My name is Verez Montagne.
A man of twenty-eight, carrying the blood of two lands, Italy and France.
But no one would ever guess that Italian blood runs in my veins.
My eyes are sharp, yet calm like the Parisian sky in autumn.
My hair, dark and curly, unruly yet soft, like a violin falling in love with its own melody.
My mother, a true Italian woman, passed down her allure to me.
My father, a proud Frenchman, instilled in me the unwavering soul of music.
I came to this city not as a tourist,
but as a lover.
A lover of tones.
A lover of art.
A lover of life.
Several times a year, I return to Paris with only one companion:
an old violin, wine-colored and weathered,
my truest friend since the day I first learned to read a musical score.
For the past two nights, I have performed at a concert hall near the Panthéon,
that grand and silent monument standing tall atop the hill of Sainte-Geneviève.
There, I let my soul pour into the strings,
each note a thread of memory, each sound a whisper from a distant time.
I am not the greatest musician alive no.
But I love music in a way that defies logic.
To me, music is a silent language,
one that speaks when all words fail to mean anything at all.
I am a musician,
and Paris is one of the greatest stages I know.
Once again,
I may not be the finest,
but I love music in the purest way imaginable.
And that alone allows me to feel how deeply people here connect to every note.
They don’t just play music.
They breathe it.
They don’t just hear.
They feel.
Art has taught me that nothing comes easy in this life,
unless you dare to try.
But if you are sincere,
you will grow,
stand,
and leave your mark.
Differences are not barriers.
They are the colors that complete the journey.
Paris no longer feels foreign to me.
I know the narrow streets of the Latin Quarter,
where the air is filled with the scent of roasted coffee beans.
I often sit by the River Seine,
watching the city lights ripple upon the water,
while I play fragments of melodies born straight from the heart.
Living here has taught me:
nothing is impossible when you walk with love.
Differences are not walls,
but bridges to deeper understanding.
You don’t have to be born here to belong to Paris.
Sometimes, all it takes is to love it with your whole soul.
And now, in this city,
amid old buildings and skies that always turn gray at dusk.
I, Verez,
am still walking.
Still searching.
Perhaps not just for a stage…
But for someone,
who can understand the melody within my silence.
***
Back then, when I first began falling in love with music, no one believed in me.
Not even my own parents.
Ironically, my father used to love music too.
But because my mother despised it…
He chose to follow her.
And so, in the end, they both abandoned music,
drunk instead on the madness of business.
But now, things have changed.
Today, they’ve finally given me their blessing,
as a professional musician.
I still remember...
It was during my darkest days that Valerie came into my life.
She brought back a spark I thought I’d lost.
She helped me rise again.
But in the end, Valerie only used me,
manipulated me for her own pleasures,
a joke for her lovers to laugh at.
She was a woman who worshipped glitter,
who craved the presence of Europe’s powerful and glamorous men.
And yet… for some reason, I once adored her.
I adored a girl who never loved me.
A girl two years older than me.
And now, I don’t even want to remember her.
It’s been several minutes since I left the hotel,
the place I was supposed to stay.
I’ve walked far, though I’ve no idea how far from the Panthéon I’ve gone,
where my concert was held last night.
I simply followed where my feet wanted to go,
until I found myself in the heart of a busier city,
on the wide, majestic sidewalks of the Champs-Élysées.
I looked behind me, and around,
making sure Valerie was no longer following.
Even though I was far from the hotel,
her shadow still haunted me,
or so I imagined.
Night had fully descended,
yet Paris never truly sleeps in darkness.
The city lights burned bright along the Champs-Élysées,
a breathtaking glow, that lit my every step as crowds moved in a restless current along this legendary street.
There was a crowd gathered in front of an old boutique on the edge of the Champs-Élysées.
A SALE banner hung on the shop’s glass display,
but the crowd wasn’t staring at fashion.
They were gathered around a street vendor.
On his small table stood delicate snow globes, each holding a tiny Eiffel Tower,
bathed in colorful lights,
spinning gently like they were dancing.
Young couples watched with enchanted eyes.
Some laughed softly.
Others held hands,
as if the globe itself symbolized their love.
I stared for a moment.
Once, maybe, I would’ve been mesmerized too.
But now?
It all felt… empty.
Love, once the most beautiful harmony,
like the stroke of a bow against violin strings,
now sounded out of tune.
There was nothing left in me.
Even objects shaped like love failed to move me.
I turned away,
leaving the crowd to their wonder.
Perhaps love still lives in this world,
just not in me.
I kept walking,
passing a small performer standing on a makeshift platform,
showing off strange little creations I had never seen before.
They were tiny sculptures, carved from splinters of wood, miniatures shaped with incredible detail,
meant to hold meaning for those who cherished them.
I glanced briefly, uninterested,
and continued on down the sleepless walkway of the Champs-Élysées.
What puzzled me,
was how people were so easily captivated by such things.
To me, there was nothing truly special.
A snow globe that represented love,
spinning, blinking with tiny colored lights.
Carved wood that symbolized memory.
I’d seen similar things on a romance-themed TV show once.
True, up close, the lights were mesmerizing.
They danced around the Eiffel miniature,
casting soft silhouettes of Paris at night,
in tiny, glittering form.
But still… I felt nothing.
Perhaps it wasn’t the object that lacked wonder.
Perhaps I was simply too cold to care.
My feet kept moving through the Champs-Élysées, no real destination in mind.
Until a distant commotion halted my steps.
I heard shouting.
A quarrel from across the street.
Far, but not too far for my eyes to find them.
"I'm telling you! It's over! I don’t love you anymore!"
A man’s voice rang out, heavy, sharp, furious.
I turned instinctively toward the sound.
He wasn’t far.
The man wore a thick brown sweater,
not unlike mine.
The difference?
Mine was checkered.
His was plain, soft fur trimming the neck and sleeves.
It was bitterly cold tonight.
We looked like two young strangers,
both swallowed in the glittering night of Paris.
"But I still love you... please, don't do this!"
"You mean everything to me!"
A woman cried out,
her long curly hair wild,
her eyes swollen,
her voice trembling.
She stood close, facing him directly.
Clearly lovers…
Or perhaps, ex-lovers.
The man stood tall, unyielding in his anger.
"Then why did you betray me? You think love fixes everything?"
She tried to reach for his hand.
Her knees were weak,
her voice choked with sobs,
yet she still begged.
"I made a mistake, but my heart never changed!"
But he shook her off.
"Save it. I’m done being your second choice."
I watched them,
from a distance just far enough to keep me invisible.
And somehow,
the sound of that girl’s cries felt hauntingly familiar.
Like Valerie…
when I left her last night.
I didn’t move.
Something stirred in my silence.
A strange feeling I didn’t want to name.
I just stood there,
watching the two of them,
beneath the glitter of a city that never stops glowing.
Tonight,
Paris did not only shine with beauty,
it echoed with heartbreak,
and the quiet ache of things lost.
To be continued...