beneath an elevated concrete highway overpass cutting through a residential corridor, the road deck visible above as a raw soffit, a faded commercial mural — a woman's figure, bleached to near-abstraction — painted on the render wall of the surviving building beside the underpass mouth — stopped in front of the faded mural figure, tote at her hip, not looking at the camera but at the painted woman — a held pause before she walks on
The highway comes out of nowhere. That is the point — that was always the point. I was on Židovská before I understood what I was looking at, which is to say I was looking at almost nothing: a section of wall, a plaque, the edge of an elevated road that someone built straight through the neighborhood in the 1970s because the neighborhood was in the way. The synagogue is gone. The street continues in name only. Below the overpass, the light is gray-white and even, flattened by overcast and concrete both.
the concrete underpass edge of the 1970s elevated road cutting over Židovská Street — a wall, a memorial plaque visible, the road deck above framing a strip of flat white sky
I put on the overshirt there. I needed something to do with my hands.
There is a woman in an old advertisement on a wall near the underpass — faded, ambiguous, waiting for something. I stood with her for a moment and then kept walking.
on a steep cobbled lane ascending toward a Gothic cathedral, flanked by limestone walls whose lower courses still carry the cold of the night, a stone-framed doorway set into the left wall opening onto a stairwell of near-total darkness — mid-stride uphill, wind pressing the tote back against her hip, the overshirt hem lifting — caught between one step and the next, not looking ahead but fractionally left, toward the dark doorway threshold
The wind off the castle hill lifted the hem of my trousers and pushed the tote back against my hip. I followed Kapitulská up toward the cathedral garden because someone had to, and at that hour — late morning, before the groups arrive — the stone was still holding the night's cold underneath it. I pressed a hand against the wall.
The garden was empty. I sat on a low ledge and ate a šatôčka I'd bought on the way up, filled with something that was probably apricot and definitely too sweet. I finished it anyway.
in a narrow courtyard entered by accident — a low archway the only exit back to the street, stack of cardboard boxes against a far wall, a propped-open door in the corner through which the street beyond is just visible as a strip of pale pavement and moving light — already past the boxes, two paces from the archway exit, fractionally turned back — not at the man, but toward the propped door and the strip of street visible through it
I came down the wrong way and ended up briefly in a courtyard that wasn't meant for me — a door open, a man moving boxes, neither of us acknowledging the other. I found the street again without retracing.
Coffee near the cathedral gate: a narrow counter, dark wood worn pale at the edge, a single window throwing flat white light across the cups. Dark, no modification. The cup left a ring on the saucer. I set it back down in the same ring, which I always do, as if the circle was placed there for that reason.
a small white espresso cup of dark black coffee sitting in its saucer, a dried ring visible beneath it on pale-worn dark wood
What she wore
day2-scene1
The skirt moves in the wind off the castle hill, which I didn't expect, and it turns out I don't mind.
day2-scene2
I added the overshirt at Židovská because I needed something to do with my hands, and then I kept it on.
day2-scene3
Black on black in the cathedral garden, where the stone is still cold from the night and no one has arrived yet to ruin it.