Saint Paul Trois Châteaux: 1948: A Novella By C. JoyBell C.

There are those who say life is a pathway one paves with many things: time, space, questions, answers, desires, fulfillment, and loss. They believe we carefully arrange each for cause and consequence to give life order and structure. Life, however, provides an alternative outlook, where it lays its elements according to its own will. The pavement is not carefully arranged; rather the elements lay loosely, and in between them are the white spaces that we fill with joy, sorrow, and the depth of what it means to be human. For Thibaut and Pierre-Auguste Desmarais, Lucy Nightingberg's return visit for a night in Amaury Babin's pub La Place de St-Paul will bring their individual paths into sharp relief. Over the course of one evening, memories, sudden recollections, and immediate emotions give rise to passion, longing, and the unveiling of beclouded secrets, as a delicate dance of fervent love and redemption roils. Unannounced glimpses into their pasts glue pieces of the story together, and an understanding of the narrative in its entirety is constructed from which a truth might be gleaned.