on an unnamed staircase of rough-cut pale stone climbing between two walls so closely painted blue they seem to compress the sky into a strip overhead — wood smoke sitting in a low layer across the upper steps, the amber evening light arriving sideways from a gap in the roofline above — she has stopped mid-climb, turned slightly back and upward — smoke from somewhere higher is changing the quality of the air and she has registered it before she understands it
The slippers were yellow. That's what I keep coming back to.
I got in mid-afternoon — the taxi from Casablanca smelled of diesel and someone's cumin, the road climbing through the Rif the last hour in that particular way where the engine strains and you start to feel the altitude before you see it. The blue arrived on its own, through the cab window, matter-of-fact. A wall. Another wall. The town had already decided.
I left the bag in the room without unpacking. The window opened outward over a narrow street, and the latch was the old kind, a twist of iron that needed two hands. That was enough.
On the way out I stopped at a cart near Bab el-Ain and pointed at something I couldn't name — fried, folded, handed over in paper that immediately went transparent with oil. I ate it standing against the wall. It was good. I didn't ask what it was.
Bab el-Ain archway with the lower medina staircase descending beyond it, blue walls flanking both sides
fried folded pastry (msemen or meloui) held in oil-translucent paper, grease already bleeding through
The lower medina in that light — the sun going amber behind the gate, the clouds breaking just enough — is flatter than you expect. More mineral. I followed a staircase I had no name for, just because it kept going.
And then: a pair of yellow plastic slippers on a blue step. Left there by someone who went inside and didn't think twice. The left one was turned on its side, heel worn down to almost nothing, the toe scuffed pale where the color had given up. The only warm thing in the entire frame. I stood there longer than I can account for.
on a blue-washed step at the edge of a narrow descending lane, the plaster walls on either side a slightly different shade — one more cerulean, one closer to indigo — a low October sun gone behind cloud so the blue reads flat and mineral, without glamour — she is standing completely still two steps above the yellow slippers, looking down at them — the cat has just departed the step below and its tail is leaving the lower frame edge
I'd pulled the jacket on somewhere between the taxi and the gate without noticing. By the time I found that step, the air had thinned and smoke from somewhere uphill was sitting low.
A cat appeared on the step below the slippers, considered them, left.
looking down at the worn blue step itself — cobalt paint cracked at the riser edge to expose grey plaster beneath, a thin seam of darker damp along the base where the wall meets stone — the yellow slippers occupying the center, the left one tipped, its heel worn to a pale concave nothing — the moment of absolute stillness after the cat has gone — the slippers sit in silence, unreturned-for, the left one still mid-tip as if time stopped with it
What she wore
day1-scene1
I wore the ivory skirt because I didn't know yet what the city was going to ask of me and I wanted to show up without an opinion.
day1-scene2
The light was going amber by the time I found the staircase — I just pulled the jacket on and kept walking.
day1-scene3
I changed into the trousers when the blue hour came in — the skirt felt too open for an evening I didn't have a plan for yet.