Yesterday, in Paris, I saw him again. A man pulling a train of toy vehicles along the pavement. They rattled softly against the pavement as he walked. The toy vehicles stretched along the pavement like a cheerful little parade that had forgotten its band. He was not pulling one toy truck or two, but a long, vibrant convoy of little cement mixers, tractors, garbage trucks, and miniature cars, all linked together with string like a child’s improvised railway. Each vehicle carried something: a teddy bear, a doll, a small flag, or a plastic animal, like a scene from the movie, Toy Story. People noticed immediately. Children stopped. A woman with a stroller laughed. A man on a bicycle slowed down to watch the procession pass. The man himself seemed used to the attention. He smiled, nodding when people pointed or asked questions. I had seen him once before, a week earlier, from the window of a restaurant on the same street. At first, I thought it might be some sort of delivery system, or a performance, or perhaps a Parisian protest. He carried no sign explaining what it meant. Perhaps it does not mean anything. Yesterday, I realized that, perhaps, he was just walking. And the train was just following. Or perhaps each vehicle carries its own little story. I began to imagine them. The red truck near the front might belong to a child who insisted on sleeping with it beside the pillow every night. The cement mixer with the American flag could have crossed an ocean in someone’s suitcase, as one small piece of home carried to Paris. A green tractor might have been rescued from a flea market box where all the wheels were missing from its companions. The doll sitting upright in the yellow lorry might once have belonged to someone who outgrew it but could never quite throw it away. One by one, the vehicles could have arrived in this man’s life like passengers waiting for a train: abandoned toys, forgotten toys, toys found on sidewalks or given by friends, or handed over by children who had simply grown older. Perhaps he repaired them. Perhaps he adopted them. Perhaps he simply understood that small things deserve another journey. That is what the convoy looked like to me: not a collection of toys, but a travelling museum of childhood. A procession of memories rolling slowly through the streets of Paris. Children watched the procession pass with the serious concentration children give to unusual things. Adults smiled in a way adults rarely smile at strangers anymore. And the man kept walking, pulling the train gently behind him, as if he were leading a group of tiny travellers who trusted him to show them the world. Paris is full of grand spectacles, like the Eiffel Tower lighting up at night, the wide avenues, the museums, and the famous cafés. Sometimes, the most magical sight is a man on an ordinary street pulling a train of small stories behind him. If you see him one day, stop for a moment. Look closely at the vehicles. You might recognize one of them. It might remind you of a toy you once loved, or a childhood afternoon you had forgotten, or a small object that once seemed as important as the entire world. And if that happens, then perhaps the train has done exactly what it was meant to do. It has delivered something back to you … a Parisian parade of pure joy.
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