As in Ostend

On my way to work, when I leave my house, I first have to pass through a small alley, then the market square. There's a statue. As I pass by, it's barely dawn, and you can hear countless crows – a tiny effort of imagination and I think of seagulls, and this little girl, she reminds me of the sea, the English Channel or the North Sea, maybe even the northern one, yes, she's gray like the sky in Ostend, this kid, she reminds me of Bruges. After that, I pass through a narrow alleyway that feels like the Middle Ages. Then I get to the library, where before I'm back to reality, I dive into a book – never come down.

Note from March 23, 2019:

I'd never set foot in Ostend when I wrote this post, but the name of the town alone, the very idea of it, was enough to transport me, ever since my childhood and the famous comic strip Le Bal du rat mort. Arno's song, too, which gives its name to this post and is a cover – better than the original – of Léo Ferré. All this romanticism of greyness, of deserted beaches under pale skies, of sinister, sad and dirty ports, of beer and bistros with a luminosity as pissy as an episode of Strip Tease, and which was the marine and almost sympathetic counterpart, finally, of the cold wave romanticism in which I was immersed. I ended up visiting Ostend, amazed by the unexpected ugliness of its seaside hotels.