The City of Romance Flash
Romance is the most romantic city in the world, with more fancy restaurants per capita than any other romantic city. It has two Eiffel Towers on opposite sides of the city.
Theodore waited at the top of the downtown Eiffel Tower for Selene, his girlfriend.
Selene waited at the bottom, ground level, of the uptown Eiffel Tower for her boyfriend, Theodore. She look at her time on her phone and called Theodore.
“Hello, Selene? I’m at the Eiffel Tower,” Theodore answered.
“Me too, wait, which one?” Selene asked.
“The downtown one.”
“Well, I’m at the uptown one. Let’s just meet at the midtown ‘Le Désorienté’ restaurant at 1 pm.”
Theodore agreed and hung up.
Theodore arrived at the restaurant in a taxi and walked inside. He told the host, “Party of two.”
The host showed him to the table.
He waited so long for Selene that they seated him.
“Hi honey, sorry for the confusion again, I should have mentioned which Eiffel Tower,” Selena apologized. She kissed him on the cheek.
“It’s okay, you’re here now,” Theodore replied.
“Did you order yet? I’m starving!”
“The waiter already took my order, I told him you would order when he came back.”
“Okay, what did you order?”
“The salad with chicken strips.”
“I think I’ll get that too.”
The waiter returned and put in her order.
Selene looked over her shoulder and saw a cup on another table glitch from one spot to another. She thought nothing of it.
Suddenly, everything glitched, and some kind of wave moved everything and everyone into their future positions.
The waiter was suddenly in front of Theodore with their food.
Theodore shook his head in confusion.
“Weren’t we just waiting for our food, where did the waiter come from?” Theodore asked Selene.
“He just came over, what are talking about?”
“I don’t know, one minute we were waiting and the next, the waiter was here. Like time skipped or something?”
“Just eat your food, honey, and stop acting crazy,” Selene poked at her salad with a fork.
Theodore started to eat.
Selene looked at her watch and noticed it glitched and switched from one-thirty to two o’clock. When she looked up and their plates and glasses were empty. Is time really skipping? What’s causing it, if it is? Selene thought.
They split the check and left.
Selene drove home but decided to take the long way. She drove to the edge of town and stopped the car once she saw a clear wall. She got out of her car and walked up to the wall. She put her hand on it and rings formed on the wall around her fingers like waves on water. She banged on the wall, but nothing happened. She was trapped.
Theodore’s taxi driver kept going the wrong way, even when he directed him. They drove all the way to the edge of town and made it to the wall.
“Stop and wait here,” he told the taxi driver and got out of the car.
The taxi driver’s eye widened.
Theodore quickly turned around.
“Wait!” Theodore shouted. He slowly walked up to the wall. “Is this all there is? Just this city. What’s out there, beyond the wall?” he said to himself.
“How can I keep on living, knowing everyone might be fake? Am I real? What is all this?!” He
put his hands on the side of his head and crouched down in fear. He felt something under his hair, a button. Am I a robot? He pressed the button and closed his eyes.
He woke up and was in bed. He took off the virtual reality helmet and saw his wife lying next to him. He tried to wake her up.
She eventually woke up and took off her VR helmet.
“Morning, honey. How’d you sleep?” she asked as if nothing ever happened.
“Fine,” he replied, then remembered everything.
