The day slowly faded into an unreal light. The sky over Paris shimmered in cold turquoise, as if the world had swapped its colors. The Eiffel Tower stood like a solitary giant, its steel frame distant, almost displaced from another reality. But in the foreground, at the edge of the path, stood a tree—twisted, bent, as if the wind of time had folded it into itself. Its gnarled branches reached toward the sky, in vain, like a silent lament.
At its roots, a bird had settled. A solitary black shadow on the glowing red grass. It hopped a few steps, then paused, as if listening to the whisper of the bare branches above. Perhaps it heard the echoes of those who had once lingered here—the lovers on the benches, the wanderers who crossed this path, the poets who once drew inspiration from this very tree.
Then, without warning, the bird spread its wings. A single beat, a brief cry—and it was gone, its dark shadow torn apart by the air that whistled through the iron lattice of the tower.
The tree remained. Unmoving. Silent. Waiting.
Who will be the next to hear its song?
