A Waiter in Paris: Adventures in the Dark Heart of the City

by Edward Chisholm

nowhere epitomizes the world of restaurants better than Paris.

in a post-financial crisis world, what were we, as university graduates with humanities degrees, meant to do with our lives?

So yes, the setting is Parisian, and the language French, but these stories are much more universal; they’re being played out right now in London, Paris, New York, Berlin, Madrid, Rome and beyond. We just often choose to ignore them. Focusing instead on what we want to see: the food, the decoration – the façade.

Paris has been replaced by a soft memory. Everything feels asleep, there is no one, no noise. Everything is frozen; water no longer flows, the clouds, the silence. Everything is in suspense.

Still no sound from the city, no cars, no sirens, nothing. Everything is white, everything feels dead. The ghosts of Paris.

In a French-speaking world, the English me, the one who thinks and feels, is redundant, disappearing; he has no use.

‘Live where the tomatoes are good.’

You want to be a writer? You’re not drinking enough coffee. That’s your problem,’

Winter is ending and spring is just around the corner; you can feel it. The nights are no longer so cold. It is now possible to sit on the terraces.

Paris is not France; yet all of France can be found in Paris.

The champagne is cool, crisp, ethereal.

The city is awake now. Beyond the thin curtains the same yellow light as earlier. Silence interrupted in the immortal city.