have been allowed to open this weekend, there are no Easter eggs where I’m staying. My only chocolate exists in the form of almond milk and Nesquik, the latter to prolong my time spent awake.

Outside I can see a woman standing in a garden. She’s standing among some trees, almost as still as them. She reminds me of some others I saw standing in their gardens a fortnight ago. They watched me as I passed them by on the way to the supermarket. Their pose looked like a scene from Nostalghia, where some children and animals are standing in an open field as a Bach piece begins playing. The scene was a memory the protagonist had of his past life in Russia, before he found himself in Italy.

The woman is no longer in that spot, but not far from where she was I can see a Persian carpet dangling from a window. Someone has left their carpet to blow about in the breeze, allotting it more time outside than the average human. If only it were infused with magic, and keen to take me on a ride above Paris. I'd command it in an instant.

On the balcony of a nearby building, a man appears to be reading a novel. There are fewer people on the balconies today than yesterday…