at the base of a narrow cobblestone lane barely wide enough for two, shikumen-style stone doorways replaced here by low Flemish brick thresholds, a cyclist's handlebar just exiting frame left, the lane's compressed perspective ending in a wall of pale grey ashlar — pressed flat into a doorway recess to let a cyclist pass, one shoulder against the stone, still mid-step, weight not yet redistributed
The roof was the only reason I came. I'd read enough to know that — skip the torture exhibit, skip the audioguide, go up.
What I didn't account for was the scaffolding on the northeast tower. Green netting. A generator sound somewhere underneath the stone. The interior courtyard full of the particular friction of a tour group being told something in four languages at once. I gave it twenty minutes. That is the rule.
By eleven I was back on Oudburg and the city had returned to itself.
I'd packed the trousers for exactly this — something with a waistband you don't think about when you're climbing uneven stairs for the third time, and then again when the stairs don't deliver. The walk south was long enough that I stopped noticing I was walking. The streets between Gravensteen and Vlasmarkt are narrow in a way that isn't pictorial. Just narrow. You step into doorways for cyclists. The stone gives back heat it's been saving since morning.
Gravensteen castle visible mid-distance, its green scaffolding netting on the northeast tower, reflected nearly complete in the still canal below
I put the shirt on somewhere around the Leie, when the wind coming off the water turned purposeful. Not cold. Just going somewhere, moving through the fabric with an agenda. I stood on the embankment and watched the water do what water does when no one has anywhere to be. The reflections were complete — not impressionistic, not shimmer, actually complete, like a second city below the surface with better light.
on an unmarked parapet one level above a canal-side alley — a rough stone ledge accessed by three worn steps with no railing, the Gravensteen's scaffolding-wrapped northeast tower visible at mid-distance, its green safety netting incongruous against centuries of weathered limestone, two pigeons on the parapet edge to her left — standing at the parapet looking back at the Gravensteen scaffolding she left two hours earlier, expression held — not quite recognition, not quite irony, something quieter and more private
There was a parapet I found later, one level up from a canal-side alley, no sign pointing to it. Two pigeons. The Gravensteen visible from here, its scaffolding green and foreign against the old stone. I stayed longer than necessary looking at the thing I'd left.
Changed before Vlasmarkt. The afternoon had slowed down enough to deserve it. Something that moves differently.
an unnamed Belgian draft beer, tall glass, cold condensation tracking down the outside
I had a beer I didn't ask the name of. Cold enough.
inside a Vlasmarkt café, at a zinc-topped counter facing the street window — the glass showing the square outside slightly out of focus, the interior lit by a single fluorescent strip behind the bar, condensation on the unbranded glass in front of her — the beer just set down, her hand withdrawing from the glass, not yet released — the moment between placing and letting go, eyes directed at the window and the square beyond it, not the drink
What she wore
day6-scene1
I'd packed the trousers for exactly this — something with a waistband you don't think about when you're climbing uneven stairs for the third time.
day6-scene2
I put the shirt on when I got to the roof because the wind up there was specific — not cold, but purposeful, like it had somewhere to be.
day6-scene3
I changed into the skirt before Vlasmarkt because by that point the afternoon had slowed down enough to deserve something that moves differently.