Bite-size Stories

This story is not about how we met at +39 Pizza Bar on a bustling Melbourne laneway for the love of pizza. It is not about how too much food was ordered. Food restraint is not my forte. This time I blame it on the Italian accent—perhaps rehearsed, but still, not helpful when it comes to saying no to a plate of bruschetta. Neither is this a story about the bottle of red we shared. I am not even going to mention how it had a grape-stomping party in my head the morning after. This is a short story about moments of life, little stills stitched together by the thread of time. Moments like these are the brightest threads in that thick, strangely cut fabric.

I didn’t want the night to slip away. I wanted to hold the warm spring air in my lungs and the red wine in my veins. Chez Janou - bright yellow walls, a handful of tables under chestnut trees. Laughter, small talk, plates carried outside, and the sense that Paris needs no staging. Life was simply unfolding around us. Glass in hand, I asked the bartender, “Tell me about French wine.” He looked at me, his dark southern eyes lit with laughter. “All you need to know,” he said, “is that there are two types of wine: French, and all others.”