What a melancholic day Wednesday can be, you see, Wednesday is the “middle week day” and this may seem like something unimportant to you but it isn’t, let me explain to you why not. On a Wednesday morning you wake up with a mixture of happiness and boringness, happiness because on Wednesday’s you are just two days away from the weekend and boringness because they are still two more long days to go trough before the weekend arrives, so now I assume you understand why I say that Wednesday is “the” melancholic day.

You may be asking yourself now why do I take time to talk about Wednesday, the reason and answer to this is really simple, this journey takes place on a Wednesday morning…

As I was saying it was a spring Wednesday morning on Paris, on every single tree leaves were starting to grow as drops of water are thrown by clouds when it rains, birds were singing like trumpets are played in fairy tales when the royal family arrives to their palace, a soft veil, almost like silk to the touch of your hand, of clouds was still covering the city. You see, spring mornings have a different taste, a different smell, they taste like a bite out of heaven, like the vanilla toping on a hot muffin on a really cold afternoon with a hot chocolate with cinnamon; oh and they smell! Like a mix of jasmine and roses essence, like the smell of a bagget just taken out of the oven, like a dozen of chocolate cookies with almonds when their ready.

Paul closed his front door and started walking trough “les chapms elisee” street on his way to the corner café, where he used to go every morning to take his hot cup of coffee with a bagel and every afternoon to take his cappuccino with a piece of the best cinnamon bread in Paris. He stepped into the café and sat on his usual table, right next to the window from where he could see the park, with all it’s beauties, kinds playing with a endless grace, couples walking holding hands, street artists painting a Parisian sunrise, or playing violins expecting nothing more than the satisfaction of knowing that their tones, their melodies would reach someone’s ear and, for that, it was worth all the time and all the feelings.

He finished his cup of coffee and his bagel, as usual he asked for the bill and left quite more than what was charged, you see, Paul was a good-hearted person, he was humbled and honest, never asked for more than what he deserve and never did less than what he was expected to do. After paying, he went to the bathroom washed his hands and his face, came out, said good bye to Mrs. Dupand, the owner of the café, and continued walking towards his place of work.

This particular day Paul felt like walking and didn’t take the bus. He was also a sports person and seized every occasion to practice some, any kind, swimming, jogging, or like this time, just to take a walk. He was walking watching how every single person started their day, the garbage man holding every garbage can or bag to throw it into the garbage truck, some men hanging from some wires, cleaning the windows of one of the most highest buildings in the city, and like these there were millions or even billions of stories to observe, because you know, every single person is a story ready to be told, everyone of us has something to tell, we are just waiting for someone who wants to hear it.

Like this observing every single detail, Paul continued his way, he crossed the corner where the bus used to drop him and a boring air started blowing, yes that’s right, he was reaching work, and even tough he loved his work it was another long day sitting on his desk while outside were happening all kinds of interesting things, waiting for him to come and watched them, and this depressed him a little so he chose to cross the street and continue delighting him self.

The sign indicated that the street was clear for people to pass so Paul took a step forward and started crossing the street, suddenly a defining sound quickly reached his left ear, he turned his head to see where it came from and there they were, two bright lights that seemed to became one almost burning his eyes were approaching him, it was a truck, yes, the same garbage truck he had seen before, it hadn’t stopped on the red light, and the sound, it was a mix between the truck horn desperately announcing the unstoppable incoming moment and the touch of the tires with the pavement on an senseless attempt to stop it.

An endless instant of sempiternity, a place where seconds can easily become hours (a single moment to be hold trough eternity) passed by, now he could only feel the biter touch of the steel against his body, he felt how his wrists were crushed one by one, how his waist was almost parted in two, then he could fell his feet arising from the street almost like flying, his body flew away as a leave is moved by air at it’s willing.

He reached the street again six meters away from the truck, his eyes were open and his look was lost and slowly all the light around him started to banish imitating a sunset until there was only darkness. Now there was no sound around, you couldn’t even hear a whisper, It was like if for some reason the birds would stopped their songs, kids would stopped playing, like if the truck had never been there, like if it all had only been a dream, a really scary and real one, but just that, a dream and as in every dream it was time now to wake up.

