I wrote another short story!

This story contains themes of grief, loss, PTSD and survivor's guilt. The narrative also includes references to drinking, chain smoking and war. Please take care while reading. This story is fictional, and any references to politics, including the CIA and a powerful figure in Tokyo, are also fictional.


THE SHUTTER

The shutter button sticks under my finger. Merde. My hand shakes—a tremor that starts in the wrist, snakes up the arm, becomes a quake in the ribs. The camera slips, thuds against my chest. Across the street, a baker arranges croissants in the window, golden and smug. “C’est parfait, non?” [Perfect no?] he calls to a customer. Bake a cake, Samir had said. His last wish, scribbled on a scrap of ration packaging. He’d never even tasted buttercream. I walk away.

The therapist’s office smells of artificial lavender. Her questions hang like smoke.

“Why the camera?” she asks, pen poised.

I shrug. “To prove I existed.”

Before, it was a blade. Samir used to joke that I’d marry the Canon. Now it’s a corpse weight.

She tilts her head—that look. The one Amy used when I lied about sleeping.

“Avoidance feeds stagnation, Julien.”  The bell goes off.

I stand, chair screeching.
“Next week” I lie.
Outside, I chain-smoke Gauloises, the burn a familiar penance.

Paris is too bright. November sun glares off the zinc rooftops, the Seine a blade of silver. I walk the quais with my hood up, avoiding eye contact. The city hums: tourists laughing on Pont Marie, the clatter of espresso cups in the Marais. Is this living?

“You’re alive, Julien. That’s not nothing.”
Amy’s voice, even in memory, is a bullet.

We met in college. I was a journalism major, she studied psychology, and she walked like she owned the world. It was a party, someone’s too-small apartment with cheap beer and worse music. I noticed her because of her shirt: ‘ The highest honour in journalism is being killed by the CIA" .  In a ridiculous font printed on an even more ridiculous tshirt, faded and stretched at the collar.

“You think it’s true?” I asked.

She arched a brow. “You think I care?”

But she did care. About stories, about truth. We argued about Hunter S. Thompson, danced around each other for months before finally, we gave in.

A horn blares—too close.
Too close.
The street vanishes. Dust. Heat. Metal shrieking. A different road, a different city.
My body jerks before my mind catches up—I throw out a hand, stumble back onto the curb. A car swerves past, the driver’s voice sharp, distant.
“Regarde où tu vas, connard!” [Watch where you're going ***!]
The ground tilts. My breath sticks. I taste iron.

Not there. You’re not there.
I squeeze my palm—nails digging, grounding. The pain cuts through the haze.
“Va te faire foutre!” [Go f*** yourself!] I snap, my voice too loud, too raw
The driver is gone.  Someone snorted.
A woman’s voice, half curious, half annoyed: “Ça va, monsieur?” [You ok sir?]
I nod. Too fast. My breath sticks. Not there. You’re not there.
Just me now, standing in the street, shaking.
Slowly, I uncurl my fingers. The scar across my palm—white against red.

The moment has already passed. The world moves on. The street hums with its usual noise—laughter, footsteps, the rustle of paper bags. A door swings open behind me. Warmth spills out, thick with burnt espresso. I step inside, rub my palm against my jeans, try to steady my breathing.

The TV above the bar flickers—PSG vs. Marseille. Scarves waving, a crowd roaring.

I swallow hard.

2019. Another party throbbed with Kronenbourg and sweat. Marseille’s keeper fumbled—GOAL!—and I vaulted onto the table, scarf a crown.
“C’est moi!” [It’s me]  I crowed. “I’d score that blindfolded!”
Théo lobbed a chip. “You? Who tripped over air in finals?”
“Tactical!” I grinned.
Later, gendarmes crashed the party. Someone yelled “Foutez le camp!” [Get the *** out!]—Run for it! And I did.

Rue Mouffetard blurred past in neon streaks, my lungs burning, my scarf flapping behind me like a war banner. I turned a corner too fast, slipped, scraped my palm on cobblestones. Kept going.

By the time I stopped, I was near her apartment, chest heaving. I didn’t know why I’d come here, only that I had.

I leaned against the wall, catching my breath. The building’s façade loomed dark and silent. It wasn’t like the movies—no open windows, no chance she’d hear me if I just called her name.

Then, because I was an idiot, I tried anyway.

“Amy!”

No response.

Instead, a light flicked on in the hallway. ***. Security.

