The city was a god of transformation, a phoenix demanding blood and bones, from the guilty but mostly the innocent, in exchange for being made anew. For better or worse. She was loved despite all the bodies she swallowed, those who gave their lives willingly and the millions who had them forcefully taken, the ones here and the others unaccounted for, never found and never buried, whole and in rotted pieces. Paris was beautiful in the ugliest way, and I only dreamed of being loved so unconditionally.
