Clementines, Paris.

It’s -3 degrees outside. The skins of clementines from Corsica that I am eating in Paris smell like the sun of another solar system. When I bite into one of the orange sections, the juice runs in my mouth like warm blood. I no longer think about anything else, not my unhappiness, not even the unhappiness of the world. The tiny clementines have green leaves. One can look at them for hours. One can touch them like the skin of a lover. I no longer think about how cold it is outside or what I wanted from this life. The truth is all I ever wanted was clementines.