I ducked behind a parked scooter, fingers fumbling for my phone. My hands were sticky with sweat and blood as I tapped her name.

The line rang. Once. Twice.

Then her voice, groggy and annoyed, “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“Uh—emergency?”

A sigh.

A few minutes later, the door creaked open, and she stepped out, drowning in an oversized PSG hoodie—navy with red and white details, the fabric slipping past her wrists. Her hair was a mess, her face unreadable under the yellow glow of the streetlamp.

She took one look at me, at my scraped up hands, and sighed. Again.

“Baka” she muttered.

I blinked. “What?”

She huffed a quiet laugh, stepping closer. Her fingers brushed over the raw scrape on my palm, the half dried blood near my knuckles. Then she held out her hand.

I took it. And I followed her.

I don’t remember how I climbed the stairs or how she pressed a damp cloth to my skin, her touch careful but firm. I don’t remember the sting of antiseptic or the way she smoothed the bandages over my cuts.

I remember my pulse hammering against my ribs, drowning out the city, drowning out reason.

Because at that moment, I knew.

I loved her.

"Paris a tout gâché" [Paris threw it all away]

The commentator’s voice cuts through the haze, sharp as a slap. My breath catches—I blink, the street, the horn, the scar on my palm dissolving into the present.

The café hums around me. Coffee cups clink, chairs scrape, someone exhales sharply at the screen.

I drag a hand over my face, rub my palm against my jeans.

I wish everything didn’t feel like a betrayal.

Her father was a History professor. Her younger sister played piano. Her world was normal… well, whatever was normal for the upper middle class. Until I learned about the other half.
Her mother was a ghost, a wound she refused to press on. But her mother’s father—he was a presence. A powerful man in Tokyo, with influence that reached further than I liked to think. One summer, he summoned her. She came back changed. Not broken, but reinforced. Like steel hammered into a sharper shape.

Later that day, Amy finds me in Père Lachaise, tracing the moss on Chopin’s grave. Her hair is shorter, dyed gunmetal gray. She looks like a storm.

“You missed your physio appointment,” she says tossing me a pain au chocolat wrapped in wax paper.

The air smells of wet earth and her jasmine perfume. I want to scream.

“ Are you done playing the saviour?...Your family… their connections..” I spit, crushing the pastry in my fist. “The Stone Emperor’s cold war era CIA connections–”

“It was a PMC.”  she interrupted in a monotonous voice, like reading off a teleprompter, but I was not finished.

  “....and the NOBODY they saved from a torture chamber in ***.”

She flinches. Good.

“You’d rather be dead?” She asked with a poker face. I hate it. She never used to have one.

“I’d rather they weren’t!” The words tear out, raw. A tourist family glances over, then quickens their pace.

Her phone rings. She answers sharply in Japanese: “Hai… wakarimashita. Chotto matte.” [Yes … I understand. Wait a moment]

I catch fragments—hogo [protection], modoru [return]—as she steps away. Her back is rigid. When she returns, her eyes are glass.

“They want me back in Tokyo” she says, voice flat. “.... think I’m wasting my time here.”    3 months. Our relationship lasted 3 months after the grand ancestry revelation and the golden chains that came along with it. Then I called it quits and left for my assignments and yet, we are still back here.

“Then leave!”  I bark, kicking the grave’s iron gate. “Go back to your gilded cage!”
She stares at me, then whispers: “I saved you because I love you. And I would do it again. You don’t love me, you made that clear before you left for— “ She falters. “... Still I…”. She paused. “Jules, I don’t need you to love me back. I need you to at least love yourself as you used to.”


The cemetery swallows her footsteps. She signed away her life for me and I will never forgive her for that. 

 My apartment in Belleville smells of mildew and the lavender detergent Amy insists on buying. She leaves the bottles by the door, never knocks. Nights are the worst. The dark presses like a hood. I drink cheap Bordeaux and replay the tapes in my head:

Samir humming Arabic lullabies as we hid in a drainage pipe.
Lila bartering with a smuggler for batteries, her laugh sharp as a knife.
Tomas showing me photos of his twins. “This one’s a journalist too” he’d say pointing to a gap toothed boy holding a toy microphone.

The camera sits on my desk, a hulking thing. A Canon C300—très professionnel, bought on credit. My father drove a forklift. My mother cleaned hotel rooms. I was going to carve my name in history. Now the lens mocks me.

I used to tell Amy I’d photograph her one day.

“For what?” she’d ask.

“My gallery opening.”

“Really, when?”

