c'est la vie

He didn’t see how the fire burned up.

As a fully qualified tourist, Johnathan Warrington was planning to visit the famous Notre Dame de Paris on Monday afternoon, then go and have the last French feast, drawing a perfect end to this tour. He would take the next flight back to America at six in the morning. But something went wrong with the subway and they missed the visiting time, so they just decided to look around, take some pictures, then leave to get something for their empty stomachs. But when he was relaxing on a chair, reading Twitter and eating ice cream, the crowd got very noisy—a few people shouting about something in French, and screaming from a woman. Then his friend pulled out Warrington’s headphones.

“Why are you doing this?” Warrington shouted unhappily, but his friend didn’t say anything and pointed at the direction of Notre Dame. Warrington narrowed his eyes; that was the moment he noticed a few curls of smoke rising from the back part of Notre Dame.

“The Notre Dame’s on fire?” his friend said nervously.

“You’re thinking too much.”

“This is a building from the twelfth century, I hope I’m thinking too much…… Wait, look!”

Warrington unwillingly turned his sight away from his phone and lifted up his head. He looked toward the direction that his friend was pointing. It was to the top of the tower of Notre Dame.

Then, he saw smoke rising from this Gothic architecture. What came next was the jumping, orange, raging fire, just like the fire in his fireplace back at home during Christmas; but this one was more ferocious, more uncontrollable. The fire was spreading with an unbelievable speed, like a huge dragon from the myths of the Middle Ages. Warrington was scared stiff. He realized his friend had already jostled towards the front of the crowd. They stood at the foot of Notre Dame, watching the growing fire and the church burning in it. The sky went dark and more and more people came to the scene. They discussed, cried, sighed. Dense smoke floated, almost covered half of the sky above Notre Dame. Warrington thought he could hear the sound of the fire burning on the woods.

The honking sound of the fire engine sounded from behind, and his friend was taking photos with the camera. This was the first time Warrington had ever seen a fire like this–would all the things be destroyed after this fire? The windows, the Couronne d'épines, those precious valuable collections, or the building itself? The sky went even darker, and neither of them discussed supper again. Warrington couldn’t tell what the orange lights were that shone in the sky: the last rays of the setting sun, or the lights and shadows of the huge fire. People started to sing the gospel, praying, trying to protect this great building. It was at that moment Warrington realized: it was painful to witness the history. The civilization, belief, or even the support of faith was going to be destroyed. This evening seemed to be so ordinary. A rose in full bloom was falling.

And then something happened. Warrington couldn’t believe his eyes. The very top of Notre Dame, the wood which supported the top tower, finally fell down due to the fire. After that, the spire of the cathedral—the place called one of the closest places to God, the spire that was built in the nineteenth century, the symbol of Notre Dame—was cut from its waist, fell down and disappeared in the dense smoke.

“C’est la vie.”

Warrington silently watched Notre Dame in the fire, a feeling of pity raised from his heart.

Who could imagine? That objects that seemed they would stay for eternity could collapse in such an ordinary evening.