A Chance Meeting in Paris

Paris has always seemed like a romantic city to me, but I never thought that one day I would become the heroine of a story that seemed to have come straight from a love story. It all started by accident. In the Orsay Museum, I accidentally touched the bag of a man who dropped a book. We bent down to pick it up at the same time, our eyes met, and he smiled. At that moment, everything around seemed to disappear - people, paintings, all the noise. There was only this moment, as if written by a screenwriter for the most tender rom-com. We started talking, and it turned out that he was an artist who had come to the exhibition. His voice, his manner of speaking - it was all like something out of a dream. He talked about his love for art, about how he tries to transfer every detail of Paris to canvas. His words sounded as if I was in the center of a plot, where two people meet and discover something important in each other. We walked along the Seine, discussing paintings, dreams and those strange moments in life when everything seems especially significant. Even the lights of the city seemed to play along with our conversation, filling the evening with a special light. I noticed him drawing something in his notebook, but I did not pay attention to it. As we parted, he handed me a piece of paper with a drawing of the Eiffel Tower and the inscription: "In the hope of meeting you again." It was so touching that it took my breath away for a moment. It all resembled a scene where the heroine leaves, but already knows that her life has changed. Paris is truly the city of love, but I never thought that its magic would touch me so personally. Sometimes I look back at this drawing and think: perhaps such moments happen to remind us that love, like art, always comes unexpectedly and changes everything around.