29 March 2020

Walked again with my dog along the boulevard Arago on an excremental mission. People are everywhere enjoying the warm spring sunshine, people with their dogs in tow, children on trottinettes, throngs of joggers, running as if they are running away from the pandemic. Fathers playing football with their children on the sidewalk. Mothers pushing prams. All these festive activities were redolent of that scene in Titanic when the musicians were playing their instruments as the ship was going down. I got close to the prison wall where the crowd was not as condensed. Prisoners at the top windows were shouting messages to each other from one cell to another in thuggish French. A middle-aged woman was leaning against the prison rampart taking selfies with her mobile telephone. She must have thought that the stone wall created a nice background to set off her figure. Another younger woman was going up and down traversing the length of the stone wall over and over again. I was doing the same but going in the opposite direction from her in order to induce my dog to end my misery and come up with the goods. We faced each other in the mid turn. The first time she looked stern and reserved. The second time she smiled and on our third encounter she almost laughed. We were both engaged in the the same silly pointless activity of going up and down the prison wall and she was amused.