Marketplace

The rain began before anyone had decided what the night would mean. It came softly at first, touching the stone and withdrawing, then settled into its work, steady on every surface. In Nice, where a woman named Vilel was, it carried salt air, jasmine, diesel, and frying seafood. Vilel is someone I have come to care for deeply, someone I have fed and sat with and worried over from a distance. I knew those smells because I had met them there before, but rain on stone was new to that place when it reached me. It made the distance feel less like a wall and more like a room with another door in it.