Temporal Exploring 101 - Deep Future

IV.29 City of Light

Seeing Paris in the 1960s was a revelation, a joy, an affirmation.

Wars, upheavals and the Cataclysm notwithstanding, there were places and things that endured.
Unbidden, the opening lines of the epic poem from which Jake had quoted came to my mind. A poem about the Alliance, written in the Deep Future, at a time when my people and their civilization would have become the stuff of myths and legends.

Like Phoenix from the ashes they arose,
Survivors of the fearful conflagration,
The City States, no more than two score and a half ...

Paris had been one of the Fifty. Where most of the world's metropolises had burned, leaving precious little save rubble for future archaeologists to explore, Paris had been one of the few great cities that endured.

In the first half of the 21st century, in an era generally referred to as The Darkening – an apt name for a period of time that proved to be in so many ways the exact opposite of the Age of Enlightenment – all over the world liberal democracies had withered and died, until – inevitably, as eminent 23rd century historians had claimed – the Cataclysm had begun, starting with the eruption of a number of minor local wars that soon had turned nuclear.

Meanwhile, the remaining islands of liberal democracy dwindled and gradually were swallowed by the surrounding ocean of authoritarianism, until all that remained were a few small islets. The latter were mostly metropolises which in the course of ever-increasing political and cultural upheaval had developed into independent city states. They were surrounded by areas ruled by competing warlords and their militia which for the most part had degenerated into marauding hordes of mercenaries whose loyalty to their respective current leaders could only be characterized as tenuous.

Under these circumstances, the sacking of one of the few remaining cities was a prize worth fighting and dying for. In the aftermath of the slaughtering, raping, pillaging, looting and blundering that invariably occurred when a major city was conquered, that city would be burned to the ground, leaving little more than rubble.

The city of Paris had endured, owing to the vigor of its citizens and their unshakable belief in liberty and democracy.

Paris, the City of Light. La Ville Lumière.

It cost me no effort to recall the crucial events and names from my 23rd-century history lessons.

How invaders had finally broken through the city's defenses in 2093. Mallarand's visionary, rousing speech at the Arc de Triomphe, followed by the pitched battle at the Champs-Elysses, where tens of thousands of ordinary citizens had spontaneously assembled, armed with various makeshift weapons of all sorts, to fight the invaders.

Ordinary people had fought and died side by side behind the barricades. After the first night, the number of citizens willing to defend their city had doubled. After the second night, it had quadrupled. On the third day, the siege had been broken when people had risen from behind the barricades and overrun the enemy lines.

Jeanne Bardin, an eighteen-year-old girl who worked in a bakery, had killed the enemy's military commander. The invading troops had been pushed back beyond the city limits and had been forced to retreat. It had been a great victory, but one that had been bought at a price: more than twenty-thousand people had died, giving up their lives for the freedom of their city.

Fifty years later, the treaties that decreed the founding of the Alliance of Independent City States had been signed here at Paris, at the Place de la Bastille. Or would be signed, about 180 years from now. The English language still lacks a tense to properly describe the sequence of historical events from a Temporal Explorer's point of view.

We met our guide, a French girl in her early twenties, near the Eiffel Tower. To our delight, it turned out that she spoke English fluently.

"Hi, I am Marianne," she introduced herself, with a smile.

When none of my classmates showed any reaction, she elaborated, "You know, Marianne, as in Marianne the French Lady Liberty. There is a famous painting by the painter Eugene Delacroix where she is depicted leading the people in the July revolution. With her breasts bared, like so."

Saying that, she opened her shirt to display her boobs – she was not wearing a bra – ignoring the scattered applause and the approving whistles of tourists and students all around us.

"Tres charmant," Ms Mallet gushed, as Marianne nonchalantly re-adjusted her clothes.

"What's gotten into her?" Mallory asked, indicating our teacher.

"I have no idea," Helen observed. "But I have no doubt that if one of us had flashed her boobs the way that girl just did, old Mallet would have killed her on the spot."

We had arrived less than two hours before, after traveling by bus to Dover and taking the ferry from there to Calais, followed by another long trip by bus.

I couldn't help but notice that my classmates were nothing less than enthusiastic to be in Paris. This included even the four 'rich girls'. There certainly was no more whining and complaining to be heard, now that the ordeal of one week of intense French lessons lay behind us.

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A / N : I rather enjoyed outlining that further piece of future history, though part of it tends to be a bit on the gloomy side. As usual, I would ask you to consider adding your comments or voting for this chapter if you are so inclined.