Love in the Neon Paris of the Future: She Waits at a Café Under the Stars for Someone Who Is Not Coming Back

Viewers in Skydale have been following a love story on the Other Side, set in a Paris that has not happened yet.

The city is all glass towers and neon, with flying cars drifting past the Eiffel Tower. At a little café table, a woman in black sits with a cup of coffee she has forgotten to drink, looking up at the stars. The man she loved is somewhere out there. They never got to say goodbye. She spends the evenings wondering what he sees from his corner of the galaxy, and whether he ever wishes he were here.

The waiters leave her alone. In Paris, even in the future, they understand.

Our Love & Loss Columnist has watched her for a week and reports that she has not once looked at her phone. She looks up. Every evening the sky over Paris is full of lights, most of them flying cars, and she seems to be waiting for one of them to be him.

Readers in Skydale have written in to ask whether he will come back. Mika is offering odds. The bakery on Ferrule Street has asked everyone to stop betting on other people’s hearts, and has then quietly placed a small bet of its own.

Related: Your Corner of the Galaxy, on YouTube