There are those who can afford to go to the Comédie-Française and those who can, instead, only afford a coffee at the café right next to it. Was a ticket to one of the shows at the Comédie-Française as expensive as, say, seeing an opera at Palais Garnier? Certainly not. But, as many obviously need to be reminded of, finances are all relative. And for Aurelie Malmain, her finances were relatively, well, shit. And consistently, too. Never mind that the “tenets” of capitalism stipulated that you could always change your station, no matter how low it got. They didn’t bother to add that it was more likely your station would “change” in such a way as to only get lower, not higher. And that those capable of improving it already had a leg up to begin with. But hey, no need to mention that anywhere in the propaganda as a disclaimer. Better to let people who were perennially fucked, like Aurelie, go on believing their fortune could shift at any moment. 

Aurelie’s fortune, indeed, was about to shift. But, as most pragmatists know, fortune rarely takes a turn for the better. That’s the stuff of Hollywood movies centered on rags to riches narratives. Aurelie hated Hollywood movies. In fact, whenever one of her cinephile friends invited her to go see a so-called classic at a theater like Le Champo or Filmothèque du Quartier Latin, she reflexively declined, assuming it was going to be one of those schlock-y pro-capitalist movies that indoctrinated post-war Americans early on. Which was why the country had such a hard time deprogramming now. In truth, it was unlikely that it would ever deprogram and that, as Fredric Jameson/Slavoj Žižek, said, “It is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism.” Leaving out the unspoken part where capitalism itself does result in the end of the world. As for Aurelie, who decided to sit outside the café next to the Comédie-Française, it was easier to imagine the place would close for the day before she ever got a waiter’s attention. 

She reckoned it was because there was an air of poverty about her. And by “poverty,” what one means is “lower middle class.” The waiter, in his many years of experience (written on the wizened look of his face), could smell it on her. How she would spend only “just enough” to sit there and take up a table for far longer than she “deserved.” Because only people who spend “sufficiently” enough ought to be able to linger. Even in a café of Paris, where the supposed norm was lingering.

But, as with most tourist-attracting (not to be confused with tourist attractions) places, the Comédie-Française café was an exception to that cliché of a rule. The turnover was expected to be higher. One didn’t need to be told that—one could simply see it in the overburdened expressions of the the maître d’ and the waiters, all of whom kept darting their eyes back and forth to see if a table had finally cleared. No, the café next to the Comédie-Française, especially at certain hours of the day, was not a place for the lingerer. Namely, the writer or reader (or writer/reader). Aurelie fancied herself just that. At least, on the days she had off from working at a burlesque club (as a bartender, not a performer).

And on those days, she did find herself doing tried-and-true “Parisian things” like sitting in cafés and going to a movie (not a Hollywood one, it should go without saying). She never would have opted for the café next to the Comédie-Française were it not for her urgent need to use the bathroom on the way to the cinema. With the only other nearby option actually being far more expensive, Aurelie surrendered to the teeming Comédie-Française café, where she was still expected to wait not only for a table, but for the bathroom itself—a two-stall operation with a line going halfway up the stairs that led to it.

Nonetheless, she waited. Crossed her legs and Kegel’d her pussy into oblivion to hold it as long as she could, practically bursting when the toilet finally became available to her. Once that “matter” was settled, she made her way back upstairs to the table outside in the corner. Where singles and poors were relegated (that’s why Johnny Castle was so adamant about nobody putting Baby in a corner). With such a position among the fray, one would think Aurelie would be safe from anything like a potential stabbing, but apparently, she hadn’t accounted for the fact that her seat was located right next to an exit through which waiters could ferry their various trays. So it was that, soon after managing to place her pauper’s order for a cappuccino (which she actually thought was rather nice of her, “patron-wise,” considering how much cheaper an espresso was), a sharp object barreled into her back.

Before she had time to consider what it might be or what the hell had just transpired, a slew of onlookers was gasping at the sight of her as a trio of waiters rallied together to pull what just so happened to be a steak knife out of her back. Aurelie didn’t understand why they would do such a thing, being that pulling a knife out of a wound is probably the worst thing you can do without a medical professional on hand, but then, she didn’t really understand how a knife had ended up in her back either. Only later, when the viral footage appeared on the internet, did she see that the offending waiter had tripped on the leg of her chair while carrying a tray of errant plates and cutlery he had just cleared. As a result, he lurched forward and then too far backward to correct himself. Thus, prompting the steak knife to become the only piece that managed to launch itself off and hit her where it hurt as it plunged directly into her back.

As more staff members began to teem around her with their various “medical solutions” (in her increasingly dazed state, she could have sworn she heard one of them suggest stopping up the blood with a wedge of cheese), Aurelie thought about how all of this could have been avoided if she didn’t have to use the bathroom, therefore didn’t need to stop at the café in the first place. Then again, it probably all could have been avoided if the waiter hadn’t taken one glance at her and decided she was “corner-worthy” because she seemed (and was) to be the type of person who would only order a coffee and thus take up unnecessary space among the “real spenders.”

Well, the waiters and maître d’ had surely manifested her punishment for that now. However, they knew that the least they could do for her, as they watched her get carted away to the hospital, was comp her drink.