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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Love stories / Romance
- Subject: Life Changing Decisions/Events
- Published: 03/17/2013
When an Angel Passed the Bar Moulin
Born 1949, F, from Domfront, France.jpg)
WHEN AN ANGEL PASSED THE BAR MOULIN
It was almost 10.00 a.m. and all was peaceful in the Bar Moulin. The polished round tables set to either side of the open door nestled in the shade of an emerald green and gold awning whilst the mid-July sun filled the entire square with an exquisite soul-uplifting light. Long boxes stretched a bolster of red and pink geraniums at the window ledges of the upper rooms. The high sun-drenched stone walls of the abbey towered to the right above the cafe and the clock chimed the hour, just as it had done for so many years, though today it seemed as if its tone held an extra brightness. At the centre of the square, a fountain sparkled as the beads of water rose, splayed, and fell into the pool beneath. On the third side of the square, clusters of deep red roses arched across the side wall of the Mairie. The sky was the truest purest mid blue and as Sébastien neatened the chairs around the tables he stopped to just take in the marvel of it all. On days like this, life was good and he could see the pattern of the future unfolding. He would have a cafe like this one day, maybe this very one. Life would bring him a wife and a family and he would be proud of what he had. Yes, on days like this, he knew that this was all he could really want! And he turned back into the bar, polishing the brass beer taps as he passed under the rack of sparkling glasses, catching sight of his reflection in the long ornate mirror that stretched the length of the wall behind the neat line of bottles.
On the other side of the bar there was a door to some steps leading down into the main house where the proprietor of the Bar Moulin, his wife and his daughter, Mireille, lived. The first room was a general dining/living area and then beyond that there was a farmhouse kitchen with an old wide rectangular table at its centre. People gathered at this table at all times of the day to converse or share the conviviality of mealtimes. On days like today the back door would be open framing a view of the garden where at this time of the year there was an abundance of vegetables and heavily laden apple and plum trees. Mireille had lived there all her life and as she smoothed the white linen cloth upon the table and placed a vase of pink scented roses at its centre, she too thought that a life like this was all she could ever want, except for one more wish; Sébastien. She was very discreet but she watched everything he did, drinking him in, feeling his closeness if their paths happened to cross. She knew every curl of his black wiry hair, and in her dreams she imagined his beautiful eyes, that shone like newly opened sweet chestnuts, his long black eyelashes sweeping downwards when he laughed and the smooth olive skin of his arms. He did look at her. She knew he did but for now it was their secret until the time was right. One day, she mused, there would be a beautiful wedding in the abbey and all their friends would drive through the streets declaring the wedding with a cacophony of car horns. Then when they were married they would buy a plot of land in the commune and build a little house and she would bottle peaches and make jam, and pickle gherkins, just like her mother did. She could imagine herself with two or three little curly haired children and she would stand at the school gate with all the other mothers and Sebastian would think she was the most beautiful woman in the world and all would be wonderful. She looked at the clock. It was 10.05.
Sebastian saw that it was 10.05 too. For some reason he felt in the mood for day-dreaming. It was a good job that Mireille’s father wasn’t around. He would have soon found Sebastian a job to do. But for now it was quiet and today seemed special. It was just then that it happened. An amazingly beautiful tall graceful vision slid into his view, as if appearing from nowhere and crossed the square. She almost seemed to glide rather than walk, holding her shoulders perfectly straight, her steps so light that it was as if she was walking on air. She had honey gold skin and chocolate brown hair gleaming and tumbling down onto her bare shoulders. She wore a dress of fluttering cream chiffon, which flickered at the hem and caressed her bronze thighs as she floated past his gaze. Enthralled he couldn’t speak or do or move. The cafe did not exist. It was just him and her until suddenly the annoying sound of a coach broke his trance and he watched as it lumbered into the square and parked by the wall of roses. A group of chattering tourists descended from the steps and the vision that had captivated him gathered them together around her. After a few seconds she lead them into the Abbey and as if he had been hypnotised, he put down the cloth in his hand and followed the group in through the great arched doorway. It was as if this angel had some kind of power over him and he felt he would follow her wherever she wanted to go. He listened as she guided the group down the grand aisle, through the vibrant coloured spears of sunlight piercing the stained glass windows, past the tranquillity of the votive candles burning by a side chapel, stopping beneath the carvings which had looked down from their plinths for hundreds of years. Her voice was as beautiful as she was and with every second he became more transfixed. If there was a heaven, this was the gateway to it.
