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It is odd the impressions I will remember from Venice.
(Venice is ridiculous. Venice is a hologram. I was instantly smitten.)
Not the history, the grandeur.
There was the fair-haired boy in the black turtleneck and fedora, running from his mother along the canal as she laughed, exasperated, in his wake, calling “John Arthur, John Arthur!”
The two plain girls, barely out of their teens, in flats and unflattering dresses with floral scarves wrapped around their throats, taking each other’s picture on the Rialto Bridge, feeling sexy and invigorated by the city.
The corpse, fished from the water, lying flanked by two police officers, wrapped in one of those gold foil blankets like a marathon runner, everything draped but the tips of his brown boots.
All things, large and small, making me immeasurably happy and immeasurably sad.
(And what will John Arthur remember of Venice, in the future? If he remembers Venice at all.)
