He couldn’t sleep that night. His body was resting but images were dancing in his head : artificial lights, anarchic buildings, unattainable people… It was an incomprehensible world depriving him of sleep. After a while, he decided to get up, get dressed and leave the house. It would have been the perfect opportunity for a nighttime walk, but he didn’t go outside. Having lived for many years on the ground floor of a Parisian building, it had never occurred to him to go upstairs. he turned on the light and started climbing the stairs.

The first landing was a surprise. Although he was familiar with the decorations – the Persian patterns, the corniche, the color of the doors and the texture of the walls, this place seemed foreign to him. With a mixture of fear and excitement, he climbed up the next flight of stairs. There’s no law that says you can’t wander around your own building at night, but he still felt like he was doing something wrong. He kept climbing and his intuition told him that he was doing something whose logic would only become clear later on.

He reached the 6th floor filled with silence. The only light came from the skylight, ran along the wall, spilled onto the floor and up the service ladder hanging there. It was used by roofing workers, chimney sweep and antenna salesmen to get on the roof. The lock had been left undone. he saw a sign inviting him to go up further. He dragged the ladder to reach the openning and went out taking the ladder with him and closing the window.

He stood up slowly and felt a great calm.