But someone had seen Sebastian leave the cafe. Mireille had been watching him and she had seen the beautiful girl and there was nothing she could do but wait helplessly and argue with the thoughts that were fighting in her head. Maybe there was a perfectly logical explanation and maybe he didn’t find that girl with the pretty dress attractive, and he had followed them because he wondered if he could encourage some business from all those tourists. Yes, that would be it. After all she was just another pretty girl. Pretty girls did come to the cafe sometimes and had she had seen him flirt a bit with them and there was no harm in that. Maybe she should do more to try and dress like the girl in the square but then it would be too obvious and everyone would notice and know why she was making changes. So, no, she would just have to block what had happened out of her mind. She felt tense and frowned as she inwardly reproached herself for being so stupid and, most of all, jealous! But when Sebastian reappeared, her confidence failed and she wanted to watch and see what he did. Perhaps his behaviour would in some way reassure her and with her heart pounding she slipped into the shadows of the living room to spy on what she hoped she wouldn’t see. The coach would leave soon and she told herself that when it was gone, this would just be a memory.
Cautiously Mireille watched Sebastian from behind the living room door, as Sebastian watched the girl from just inside the cafe door. He saw his ‘angel’ and the tourists climb up into the coach and his thoughts were still racing. He had to know where the coach came from and then he realised that underneath the name on the side of the coach, in small letters, it read, La Coruna, Spain. He had never travelled and never really wanted to, but now with all his heart he wished he was getting on that coach. The world had suddenly grown incredibly small and for the first time the spirit of adventure made him feel that he could travel to any part of it to be with her. In just fifteen minutes he had come to realise the confining predictability of it all, to feel the ties around him and suddenly to experience an overwhelming need to break free, no matter what the cost. There were things and people out there that he would never know unless he looked further than the edges of this village and if he was going to meet those challenges he would need to keep this feeling and to act now before he lost this sudden rush of courage.
For Mireille, the reverse had happened! For her the world had suddenly grown very, very large. The Bar Moulin was a tiny spec on the globe and she was lost within it with no notion of what the future would reveal. At 10.00 a.m. she had been sure of the way things would be. The world had been hers and the image that life presented to her was like the perfect pink roses that she had set on the table that morning. Now suddenly it was if a wild gust of wind had blown her life over like the vase, shattering it, scattering her life like the pieces of glass, draining away like water cascading from the table leaving the roses to die. She had this premonition that Sebastian would fly like a young bird which had been perched too long on the edge of its nest, watching other people fly and wondering ‘if’.
‘If’, thought Sebastian. If only he knew her name. Was she Spanish or French. He had no idea. Should he go and on some pretext talk to her. Perhaps offer the tourists coffee or croissants, but how stupid that would seem and maybe she would ridicule him. She would think he was mad. Then the truth of the situation gave a glancing blow to his thoughts as he realised that probably she hadn’t even noticed him. After all, he was just a waiter in a little sleepy little cafe and she was just passing through.
The engine of the coach started up. The tourists were seated and he could see his angel talking to them using a microphone before sitting at the front of the coach. He was still watching her entranced. He knew how foolish he must have looked but it was as if he had suddenly been awoken from a deep sleep and he didn’t really know how to react. Slowly the coach began to pull away and he found himself waving. Then it happened. She turned, smiled and waved at him. She had seen him! And he fell back in disbelief against the lintel of the door. The clock struck 10.30. How could it be that in 30 tiny minutes everything that he had known about himself or that he wanted had changed? Nothing would ever by the same again.
Mireille broke his thoughts with a babble of small-talk whilst she placed little vases of flowers and serviettes on each of the tables. She was so glad the coach had gone. Everything would be alright now! But when she looked up she realised he was staring at her with a distant look in his eyes. Then he looked around the cafe and with an almost mechanical slowness he took off his apron and folded it neatly behind the bar. He walked over to Mireille and kissed her tenderly on the head, the first and only kiss that she would ever have from him and then he turned and walked out into the bright sunlight, crossing the cobbled square and disappearing from view.
Mireille stood motionless in the silence staring out onto the empty street.
“Mireille” she heard her mother calling. “Where are you!? It’s 10.30. Anybody would think you had all the time in the world!”
