Bruxelles Midi

[franceslievens]

On a Saturday morning the crowds are different. Youngsters carrying backpacks, ladies eating croissants, with their trolley by their side. It isn't the rush of the quick-paced officials, trying to reach the time clock five minutes early to get free hours at the end of the week. The crazy people never change, though. Whether they speak English, French, German or Arabic, they are there, commenting on everything they see with their hawk-eyes. They'll spot you staring in the distance and will try to make eye-contact so you can't do anything but give them those 50 cents. The city-life makes them, molds them, spews them out on places where others (the marginaly saner ones) pass through. It makes the other city-dwellers turn into themselves, earphones in, book at the ready, eyes firmly at the floor. Or isn't this the case? The big city surely can't be this hostile to all its inhabitants.