To resume my train of thought, I had to take my eyes off the glass of strawberry gin. Night was beginning to fall on Paris. An alpha Romeo grazed me and sent debris and shreds of newspaper down my leg.

In the bars around, the televisions were playing the Spanish victory. A woman in her forties, wearing a gray suit, her eyebrows furrowed, whispered in my ear:
¡Ha ganado! Oyes? Esta noche ha ganado niños (It’s a win! Do you hear? It’s a win tonight kids)

A group of two girls in Balenciaga summer dresses (the one on the right) and Chloé for women (the one on the left) stared at me like I was a cockroach. I put my collar back on, staring at the clouds like an idiot. The rain is about to fall, and I don’t know where to put my feet.

I trot for another half hour in the starless night. I feel like I am the star, burning with love, rejected by the night sweats of the city; rejected like an unassuming cockroach.
I have to tell you. I fell in love with the sun. Of course, the sun cannot respond favorably to my foolish feeling.

Yet, I am-I am crazy, crazy in love with this burning sun. Crazy, you will say to me, to which I will retort that we will all die one day. And which shield more powerful, more stubborn than love against death? Each one chooses in this country the human being who pleases him. It must be sunny, decent, cheerful, human. I chose to fall in love with the light itself. I become feverish when the sun’s rays hit my temples.

I bathe in the opalescent clarity of the morning. I skim the boulevards in search of the sun’s traces on the concrete, on the plaster of the capital’s walls. I speak to him softly, I tell him my madness.

I know that I could be loved by a woman, one of those who go down the avenue Saint-Martin in royal blue Nicky Shoes heels, one of those whose lashes are invariably lengthened with Lancôme Dramatic mascara.

The sweat drips on my face. My tears are burning, I have fever. I begin to stammer in the language of my ancestors

Sono innamorato del sole, amo la sua luce coraggiosa, la sua audacia quando la notte cerca di ingannarlo (I am in love with the sun, I love its brave light, its audacity when the night tries to fool him).

The streets of Paris are filled with vain people; shrimps in pink Esthée Lauder dresses, beautiful girls everywhere. Some of them look at me and I imagine an immaculate flowerbed opening in front of my hasty steps. But I continue, I advance, trying to escape the quiverings of the seductive mouths.
Mi sono innamorato del sole perché mi ha salvato dall’oscurità. Lo amo più della luce del giorno.
(I fell in love with the sun because it saved me from obscurity. I love him more than daylight.)

The rain is fine, it caught me off guard. I pull my black leather jacket over my face and turn into a busy street in the swamp. A rat lands in front of my patent shoes.

The bars are packed like gin bottles a little too full. I walk into one of them, wiping the rain that has left traces of white sweat on my face.

As I take my eyes off the sun, I feel like I’m suffocating.
Luz is in front of a glass of Malibu, she has just spit out a grilled pistachio.

¿Cómo estás, amor de mi vida?
I shrug my shoulders. The whiskey bottles line up in front of my pupil like glowing candles. The waiter is a tall, gaunt man with a livid face. I try to catch a glimpse of the brightness of the star I love through the bar window. A soccer match is being played feverishly on the television. It seems to me that Spain is winning.

¿Me estás escuchando, amor de mi vida?
Luz is wearing a black Oz for work suit, Balenciaga gold triangle earrings. She could almost catch my eye, if my heart didn’t explode in my chest every second that keeps me away from the sun.

Painfully, Luz tries to make conversation with me. As I leave the bar, I remember nothing except my friend’s white teeth, the result of long interviews with her dentist; the roar of the fans (Spain is playing Italy) just behind our table reserved at bar 228 for the evening.

The evening passes like a good word, quickly, without consequence. I don’t take Luz home. The streets of the Marais have turned white because of the rain shower. Behind a cloud swollen with sweat, I see the reflection of the star I love. My lips tremble. I know that I am crazy, that I hope in vain that the sun will slide its fist of light over me every night; a light that only illuminates the day. I know I hope in vain, and yet, as I pass the cemetery behind my apartment, I can only cry out. What if the ghosts invade the night tonight? I could tell them my insanity, I could talk to someone since the living cannot understand my story.

Hey, what, I’d be the craziest crush in this town? Couldn’t I love the light madly? She who springs on each one of us for the biggest happiness of our lives? But already the red twilight catches up with my words. And whereas I brandish an angry fist to the address of the night, a white bird scratches my forehead and comes to brush my soaked black hair.

A woman in dark green velvet dress Judith Walker (at least 3000 euros the piece) hits me. I close my eyes, I raise my chin. The woman was just an apparition, maybe one of the ghosts of the cemetery; maybe I was dreaming. My apartment is nearby.
I see the opaque smoke rising from the cemetery. I think of my father who is buried in Italy, and of the Tuscan sky that he loved above all others. I can’t help but spit on the reddened ground

Ehi, cosa, sarei l’amante più pazzo e freddo della città? Allora non potrò amare follemente la luce, che scaturisce su ciascuno di noi per la più grande felicità di ciascuno? (Can’t I love the light madly, the light that shines on everyone for the greatest happiness of everyone?)

Voglio che la luce mi attraversi. Voglio che quando verrà l’ora in cui la morte prenderà il mio viso con le sue mani nere, il sole si ricorderà che un uomo sulla terra l’ha amato più della luce del giorno. E che in un’alba crepuscolare, respinge il cielo mortuario con i suoi raggi luminosi e dorati.
(I want the light to pass through me. I want that when the hour will have come for the death to seize in its black hands my face, the sun will remember that a man on earth has loved the sun more than the light of the day. And that in a twilight dawn, the star pushes back the mortuary sky with its bright and golden rays).

But the fumes of the cemetery already choke me. I look for the key of my condo in the lapel of my jacket. Then, a ray crosses me. I melt into the smoke, into my dream. Or maybe I am not dreaming. Yes, I melt into the sun, into the light that I love with all my being. And I scream in the night that seizes me that I want to become the light forever.