Alice Gross isn't the only teenage girl to go missing in the last month. In fact, she's one of many - although, thankfully, most are found or voluntarily return home after a day or two.
But, perhaps because she lives nearby and I've become familiar with her face staring out from the above poster in a Vermeer-like manner, I can't help feeling a particular interest in her case and a genuine concern for her well-being.
I also think of her family and friends trapped in a chaos of anxiety provoked by her absence and by the solemn wait for news of her whereabouts; fearing the worst, but hoping for the best and shifting between these poles of delirium without any sense of reality or time.
It's pointless to try and busy oneself with daily activities in such a situation. For as Barthes says, there is an entire scenography of waiting in which the one who has been left behind is obliged to constantly replay the loss of the loved object and anticipate what it is to mourn their death.
But, perhaps because she lives nearby and I've become familiar with her face staring out from the above poster in a Vermeer-like manner, I can't help feeling a particular interest in her case and a genuine concern for her well-being.
I also think of her family and friends trapped in a chaos of anxiety provoked by her absence and by the solemn wait for news of her whereabouts; fearing the worst, but hoping for the best and shifting between these poles of delirium without any sense of reality or time.
It's pointless to try and busy oneself with daily activities in such a situation. For as Barthes says, there is an entire scenography of waiting in which the one who has been left behind is obliged to constantly replay the loss of the loved object and anticipate what it is to mourn their death.
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