Dear Twilight Hunter,
You wake up and it is still dark, though the eerie purple city light shines like day would on another world through the up-slanted window. The endless, restless romance of the street has quietened just enough in the hour before dawn to make you uncomfortable. You can't help it, you're pulled out. You find yourself dressed, in the dirty, musty courtyard of your block of flats, tugging on the enormous green door, then out onto the damp street. The late-night card sharks have gone home, leaving upturned garbage bins and whole decks of miniature cards bent out of shape and soaked in the puddles. The sky is turning white up above, behind the seven-storeys and the oaks. You walk faster, you bump into the silent denizens who sneak out of alleyways, you are desperate to find an open space to see the dawn before it's all given away.
You arrive at Montmartre, or Montparnasse, or Champ de Mars, and you get the view, but really you've missed it. The true twilight is behind you, where you rushed and squirmed away, between the 19th-century stones, under the orange streetlight, a few feet above the ancient catacombs. It was in the whiskered stare, the bridge kiss, the ghosted bench. Paris's true dawns are never caught by the camera or on a height. The lens can only suggest a better mist.
You wake up and it is still dark, though the eerie purple city light shines like day would on another world through the up-slanted window. The endless, restless romance of the street has quietened just enough in the hour before dawn to make you uncomfortable. You can't help it, you're pulled out. You find yourself dressed, in the dirty, musty courtyard of your block of flats, tugging on the enormous green door, then out onto the damp street. The late-night card sharks have gone home, leaving upturned garbage bins and whole decks of miniature cards bent out of shape and soaked in the puddles. The sky is turning white up above, behind the seven-storeys and the oaks. You walk faster, you bump into the silent denizens who sneak out of alleyways, you are desperate to find an open space to see the dawn before it's all given away.
You arrive at Montmartre, or Montparnasse, or Champ de Mars, and you get the view, but really you've missed it. The true twilight is behind you, where you rushed and squirmed away, between the 19th-century stones, under the orange streetlight, a few feet above the ancient catacombs. It was in the whiskered stare, the bridge kiss, the ghosted bench. Paris's true dawns are never caught by the camera or on a height. The lens can only suggest a better mist.
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| Rue des Cloys 18 arrondissement |
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| Rue des Cloys 18 arrondissement |
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| Rue des Cloys 18 arrondissement |
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| Rue des Cloys 18 arrondissement |
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| Rue des Cloys 18 arrondissement |
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| Boulevard de Magenta 10 arrondissement |
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| Sacré-Cœur, Montmartre 18 arrondissement |
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| Montmartre 18 arrondissement |
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| Montmartre 18 arrondissement |
