three manhattans and a cigarette.

I

The train came to a stop, the whistling melting away and getting replaced by the shrieking of the wagon wheels that got louder and louder as the speed decreased. Once it settled, he waited for all the other passengers to exit. They seemed eager – as if there was a silent race and the doors would close if they didn't get off with the first group.

They piled up before the doors like a herd that would fall on top of each other the second they slid open. They were taking down with them all the people who were getting on the train as well, since the train was now headed to Berlin.

He dragged his suitcase along with him across the platform, almost running people's feet over or jamming onto somebody that abruptly stopped in their tracks, giving him no time to react. He mumbled a sorry (too much out of reflex that he didn't have enough time to realise that he had said it in English) before brushing past them and somehow managing to not lose the suitcase in the process, resuming his way out.

It was expected of big cities to have everything be of that same size, to measure accordingly to that title. The stations were always meant to be busy, as well as the streets, the subway, the restaurants, bars, cinemas – everything had to be proportional to it, both in measurements and levels of busyness.

It was also expected (not to the visitor's pleasure, but because of experiences) to everyone live stressed, to walk faster without staring at their surroundings, which tended to be because they couldn't afford to rather than the familiarity of the city. They were also always expected to have somewhere to be, a place which, by their faces, they weren't eager to get to but had to get to.

He passed through the crowd – some standing with their baggage, some staring at the timetable screens in search of their train, some stopping to do god knows what that simply jammed the small path created by people exiting.

When he finally made it out of the station, the flow of the crowd made him struggle to orientate himself, as if the river kept twirling him around, distracting him from the fact that he could take his map from his coat pocket.

It was early November and the temperature was still weirdly yet comfortable, as well as unsettling in a way (it wasn't usual) warm. That day, however, it looked like it was about to rain; the clouds darkening in a threatening manner that had everyone who had to get out of the house debate whether to take an umbrella and the people who walked by to look up at the sky, trying to figure if they'd have time to get home in time. The wind that normally announced the entrance of a thunderstorm didn't give anybody much hope.

With his tendency to get cold easily, he buttoned the coat as he called over a taxi, thinking that it'd be a disaster if he got caught up in the rain with his (not at all impermeable) suitcase. The driver helped him get his luggage in the trunk. He settled on the backseats and gave the man (bald, in his mid-fifties, intimidating until he smiled and made you think that he probably has two kids that he loves with his entire being) the hotel address. He did it in a decently good French – not that first-year-university-introductory-french and an absent French father would get him further than that. I mean, sure, the accent lacked a bit, but the driver seemed to understand him.

When the driver turned on the radio, he knew they weren't going to start any kind of conversation, which he didn't know whether he was in the mood for or not. He had been quiet for the past four hours, excluding the whispered sorry's that he now realised should've been said in French, so he was craving to speak to somebody. In a way, however, he had grown used to being in his head and wasn't sure if he was ready for a social interaction.

The jazz station played softly as he looked out the window with that look everyone gets when they step foot in Paris for the first time, especially those who have watched every movie there is that takes place in Paris, which tended to be aesthetically pleasing, romanticising every aspect of the city and also about life in the city. It was that look of utter awe, amazement and adoration, slightly overwhelming at times depending on how much you had been looking forward to getting there, that instant love-at-first-sight with the city and the soft voice in your head telling you that if you didn't move there, you wouldn't be as happy as you could be.