Brussels

Brussels

Brussels is a city that dies on its feet. I have watched it dying for many years now. All that remains is an icy breath wandering among stones that no longer believe in morning. An ancient weariness has settled upon its streets like an everlasting ash, and every dawn resembles the one before, as though time itself had grown too weary to move on. Even the rain seems unclean when it falls upon this city, abandoned by men and, who knows, perhaps already abandoned by God. I often walk through it with a heavy heart. It has become a stranger to itself, like a soul searching for its own face and never finding it again.

The pavements bear their pitiful relics: white, blue, and pink refuse bags, arranged like the miserable shrouds of a kingdom that no longer has the strength to bury its own shame. The wind tears them open, scatters them, drives them against doorways; they split apart and spill their misery, yet no one seems surprised anymore. Eyes pass over them with that quiet indifference which always precedes great ruins. To me, they are the ashes of a civilisation that has ceased to believe in itself.

Wild grasses climb the façades, gather around the lampposts, and creep between the cobblestones with the patience of graves. They advance without anger, without haste. They know that time is on their side. Men surrendered long before they did. One day, perhaps, nothing will remain but their silence.

The houses have become faces without souls. Their windows resemble dead eyes. The walls bear the wrinkles of an old age that no one cares to behold. Even the monuments have lost their majesty. I see them as ancient giants condemned to witness, motionless, the slow decay of their own kingdom. They inspire no reverence now, only an immense pity.

Then comes Brussels South Station. What a strange name, almost a cruel one. One expects light there... instead, one finds an open wound. The air is thick with dust, refuse, weariness, abandonment. The walls seem to have absorbed every lingering odour of a city that no longer washes itself. Every platform appears to lead, not toward another destination, but toward an even deeper solitude. I always leave it with the feeling that I have crossed not a railway station, but the vestibule of a world slowly dying.

Along these streets walk people who no longer lift their eyes to the sky. Many live among the rubbish as though filth had become the natural order of things. Others laugh at Brussels with the cruelty reserved for an ageing mother of whom one has grown ashamed. They mock its squares, its trees, its stones. Love has vanished... only habit remains. And habit is sometimes sadder than hatred.

Above this slow disintegration reigns a strange stillness. The palaces remain illuminated while the streets grow dark. Promises fall one after another like dead leaves that no one bothers to gather. Intrigues flourish in the corridors of power, clinging to them like mould upon an old house long since shut away. Private interests smother the common good, and inaction has come to resemble a law unto itself. The King remains within his silence, a distant silhouette beyond the iron gates. I would like to believe that he can still hear the heartbeat of this capital. Yet silence has become stronger than the bells.

Even the Royal Park wears a mourning that no one dares to name. They say it cost so much effort and so much gold, yet its paths already breathe abandonment. Dead leaves mingle with litter, the old benches wait for walkers who no longer dare to sit upon them, and the trees raise their branches like weary supplicants beneath a sealed sky. Everything speaks of a beauty that was lost before it could ever be saved.

When night falls, Brussels ceases to be a city; it becomes an unease. Shadows spread like black water through deserted streets. Footsteps quicken. Eyes turn away. Each passer-by carries home a silent fear. Insecurity is no longer an accident; it inhabits these places as mist inhabits the marshes.

Then I look upon this capital with its grey façades, its deserted squares, its statues veiled in the dust of time. At times I feel I am the last person still speaking to it. Others pass without seeing it, as one passes an old grave whose name has long since faded away. Brussels is no longer merely a forgotten city; it is a soul withdrawing into silence, a bell tolling in an empty church, a kingdom dissolving slowly into mud and ashes beneath the distracted gaze of the powerful and the stubborn silence of the heavens. And yet, despite everything, I cannot turn my eyes away from her. One does not abandon what one has loved. One mourns it.