I thought to myself recently that perhaps all towns are ghost towns. Towns filled with ghosts, I mean. Every city. Because the people who lived in Paris 150 years ago are all dead now. Every single one of those thousands, every person who sat at the tables in cafes, who walked the alleys and enjoyed the sunlight in the gardens, who looked out of the windows and left footprints on the cobblestones. The entire population of a giant capital. They were replaced naturally by their children and grandchildren, but none of them are alive now. And what’s even more wild to think of is that it isn’t just in Paris. It’s the whole world. Every single person out of billions who had lived 150 years ago is dead. None of them still walk the earth. From Buddhist monks in the east to cowboys in the west, from noble lords in the north to fishers in the south. And that same cycle has repeated itself hundreds of times. Generations of people lived on this earth and died and nobody is here now to tell the truth of how it really was back then. Our generation will die as well in some 150 years. Nobody will be alive, not one person from nearly eight billion people. A haunting thought.
Here’s a link to a video of 1920s Paris in colour.