She searched and searched for refuge in this Olympics abyss of gross, cellulite-ridden Americans wearing hats and t-shirts and shorts of the most offending styles and colors, much of it Olympics-related merch. Although she was only in town for a week, to her dismay, she realized they no longer sold one-week passes for the metro—just another thing that had been fucked with in time for the Olympics. Deciding to walk thirty minutes rather than pay four euros (it was the principle), Sadie was sweating, hungry and urgently needed to piss by the time she reached the destination she was trying to get to (specifically, one of several shops she oversaw throughout the United States and Europe).

Another abrupt change she hadn’t accounted for: the price of using a toilette had gone up from one euro to two euros. The city was really milking this Olympics business for all that it was worth, and now that they found their excuse to raise prices across the board for every possible “service,” there would be no going back even after the barrage of tourists scattered like the rats they were. After conceding to shelling out the amount required to relieve herself, Sadie could, once again, focus on what she had set out to do, which was, after visiting the shop, finding a place—anyplace—that was somewhat empty enough to sit down in. It didn’t matter if it was outdoor or indoor seating, she just needed a goddamn period of respite after the endless search for this nonexistent place to “relax.” She should have known better than to come to Paris during this moment, but she told herself it would be “fine.” Or at least “not that bad.” That everyone was simply hyping up the fact that it was going to be a shitshow (or “merdeshow”) for roughly one month in the City of Light. Which had now transformed into the City of Blight.

After about another forty-five minutes of aimless, sweat-drenched roaming, to Sadie’s surprise, she discovered that the emptiest place in all of Paris was an “off-the-beaten-path” Starbucks. Like every Starbucks, it looked the same as every other Starbucks, and could have been anywhere. Of late, the chain had also taken a shine to playing only songs from the Taylor Swift catalogue. It seemed almost unfathomable to Sadie that Swift would have “allowed” that, but maybe she figured the Starbucks clientele was some of her most significant bread and butter in terms of audience. Filled with so many vanilla faces as it tended to be. Even though the vanilla faces, depending on the location, often weren’t the types to stick around and sit at one of the tables in order to “savor” their beverages.

Indeed, for white people, nothing about Starbucks involved “savoring” as it perhaps once did in the nineties. As for what white people might only now internally call “the ghettos,” they were happy to linger in a Starbucks and get their money’s worth, setting up shop there like it was their true home (though one has to wonder if their bathroom at home was treated as harshly). Sadie could now count herself amongst “the ghettos” that would deign to be seen in a Starbucks for any extended period of time. Apparently, Americans wanted to soak up “real” “local color” during their Olympics-related visit. Didn’t want to waste their money on “corporate bullshit” where it wasn’t already necessary.

That’s the impression that Sadie was getting, though of course she could have been totally wrong. Maybe this just happened to be the one Starbucks in all of Paris that few other Americans had managed to stumble upon. It was, after all, located in an area more removed from the Olympic events that were happening in more classically tourist-oriented locations (including, of course, the Eiffel Tower, the Trocadéro, the Place de la Concorde and Invalides). Sadie refused to venture in those parts of town. The only way you would catch her there would be through a sheer stroke of bad luck. Sometimes, a person can take a wrong turn or a train can be rerouted. The new rule, after all, was that anything that could go wrong, would go wrong in the City of Blight. Even though the government had purportedly pulled out all the stops to employ as many members of the Police Nationale and the gendarmerie as possible to keep things in check. Such “things” being not only mere “crowd control,” but, you know, “terrorism control.”

Naturally, it was fairly easy to come off as a terrorist nowadays. Sadie herself might even be coming across as one while she sat in that near-empty Starbucks with an expression of extreme irritation—like that might signify she was irritated enough to do something “drastic.” But no, she was much too afraid to do anything, let alone commit a terrorist act. She would simply collect herself for a few more minutes, use the bathroom and then proceed to walk back to her hotel, all the while wondering why she had ever bothered to leave it in the first place (apart from checking up on that infernal shop). Probably because it was “frowned upon,” even in the nicest of hotels, to stay in your room all day. If for no other reason than the cleaning staff still expected you to leave so they could go about their damn job. Sadie, unsurprisingly, was someone who didn’t care if her hotel room was cleaned or not. In fact, she preferred that no one came in while she was the room’s “resident.” The cleaning staff at Hôtel Avenir had a different opinion on that matter though. So here Sadie was, floundering through town, waiting for the week to pass. She only really needed to be there for a total of three days for her work-related vigilance, but decided, foolishly to turn the trip into a seven-day one before she headed to her next stop, London.

At the rate things were going, she was liable to just pack it all up and return home to Boston. London, too, was chock-full of its own issues at the moment, a general disorder set off by, of all things a Taylor Swift-themed yoga class for little girls. Once again, Swift seemed to rule everything around Sadie, including the Starbucks playlist. She walked out when “Teardrops On My Guitar” boomed through the speakers. She wasn’t comatose enough to stay for that, even though the air conditioning felt amazing, along with the emptiness of the place. But suddenly, it was all too grim and she got sketched out. It seemed that the city had become a pendulum of extremes, where on one side it was too eerily empty and, on the other, it was too teeming to handle. Better to wrap up conducting her business and get the fuck out of Paris before any other unwanted sense of existential dread descended upon her.

And then, just when she was within minutes of reaching her hotel again, she found herself being barreled over by a group of running youths trying to imitate the sprinting race they had just watched at whatever-the-fuck venue. It was more than she had bargained for, the proverbial cherry on top of an already unpleasant trip.

After the band of gregarious youths forced themselves to see if she was all right as they helped her to her feet, Sadie hobbled the rest of the way to the hotel. Sure, she could go to the doctor just to be on the safe side and check that nothing was sprained or what have you, but she reckoned that any doctors who hadn’t fled Paris for their own vacations would be dominated by the many Americans looking to take advantage of the “cheap” (in comparison to the U.S.) healthcare available to them while visiting. It was best to just pop an ibuprofen, crawl into bed, pull the covers over herself and leave as soon as her final business meeting was over the following day. Adieu to the City of Blight until it was once again restored to being the City of Light.