I sat at Flore’s red booth, pen to paper—

but I had nothing to say.

So I listened.

Tourists buzzed. Cameras clicked.

Parents scolded restless children.

The noise pounded louder than the quiet.

It was hard to hear the ghosts—

those who once wrote in ink

what we now read in print.

This was once a second home to Sartre—

Beauvoir, certainly.

Now?

Just another box to check on a tourist’s list,

most unaware of who once sat in these chairs.

I tried to imagine the sounds

beneath all this noise:

The clink of porcelain cups,

low mutters of thought,

grumbles of frustration between cigarette drags,

and ideas passed like secrets

across marble tables.

I listened harder.

But the silence—was deafening

in the sea of voices.

Across the way, I saw Les Deux Magots.

I didn’t go in. Not yet.

But I could almost hear Hemingway,

elated at a sudden stroke of genius.

Laughter over coffee,

spilled absinthe staining the table

as he, Zelda, and Fitzgerald

tumbled into the twinkling chaos

of Paris at night.

My pen twitched.

Their laughter tugged at my sleeve.

“Come,” it seemed to say.

“Write. Even if no one hears it but the ghosts.”