While You Were Sleeping by Susan Isla Tepper

I bought a quilted jacket the color of limes which didn’t suit the UK, at all, being autumn and so much rainfall.

Paris a day later wearing the lime felt decadent; moving at a clip down du Bac while you were sleeping, crossing the crazy pedestrian circle onto Pont Neuf bridge, gypsies working the bridge hard.

Stepping off, hanging a left along the museums, the trucked in sand sur La Seine was pretty dirty by then, but the gypsies had transformed in pastel dresses and bleached-blonde hair, and seemed to be everywhere.

An old couple out for a stroll, she tripped in front of d'Orsay, the uneven cobbles, this proper lady fell down while you were sleeping, tears and blood smearing her make-up as she tried to keep up a good front.

Of little help, her cluck-clucking man; as if a mere baguette hit the ground. Concerns of mine addressed by him in French: She will be OK.

Rising like smoke were thoughts of you, tucked in the boutique hotel, and how I might slip on uneven cobbles, ten years ahead, while you were sleeping.

Susan Isla Tepper is a twenty years published writer in all genres. Her current project is an Off-Broadway Play on the subject of art and life.