I never answered. It was a lie. But the truth was—I wanted to catch her as she was in the in-between moments. Before she became someone else’s version of herself.

Rue de Belleville on a rainy afternoon. The tabac owner nods as I buy cigarettes. Madame Chen sells me bok choy, her hands swift as sparrows. “Ça va monsieur?” [Alright sir?] she asks. I grunt. Amy would’ve bantered with her in Mandarin. She would have asked Madame Chen about her daughter’s football matches. Instead, I take my change in silence and step back onto the wet pavement.

The bakery is winding down for its afternoon break when I slip inside. The shelves are nearly bare—just a few baguettes left, some pastries behind the glass. I grab a bag of flour, some eggs, and a carton of milk. The cashier gives me a tired smile as she counts out my change.

Back in my apartment, I set the groceries down, shaking rain from my coat. The kitchen light hums softly. I roll up my sleeves, measure out flour, crack eggs into a bowl. The scent of butter fills the air as I knead, shaping dough with slow, deliberate movements.

Flour dusts my phone as it rings.
“Allô?”
“Dimanche, Julien? Dîner…” [Sunday, Julien?Dinner] Her voice fractures on Dîner.
The oven timer shrieks. I kill it. “Non.”
“Amène Amy. Elle…” [Bring Amy, she]
“Pourquoi? To thank her for saving me?” Silence. I crush a macaron.
“Désolé. Je viendrai. Seul.”  [Sorry. I’ll come. Alone]
The dough bleeds vanilla. Samir’s recipe. A coward’s apology.

The whiskey beckons post-baking night out.
The bartender eyes my tremor. “Non.” [No]
“J’ai payé pour—” [I paid for..]
“Sortez.” [Get out]
Outside, I kick a Vespa. Its wail echoes Lila’s laugh—“Archives Jules! For the vultures.”
A girl films me, cursing. I flip her off, then freeze. Lila filmed everything. Even the green lace shoe.

When I stumble back home,  Amy’s lavender detergent mocks from my doorway.

The nightmares are cinematic:

A child’s shoe in the rubble. Green lace.
The click of a safety switched off.
Samir’s scream—no, mine. Always mine.

I wake clawing the sheets. The clock glows 3:47 a.m. I bake a lemon cake. The oven light flickers like an interrogation lamp.

Amy returns at dawn, her suitcase trailing behind her. I expect her to plead.  But there’s only silence. She always needed me more than I needed her and I never really understood why.
“My flight’s tonight” she says, holding out a bento box. “Onigiri. You loved them before.”
I knock it from her hands. “Stop fixing me!”
She doesn’t flinch. “It’s not you I’m fixing” she says, kneeling to gather the scattered rice. “It’s me.”

The Sacré-Cœur bells toll. She leaves the bento on the counter.

Montmartre at dusk. The street guitarist plays Ne me quitte pas. I raise the camera. Frame the scene: his calloused fingers, a dog sleeping on a Métro grate, a spray of sunlight.

My finger hovers.
Click.
The sound is a gunshot.
I vomit into a gutter.

Amy texts from CDG: “Prends soin de toi” [Take care of yourself]

I stand there, the taste of bile still sharp in my throat, the damp chill of Montmartre pressing in. My fingers twitch against the camera. I should put it away, should leave before the streetlights flicker on and make me feel even more like a ghost.

Instead, I scroll back.

And then—there she is.

Amy.

Taken through the window, just before she left. I must have been outside, standing in the cold, the camera raised without thinking. She’s by the door, suitcase at her feet, one hand gripping the strap of her bag. Her face is turned up, searching.

I remember now. The way she hesitated before knocking. The way she looked up, eyes scanning the windows. Had she seen me? Just a shape behind the curtains? Had she known I was there… watching?

The streetlamp overhead throws her in half-shadow, half-light. The photo is imperfect—blurred at the edges, too much contrast—but it catches something real. Something I hadn’t let myself see before.

I exhale. A long, unsteady breath.

I take one last look at the photo, then, for the first time in months, I turn the camera toward the city—not to capture ghosts, not to bury the past in pixels, but simply to see.

I lift the viewfinder.
And I press click.
The sound is a whip. Bile rises up my throat. My vision darkens for a moment.
The camera still hates me. The world still burns.

But tomorrow….  I’ll bake Samir’s cake. Add extra vanilla.

Pour Samir. Pour Lila. Pour Tomas. Pour l’idiot que j’étais.

[For Samir. For Lila. For Tomas. For the fool I used to be]