The promise of discovery

Montmartre is a place so beautiful as if it had been plucked from a storybook. Coated in cobblestones and aging artists with paint in their wrinkles, overflowing with perfection. But every story has its villains.

The artistic district is kept at the top of a 130 meter incline; concrete steps push you up to a sharp view of a city that is bathed in pallid gold light. Where I had imagined gargoyles, painted human statues stood guard instead, protecting a church older than the collective age of everybody in it. Much to the shock of the tourists, these statues aren't bound by the same rules as the Queen’s guards. The rule instead is to enjoy frightening visitors with sudden movements.

The artistic district has hosted Dali, Monet, Picasso and Van Gough, for a district made famous by bohemians it is filled with rules, some you simple have to learn by making the mistake.

In trying to get past the church I was met with two opposing crowds of people shouting. Tangled midst the commotion, the faceless crowd yells for me to sign their petition for disenfranchised deaf youth. In a city with almost as much homelessness as history, I felt compelled.

In a flash two people were tugging on my arms, a baggy clothed petition holder and an elderly woman with a vicious face shouting ‘Evil’. At the time I thought it was directed at me. In that moment, no breath could escape my lungs or words from my lips. A third hand landed on my shoulder – a man dressed in heavy dark blue dragged me from the fray and demanded to see my bag. Never in my life have I been more relieved to see a policeman.

My skin must have been the same white as those human statues because his barked French changed to a soft accented English.
“They were liars; the petition is to distract you.”
“Oh.”

I had moved the contents of my bag to my lap, he waited with me as I combed through it making sure everything was there. It was, thankfully. My hands didn't leave my bag for the rest of the day; I had never been paranoid of my fellow human beings. However I couldn't keep it up for longer than that, artists with kind eyes calling me towards them slowly steadied my breath once again.

Like all fariytales Montmartre forced me into lesson a lesson like sometimes the deaf can hear and the blind can see.