It’s Thursday in Paris, and the headline on CNN is, “France Told to Prepare for Outbreak Like Italy’s.” I’m waiting for Young Reluctant P. to get home from school on the crowded metro, which is a germ-fest under the best of circumstances, and I’m wondering for the umpteenth time what made us decide to leave our great life and great friends and family in spacious, green, sea-swept California and move to such a dense, noisy, chaotic and very inland city, where personal space is hard to come by.
All day the workers have been drilling and jackhammering in the apartment above me, as they do every day. It’s 4:22, which means they’ll be going home soon, and the drilling will be replaced by the screaming of les petits elephants, which is a welcome substitution, and the louder, angrier screaming of the four little elephants’ impatient father, which is not welcome at all.
Over at my regular website, MichelleRichmond.com, I provide a new, unpublished short story–both a text and audio version–to subscribers once a month. Since this month’s story is about Paris, and was written in this very apartment, in the din of the drills and amidst the uncertainty of the spreading coronavirus, I thought it would be a good fit for The Reluctant Parisian.
You can listen to the story below. If you want to get more fiction (which is usually a different beast altogether than what I do here at The Reluctant Parisian), you can sign up for free monthly story here.