Paul opened his eyes and it seemed as if he was reborn, everything looked new and exiting to him. Every single thing was familiar to him even tough he didn’t remember being there any time soon before. He was lying on a bed, a really small bed by the way, it was a wooden, hand-made bed, with blue shits, and on the sealing where hanged some airplanes of different sizes, colors, and textures. On top of the night table was a picture of him with a baseball on his hand and his father holding him. He started walking, observing every detail, the navy blue curtains, one on each side of the only window in the bedroom and from witch he could see the most beautiful garden, with it’s fountain in the middle and roses of every color planted everywhere, it sure was a nice view. After watching out from the window Paul decided to leave this bedroom that smell like poetry and felt like rain and continued his way trough the house that was slowly becoming more and more familiar with every new step he took; a while after he reached what it seemed to be his parents bedroom, there he felt nostalgic, the memory of his father’s death came alive and tears started pouring from his eyes. But something caught his attention, his father’s cloth was lying on the bed like he used to put them, back when he was a little kid, ready for the next day and ready for his mother to come and fix everything, the color of the tie, you know to make sure it matched the socks. Soon he recognized that scene and started remembering what was about to happen, as he thought the young Paul passed by running across the hall telling his mother to ask dad if he was ready to go out and practice, but then something unexpected happened, his father came out of the bathroom, dressed up and answer with his joyful voice, “Ready champ, let’s go”. You know in real life his father never got dressed and when Paul reached the bedroom the only thing he found was his mother crying next to the bed, lying on his father’s dead body, Paul didn’t understand why things were so different this time but soon he started enjoying this reality and letting the other one behind.

He continued walking and opened the next door, quickly a light blinded him, strong winds started blowing in every direction and then he felt, yes like if the floor had suddenly disappeared, he managed to hold on tight to a projection, when the light blurred out he looked down a realized he was hanging from what it looked as a building, he was on a seventh floor and down were dozens of people and cars waiting for him to fall, all the fear running trough his body suddenly became panic, his fingers were beginning to feel tired, the image of him falling was more clear than ever, “this is it, I am going to die” he thought, and closing his eyes he let go every finger on each hand. He descended almost floating, he wasn’t frightened probably because of the knowledge that there was nothing he could really do now and he just waited for unavoidable resolution.

The sound of a hit reached everywhere but the journey wasn’t quite over, Paul opened his eyes fearing what he might find, but no, he wasn’t dead, he was lying on the living room sofa and after making sure that he was okay he looked into the mirror, he was 10 years younger, there he was wearing a tuxedo, he didn’t understand why but by the time the door bell ring and he saw the young lady outside waiting on his porch, he understood it all, it was his prom night and that lady was Sandy, a girl that from that day on would become his first true love. Yes, Paul really got to love her, you know after they broke up he found it really hard to fall in-love again. So he said goodbye to his mother and went with Sandy to the prom, oh and how he enjoy this memory, they danced all night, then by eleven o’clock he went out to get the car, but there was no car, now he was on “les champs elisee” again, walking, as he was early that same morning, towards the café on the corner.

As he started repeating his early routine he began realizing there was no trick on this, no coincidence, it wasn’t a dream or a hallucination, there was no way of escaping this, so he drank his cup of coffee, ate his bagel and slowly closed his eyes, now there was darkness again but not the same defining silence, soon the frightening sound of sirens reached his ears, people screaming “help him, help him” with desperate voices, “oh my god, I killed him!” a man yelled out, Paul felt as a couple of hands moved him from one way to another, other’s touched him on his chicks like trying to wake him up. The swift revelations leave pass to the renewed dim light of the so familiar human awareness, first he felt his own body discovering that what he had felt as the crushing of his body where just some bruises that with time will finally heal, then slowly he opened his eyes and asked ¿where am I? As the voice of a stranger answered him “well my unfortunate walker you’re in “les champs elisee” on a strange morning of a rather beautiful Parisian day”.

“well” he said “I will not rest yet in this camps there’s much to do in a ordinary day ” and stood up proudly as everybody around him marveled why after such a traumatic events he was still smiling, finally one of the people surrounding him question him about his smile and he calmly answered “come death so slowly that I can see you coming for a pleasure such as dying will not be given twice in my life” and after a second he added “there’s no such thing as love or fear, just a fair dream of which a have not yet been awaken”