The wind picked up. She pulled out her earphones and played the track again — On s'en ira . The chill mix. The one where the beat doesn't push; it carries. Like water. Like memory without panic.
"Same thing sometimes," he replied.
"Leaving," Lena said.
As the boat pulled from the dock, the lights on shore began to shrink — first into smudges, then into pinpricks, then into a memory she could fold and put in her pocket.
Inspired by "Goulam ft Dj Pakx – On S'en Ira (chill mix)"
Just going.
The song had come on earlier — that track her friend Marco had sent her months ago, the one with the soft, looping piano and the vocal that seemed to breathe rather than sing: "On s'en ira…" — we'll go away.
Lena stood up. Her legs had gone numb, but it felt like someone else's body. She rolled her suitcase to the loading ramp, showed her ticket to a sleepy crew member who didn't check her name.
The song looped again in her head: On s'en ira. On s'en ira.
Around her, the city slept. The kind of sleep that felt like relief. Or abandonment. She hadn’t decided which yet.
She walked through the empty streets. A stray cat watched her from a car roof. A bar still played music behind thick shutters — something deep, bass-heavy, nothing like her own drifting soundtrack. She almost went in. One last drink with strangers. But the ferry was waiting. At 4 a.m., a man appeared on the quay. Old fisherman, yellow raincoat even though the sky was clear. He didn't ask why she was there. Just sat down ten feet away, lit a cigarette, and stared at the horizon.
Because some tides don't ask permission. And some goodbyes are too quiet for tears — they only need a chill mix, a dark harbor, and the courage to sit on a suitcase until morning. Would you like a (what she finds on the other side), or a different version (more urban, more romantic, more melancholic)? Just tell me the mood.