When an Angel Passed the Bar Moulin(Alex Wood)
WHEN AN ANGEL PASSED THE BAR MOULIN
It was almost 10.00 a.m. and all was peaceful in the Bar Moulin. The polished round tables set to either side of the open door nestled in the shade of an emerald green and gold awning whilst the mid-July sun filled the entire square with an exquisite soul-uplifting light. Long boxes stretched a bolster of red and pink geraniums at the window ledges of the upper rooms. The high sun-drenched stone walls of the abbey towered to the right above the cafe and the clock chimed the hour, just as it had done for so many years, though today it seemed as if its tone held an extra brightness. At the centre of the square, a fountain sparkled as the beads of water rose, splayed, and fell into the pool beneath. On the third side of the square, clusters of deep red roses arched across the side wall of the Mairie. The sky was the truest purest mid blue and as Sébastien neatened the chairs around the tables he stopped to just take in the marvel of it all. On days like this, life was good and he could see the pattern of the future unfolding. He would have a cafe like this one day, maybe this very one. Life would bring him a wife and a family and he would be proud of what he had. Yes, on days like this, he knew that this was all he could really want! And he turned back into the bar, polishing the brass beer taps as he passed under the rack of sparkling glasses, catching sight of his reflection in the long ornate mirror that stretched the length of the wall behind the neat line of bottles.
On the other side of the bar there was a door to some steps leading down into the main house where the proprietor of the Bar Moulin, his wife and his daughter, Mireille, lived. The first room was a general dining/living area and then beyond that there was a farmhouse kitchen with an old wide rectangular table at its centre. People gathered at this table at all times of the day to converse or share the conviviality of mealtimes. On days like today the back door would be open framing a view of the garden where at this time of the year there was an abundance of vegetables and heavily laden apple and plum trees. Mireille had lived there all her life and as she smoothed the white linen cloth upon the table and placed a vase of pink scented roses at its centre, she too thought that a life like this was all she could ever want, except for one more wish; Sébastien. She was very discreet but she watched everything he did, drinking him in, feeling his closeness if their paths happened to cross. She knew every curl of his black wiry hair, and in her dreams she imagined his beautiful eyes, that shone like newly opened sweet chestnuts, his long black eyelashes sweeping downwards when he laughed and the smooth olive skin of his arms. He did look at her. She knew he did but for now it was their secret until the time was right. One day, she mused, there would be a beautiful wedding in the abbey and all their friends would drive through the streets declaring the wedding with a cacophony of car horns. Then when they were married they would buy a plot of land in the commune and build a little house and she would bottle peaches and make jam, and pickle gherkins, just like her mother did. She could imagine herself with two or three little curly haired children and she would stand at the school gate with all the other mothers and Sebastian would think she was the most beautiful woman in the world and all would be wonderful. She looked at the clock. It was 10.05.
Sebastian saw that it was 10.05 too. For some reason he felt in the mood for day-dreaming. It was a good job that Mireille’s father wasn’t around. He would have soon found Sebastian a job to do. But for now it was quiet and today seemed special. It was just then that it happened. An amazingly beautiful tall graceful vision slid into his view, as if appearing from nowhere and crossed the square. She almost seemed to glide rather than walk, holding her shoulders perfectly straight, her steps so light that it was as if she was walking on air. She had honey gold skin and chocolate brown hair gleaming and tumbling down onto her bare shoulders. She wore a dress of fluttering cream chiffon, which flickered at the hem and caressed her bronze thighs as she floated past his gaze. Enthralled he couldn’t speak or do or move. The cafe did not exist. It was just him and her until suddenly the annoying sound of a coach broke his trance and he watched as it lumbered into the square and parked by the wall of roses. A group of chattering tourists descended from the steps and the vision that had captivated him gathered them together around her. After a few seconds she lead them into the Abbey and as if he had been hypnotised, he put down the cloth in his hand and followed the group in through the great arched doorway. It was as if this angel had some kind of power over him and he felt he would follow her wherever she wanted to go. He listened as she guided the group down the grand aisle, through the vibrant coloured spears of sunlight piercing the stained glass windows, past the tranquillity of the votive candles burning by a side chapel, stopping beneath the carvings which had looked down from their plinths for hundreds of years. Her voice was as beautiful as she was and with every second he became more transfixed. If there was a heaven, this was the gateway to it.
