Ne quittez pas

“Ne quittez pas — hold the line — is what you say when you have nothing else left to say. I painted her at the second the words fall: the receiver pressed…

€2,600 — Le Yack

“Ne quittez pas — hold the line — is what you say when you have nothing else left to say. I painted her at the second the words fall: the receiver pressed to her ear, the hand no longer moving, and the gaze drifting elsewhere, to the right, towards something that is not in the picture. The phone box stands upright in the middle of the rain, glazed on every side, like a room someone forgot to close. Her beige trench coat is the only warm thing here; everything else belongs to the street, the saloon at a standstill, the street lamps, the red of the shop signs trailing across the tarmac. I do not know who is on the other end of the line, or whether the voice will come back. What occupies me is…

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