Flecks of Sun

Mige posed in front of the Eiffel with his circa 2000 digital camera stretched out in front of him.

“You look ridiculous,” Ville said glancing around. It was not busy on the lawn at all but did not ease his apprehension

“All you’ve done is bitch and moan since we have arrived,” Mige said snapping another round of pictures.

“I can’t believe I agreed to coming here,” Ville said as he watched Mige saunter over.

“Well technically we had to come here,” Mige responded as he tried to take a selfie with Ville.

Work on the new album art was undecided but Linde had found a few artists who might be able to pull off the creative design that Ville envisioned. One of them was in Paris, which Mige swore on his soul was the primary reason they now found themselves in the French capital.

“Does she know you are here?” he asked.
“Of course not. What would I say?”
“Fancy meeting you here? Or, small world?”

Ville sighed and took out his phone. He had just spoken to her yesterday evening for about a half hour until her friend had interrupted again. They had spoken about how the show went, that she was in France, that she would return to Asia in a few days, and maintaining a correspondence.

“What time is our meeting?” Ville asked.

“Half past the hour of noon,” Mige answered with a raise of his eyebrows.

“So we have three hours until then,” Ville answered. He was short tempered today. First was being in a city he had come to numerous times with one of his exes, Sandra. The second was that they had taken a very early morning flight to Paris from Helsinki airport. The third was that he had no idea how he would disclose to Emile that he was in France and where he would take it from there. She spoke of wanting to return to Europe but her work obligations would keep her in Asia for at least another four months. It was not that it was a terribly long time but the distance made it a bit hard to get to know someone and he was sure he wanted to maintain a friendship first.

“Why don’t we grab a coffee and restart the day?” Mige suggested as he packed away his camera.

Ville nodded before laughing at Mige’s outdated technology. He had had that camera longer than most of the band’s success and he took it everywhere to photograph places he’d surely already snapped a photo of.

Feeling a sudden urge of wanting to get things done, Ville took out his phone as Mige was distracted with the city sights.

The phone rang twice before she picked up.

“Hello?” she answered with a yawn as Ville found the action contagious and yawned himself.

“Hi, Emil. I’m in France,” he said as Mige turned his head round to Ville.

Either way he would have wound up in France for this meeting, regardless of her.

“Pardon?” she asked coming to her waking state.

“I had a meeting in France for some album design material and the guy had to push it up a few weeks, so I find myself once again here,” Ville lied a bit. Mige had called the man yesterday to arrange the meeting to be pushed up saying that the band had a few shows to play when they were originally supposed to get together.

“Oh,” she said slowly and Ville realized she might definitely be weary of him, famous or not for suddenly being within the radius of her location.

There was an incredibly long pause before she proposed meeting that afternoon at the Shakespeare & Co. bookstore.

“Are you sure?” Ville asked.

“Absolutely, if you don’t mind checking out some books with me. I just had quite the dream and I haven’t completely woken up yet.” She yawned again.

“What time do you propose?” Ville asked excited to see her again.

“First, you have to take me on a date,” she laughed and he laughed too.

“Easy enough, let’s grab dinner tonight as well. I have Mige with me and you should bring Lis,” he offered.

“Deal. Shall we arrange a meeting at two in the afternoon by the bookstore?” she asked in confirmation.

“Two it is,” Ville affirmed and said good-bye.

“Well where did that come from?” Mige asked as soon as the conversation was over.

Ville shrugged his shoulders and felt an incredible calmness come over him. After their initial conversations and just being in France, he felt more self-assured to just go with it and see what came of everything.

“Not everything has to be awkward,” Ville said to Mige as he spotted a table outside a small café where they could discuss their business strategy before the meeting.

“This coming from the man unable to hold a conversation for two seconds yesterday,” Mige huffed as he followed Ville in crossing the small street.

They placed an order for two espressos as they leaned over the drawings Ville and Burton had etched. They had tried to go for their typical gloomy artwork or a piece of work from an artist like 2007’s Venus Doom. Neither option was calling to either bandmate as they puzzled over what message or theme the album should have.

“Perhaps if we had all of the songs finished, it would seem more natural,” Mige said as the espressos arrived.

The album was not even a third due and fans had been posting in forums puzzling over when the band would release it or mention the progress. Ville had been in a creative slump as evidenced by his slapdash drawings which evoked none of the emotion he wanted to put out there.

“I fear this meeting might be a waste of the man’s time, “Ville lamented as he looked over the Parisian streets. Small orchard orange trees could be found in yards of business and the river Seine rolled calmly through.

“You wanted something that was calm but thoughtful,” Mige said following a train of thought.

“Think about a river, it might not be the strongest element of water but it’s perseverance allows it to erode away at rock because it doesn’t stop. It’s calm but it can be rushing….” Ville trailed off as a spark of imagination dawned on him.

Over the next three hours the men filled up on enough coffee to sustain them for weeks on end as they became more creative and finally found an edge to their direction. The meeting was with a Parisian born artist with Dutch ancestry, Johan Heising. Mige and Ville met him at his offices in the 5th arrondissement of Paris. As they walked there from the cab drop-off, Ville admired the older architecture that stood on the streets in this section of the capital. Johan met them outside the building and Ville took an instant liking to him. He was tall and looked a bit Nordic but he immediately came off as laidback and genuine with a warm smile. Johan’s office was black slate flooring and a wooden with fake marble desk where his computer and files sat. He gestured for them to sit at his small conference table in the corner of the room overlooking the building’s garden. Almost an hour later, the vision of an ocean landscape with hues of dawn mixed in but the texture and style of a Monet painting had come to life. It was nearing a half hour before he had to meet Emile so he left Johan with Mige to wrap up the details and estimates of fees. Ville was pleased with the meeting but the band still had two other appointments with artists, one in Tampere and the other a Swedish woman who came recommended from a friend.

Ville hailed a cab to the bookstore as a light drizzle fell onto the windows of the cab. Upbeat and hopeful from the meeting, he was also these things about seeing Emile again. It had been almost two weeks and he wondered how her foot was since she was able to meet outside her grandfather’s house. With twenty minutes the cab was pulling up and Ville realized he had to dash out quickly as there was a queue for cabs as the rain came down harder.

He spotted her in a sunflower dress with her hair plastered to her face. Evidently she had not read the weather before stepping out. Her foot was in a brace and she had one crutch she was using to balance herself. As soon as she spotted him, she smiled and waved him over.

“I am terribly prepared for the weather,” she said and kissed his cheek in greeting.
“I can see that a dress is how you prepare for our bookstore date,” he said, the last word rolling off his lips casually.
“It was Lis’ idea,” she explained and said she was not much of a dress type of person.

She held open the door for him and it was nice to step inside a warm space after the storm that was underway outside.

“I have to say, I am surprised with how normal I am feeling around you,” she said impulsively.

“Do I make you feel otherwise abnormal?” Ville asked helping her up some small steps as she displayed the ease she had with the crutch.

“Mostly supernatural,” she said with a smile and Ville felt a strange sensation in his emotions. A pull towards purposely flirting and not just to break the ice.

“I had the same this morning when I called you. Perhaps it’s just some magic in Paris,” he commented with a smirk.

“Fairy dust,” she said as she picked up a book from a shelf and blowing away some dirt on it as the dust particles hung in the air momentarily.

“You’ve bewitched me,” Ville said as he again felt that pull on his emotions and thought of leaving Paris tomorrow seemed too short.