Occlusion du Sablier: Le Cœur sous l’Armure

Ah, Paris, City of Light. To the romantic, mere mention will send the heart aflutter. To three male teenagers from the States who actually find themselves there? Well... what does any male teenager think about most of the time anyway...?

[Int., Hôtel Flatotel -- Late Afternoon]

P.: Maybe we can bring one up to our room. Won’t we freak out the folks? ‘Bed check — who's that with you?’
M.: What?
R.: I don’t think they just stand around the corner of the Eiffel Tower...
M.: No... Maybe the locals’ll find you one.
P.: They don’t have a Soho district... I don’t know where—
R.: Just go to the guy [at the front desk] and say [gesticulating] ‘Wahoo!’
P.: Hah-hah.
M.: I think he knows the universal sign for Wahoo.
R.: ‘Ah, Wahoo...’ Yeah, uh, ‘Where...?’
P.: Hah-heh... [frustrated] We can’t even get a phone book from the guy!
M.: He probably knows what ‘Wahoo’ is before—
R.: —Yeah, he’s Japanese...

Just past the 11th Stratum, randy teenagers in mock eagerness posit scenarios they know will never come to fruition. But under the swagger the heart reveals itself, sometimes later, sometimes sooner.

Three hours later:

[Ext., River Seine -- Night]

A riverboat glides through the evening and tinny, canned concertina music blares out on the top deck. Stars shimmer and lights glitter along the riverbanks, painting a setting that is basically tourist-bait. Teenage girls swoon over the pop culture-fueled clichés dancing in their minds and the guys chuckle about technocratic frustrations of the social order.
  Though the scene itself abounds with trite appeals to sentimentality, perhaps there is some frisson of Parisian magic in the air that seeps through a chink in the jaded armour of wiseacre 17-year-old cynics...

Taches chatoyantes réveiller
dessus d’un bateau sur la Seine
et la liberté se trouve dans la rivière
Élever une torche à saluer
Bien que Melodica chante une
éclatement épanouissement de regarder le temps congelés
et turquoise devient velours

Vol à voile est coulissante pleure
par le biais clapotis des vagues, sereinement
deux mains se touchent, tandis que gantée
un esprit chaleureux traverse
et le miroitement gonfle
dans tous les yeux
dans tous les ciels

In the end, are jocular schemes and fanciful dreams thoughts for nought?
Grains of sand, either way.