The Place Where All Dreams Shatter

The sea gets it all in the end

Beach in Port-la-Nouvelle, France. Photo by author.

The building hovers on the edge of destruction

At the end of Avenue de la Mer, a dusty yellow bulldozer sits on a pile of already vanquished rubble. Half of what was once a corner store and the apartment above it are already gone. The jagged front wall, eaten away by steel teeth, echoes the…