Paris 1968

Sunday Bloody Sunday

Edel sei der Mensch
Hilfreich und gut!
Denn das allein
Unterscheidet ihn
Von allen Wesen,
Die wir kennen.

Let man be noble,
Generous and good;
For that alone
Distinguishes him
From all the living
Beings we know.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Das Göttliche, On the Divine

Song: Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon by Queen

On April the 4th 1968 Liam Payne had set his alarm at 4:35 PM. Sunday was usually a relief for a literature student at the Université de Paris. Unfortunately this was true as long as they didn't have to work their asses off every Saturday night in a dirty, muddled, stinky pub as Liam did.

Liam stood up from his neat bed at exactly 4:36. He yawned while walking straight to the bathroom where he stumbled into the strangely opened door. If Liam had been asked about it, he would have 100% claimed that door was clearly the first sign of how miserable the day would have gone. Though at that moment he simply frowned and meticulously closed it.

He began his morning ritual with washing his face. That simple gesture had always made him feel as if he was starting off the day with the right foot. Maybe the origins of these thoughts were to be found in his military education or at least that was what Liam had always believed. If the man had been born just some years later, though, doctors would have diagnosed him with a not that mild obsessive compulsive disorder.

It was not that he had ever been particularly keen on achieving a soldierly carrier when he decided to enrol at the Academy at the age of sixteen, but overall it was the cheapest way to get a passable education.

Thanks to the Academy however he had developed an unusual love for poetry. His literary inspiration occurred to him in a rather strange way which Liam was always so eager to narrate. Actually, it had not been a poetic-worth experience if we put it in those terms, but nevertheless encouraged the man to attend the Literature course at such a prestigious University.

Shifting the towel he had used to dry his face, Liam was able to examine his facial features appearing on the mirror. Hazel eyes blinked back at him from the shiny surface before resting on a bushy beard and a big mole beneath, an imperfection which had always annoyed the man.

"Liam" he whispered gazing at himself attentively, "Liam" he spoke louder this time  "Liam" he nearly yelled as if demanding an answer from his mirror self. He usually didn't need a third reclaim to get his shit together, but that specific Sunday was already driving him insane. The fault was perhaps to be found in the humid air announcing an upcoming storm or simply in that damned bathroom door he had left ajar.

Although, a temporal was really approaching as Liam could ascertain from the tiny kitchen window. A fine Italian coffee, a specialty he had learned to reproduce during his previous year journey to the Country, was already boiling over the cookers when he decided to step out onto the small balcony jutting into the quay.

Song: Meet Me In The Hallway by Harry Styles

With one hand occupied by a mug of coffee and his gaze fixed on the grey cumulus far away in the distance, Liam lit his first and only cigarette for the upcoming day.

It was Harry's fault if he was now enslaved in
this bad and time consuming habit. Then again, of course it was not.

Liam breathed the smoky scent following the course of his thoughts back to the summer of '59 when he, reaching the younger lad sprawled onto the fine English grass beneath a big and circular tree, had found himself not anymore able to hide a certain burning feeling growing inside his guts at that fiery curly sight.
That night, the air surrounding a standing Liam was ardent against his skin and filled with crickets' voices. He could smell the odour of the humid lawn, sticky against his sweaty calves.