But someone had seen Sebastian leave the cafe. Mireille had been watching him and she had seen the beautiful girl and there was nothing she could do but wait helplessly and argue with the thoughts that were fighting in her head. Maybe there was a perfectly logical explanation and maybe he didn’t find that girl with the pretty dress attractive, and he had followed them because he wondered if he could encourage some business from all those tourists. Yes, that would be it. After all she was just another pretty girl. Pretty girls did come to the cafe sometimes and had she had seen him flirt a bit with them and there was no harm in that. Maybe she should do more to try and dress like the girl in the square but then it would be too obvious and everyone would notice and know why she was making changes. So, no, she would just have to block what had happened out of her mind. She felt tense and frowned as she inwardly reproached herself for being so stupid and, most of all, jealous! But when Sebastian reappeared, her confidence failed and she wanted to watch and see what he did. Perhaps his behaviour would in some way reassure her and with her heart pounding she slipped into the shadows of the living room to spy on what she hoped she wouldn’t see. The coach would leave soon and she told herself that when it was gone, this would just be a memory.
Cautiously Mireille watched Sebastian from behind the living room door, as Sebastian watched the girl from just inside the cafe door. He saw his ‘angel’ and the tourists climb up into the coach and his thoughts were still racing. He had to know where the coach came from and then he realised that underneath the name on the side of the coach, in small letters, it read, La Coruna, Spain. He had never travelled and never really wanted to, but now with all his heart he wished he was getting on that coach. The world had suddenly grown incredibly small and for the first time the spirit of adventure made him feel that he could travel to any part of it to be with her. In just fifteen minutes he had come to realise the confining predictability of it all, to feel the ties around him and suddenly to experience an overwhelming need to break free, no matter what the cost. There were things and people out there that he would never know unless he looked further than the edges of this village and if he was going to meet those challenges he would need to keep this feeling and to act now before he lost this sudden rush of courage.
For Mireille, the reverse had happened! For her the world had suddenly grown very, very large. The Bar Moulin was a tiny spec on the globe and she was lost within it with no notion of what the future would reveal. At 10.00 a.m. she had been sure of the way things would be. The world had been hers and the image that life presented to her was like the perfect pink roses that she had set on the table that morning. Now suddenly it was if a wild gust of wind had blown her life over like the vase, shattering it, scattering her life like the pieces of glass, draining away like water cascading from the table leaving the roses to die. She had this premonition that Sebastian would fly like a young bird which had been perched too long on the edge of its nest, watching other people fly and wondering ‘if’.
‘If’, thought Sebastian. If only he knew her name. Was she Spanish or French. He had no idea. Should he go and on some pretext talk to her. Perhaps offer the tourists coffee or croissants, but how stupid that would seem and maybe she would ridicule him. She would think he was mad. Then the truth of the situation gave a glancing blow to his thoughts as he realised that probably she hadn’t even noticed him. After all, he was just a waiter in a little sleepy little cafe and she was just passing through.
The engine of the coach started up. The tourists were seated and he could see his angel talking to them using a microphone before sitting at the front of the coach. He was still watching her entranced. He knew how foolish he must have looked but it was as if he had suddenly been awoken from a deep sleep and he didn’t really know how to react. Slowly the coach began to pull away and he found himself waving. Then it happened. She turned, smiled and waved at him. She had seen him! And he fell back in disbelief against the lintel of the door. The clock struck 10.30. How could it be that in 30 tiny minutes everything that he had known about himself or that he wanted had changed? Nothing would ever by the same again.
Mireille broke his thoughts with a babble of small-talk whilst she placed little vases of flowers and serviettes on each of the tables. She was so glad the coach had gone. Everything would be alright now! But when she looked up she realised he was staring at her with a distant look in his eyes. Then he looked around the cafe and with an almost mechanical slowness he took off his apron and folded it neatly behind the bar. He walked over to Mireille and kissed her tenderly on the head, the first and only kiss that she would ever have from him and then he turned and walked out into the bright sunlight, crossing the cobbled square and disappearing from view.
Mireille stood motionless in the silence staring out onto the empty street.
“Mireille” she heard her mother calling. “Where are you!? It’s 10.30. Anybody would think you had all the time in the world!”
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Jason James Parker
01/19/2020What a beautiful and enchanting story; it's charming and wistful and sweetly sad all at the same time.
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