That time I wrote a story for the Bridport Prize at the Shakespeare & Co.

Before we all started going shopping wearing a mask, I went to Paris. I sat at a table looking at tourists climbing on top of each other and peering between the construction site fences. All of them trying to snap a photograph of Notre Dame. Notre Dame, she got a bit burnt last year, but she’s doing fine. Just a few scratches. She’ll be alright. Like the rest of us.

So I’m sitting at this table, drinking a hot coffee I got from the Shakespeare & Co café, I fish my notepad out of my bag and start working on a short story I drafted the weekend before.

My friend Camille wanted to celebrate her birthday and asked me if I wanted to fly over. A themed party birthday. Only a few intimate friends, she said. She booked two villas a couple of hours drive from Paris and invited more than fifty people for a weekend in the countryside.

The Saturday night I’m sitting outside. It’s so dark you can’t see if that tall shadow staring at is a drunk maniac or just a tree. Pop music coming out of the rented speakers inside with everyone dancing their headaches away. I’m swigging what’s left in my glass, which could have been my forth or as well my thirteenth. Halfway through the evening I lost count.