Deep Blue Hues (michaeng)

Chapter One - Paris

I sit down on the bench. With each passing day, my hopes sink lower and lower. The winter sun thaws the layer of frost, dusted like icing sugar on the park's overgrown grass. Although, there's nothing sweet about this lack of progress and the melancholy filter that seems to dull out all feeling. And in the harsh air in front of me, I can see each heavy breath I take. She loves the morning.

I reach into my pocket. 1.36€. Though this change (paired with about 20€ in my bank account) will have to last me the rest of my search, I know I'm not ready to go home yet. I shove the coins into my back pocket, simultaneously lifting myself off the park bench. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. I pick the third road to wander down while considering options that I can't use a children's rhyme to dictate: I get a job here, I ask my dad for money or I pack up and go home. There is one more option, I think, stopping outside the Bureau de Change: to use the money I have put away for a flight back to Korea. I carry on walking; it was a stupid idea.

I find myself walking down a cobblestoned alleyway, toward the somewhat familiar park littered with dog poo bins graffitied with foreign words. I've come in full circle. I begin strolling, defeated, in the other direction, when a small blue sign draws my focus. It depicts a black arrow, pointing to an old door I had ignored when passing it a few minutes ago. On the door, a handwritten notice displays thick grey writing. S'il Vous plaît, Entrez. I open the google translate app and hold my phone up to the a4 paper. Please come in. I push the heavy door open.

The sterile lights aren't what I had expected, nor the scale of the room in which I had entered. Colour splashed canvases spread up the walls. A lady greets me in French, I nod politely and walk past her, half dazed. My footsteps echo throughout the small art gallery, likely due to the height of the ceiling. I stride right up to one of the pieces: a photograph of a child on a swing. His arms reach out as if to grasp the setting sun, though the swing carries him further away from it. The piece is named 'The Hindering of Fun'. I take a few steps back to admire the image from afar, before being drawn elsewhere.

I see a girl. Her short hair is mostly covered by a mustard beret. I stop breathing. Her lips curve upwards ever so slightly in contentment. Each of my muscles freeze up, one by one. It's her.

Why is she standing in front of me? I've chased her across the world and she's here? She's close enough to touch, though a barrier stands between us. Close enough to hear, though no words can ever leave her mouth. Close enough to simply wave, though she cannot move. She is a photograph.

City lights glow against the deep blue hues. Her figure stands central, with her chin pointing to the fading sky. She looks as if she's soaking up the sun, but her face is lit up by streetlights. That awe-filled look she gives the sky, the one I seek. Nausea envelopes me. Her thin fingers loosely wrap themselves around three glow sticks. My throat closes and my mouth dries up until it feels like I'm swallowing sawdust. She is only a photograph. A photograph taken by me.

A small plaque to my left tells me the name of the piece: 'A Promise I needed to Keep'. I blink back tears. Photo taken by Son Chaeyoung. The space for additional notes has been left empty. She's been here. She's put my photo in a gallery, just as she had promised. Though she also promised me she would never leave me. I push the thought away.

I avert my gaze briefly towards the sound of voices, muffled echoes hushed enough not to be distinguishable. The French lady begins briskly walking back to her small desk beside the door, my eyes follow. The young lady she was talking to stands before a smaller painting, her back to me. I hadn't noticed her presence, nor heard the sound of her footfalls prior to hearing her talk. She pushes her dark hair behind her ear before fixing her mustard beret. My eyes widen. I snap my head back to my photograph. The berets are identical. I look back. She's gone.