This was the place where some years ago we blew up Barbies with illegal firecrackers. It was François, Patrick and me. It was seven in the morning, and our hearts were pounding like it happened when we were kids. By seven fifteen, the experiment was over. Fizzled out and not spectacular at all. I have a shitty video somewhere taken on my mobile. A puff of smoke. Some small noise and François saying: “Oh, shit.” By seven twenty, we were in a café sipping teas. We were adults again.
Now on the Common, Patrick and I follow François to the children’s playground. He has married and has a house and a child and some proper income. He no longer blows things up. But when I remind him about it, he says, “yes, it was there. It was spectacular.” If I ever find it again on Youtube or some hard drive, I will delete that video. The memory is something that you do not fuck with. Because François actually convinces me that the noise and the smoke had the police chasing us through the Common, and we escaped by ducking into a café to drink teas filled with as much sugar as we wanted. We were kids again.
