We'll Always Have Paris

It is 2087 and my life fades. My eyes see less and the world grows dark. Yet I still have my memories. I remember a time when Paris was a city of light, beauty, art and music. To understand you have to go back to another time. A time before the Awakening when there was no magic, dragons, elves or dwarves. A time before the goblins appears, those orks and trolls and other monsters that spawned as the world changed. Before the matrix and it's crash. When there was peace and no Euro Wars pitting brother against brother. All these things that happened as our so called leaders did nothing but talk and talk.    The Awakening tore the city apart. Magic flooding back in, spirits rising from the depths of nightmares and the dead stirring to stalk the catacombs.  The megacorporations entering and taking over most of the government functions except for the basics of providing a minimal standard of living for the people. Everything being given a price that you had to pay, if you were fortunate enough to have a job.   The city fractured into armed enclaves. Orks took over Belleville. Elves and environmentalists grabbed the Bois de Boulogne. The corporations, elites and wealthy the Ile de la Cite. With their private security forces. No one can enter there without the proper credentials. The highways leading out of Paris are a horrible warzone where gangs fight over any little trinket that catches their eye. The black markets, criminal shops and flesh markets taking the outer ring city which are now slums. Slums that if lucky have rationed electricity and water. Forget gas and heating for the winter, those poor souls are left to the cold.   The sky is now a morbid grey. Endless toxins floating in sulfurous clouds from factory slums. The once beautiful Seine an open sewer filled with the worst and nastiest kinds of bacteria. Forever more it seems we will always be masked and wearing filters. Thanks the corporations for that.   Still I recall my youth, before the Sixth World, when the Seine shimmered in golden sunlight, laughter spilled from cafes and lovers carved their initials into the trees along the Champs de  Elysee. My happiness was being a novelist and artist. Writing and drawing with the hope of being one day famous. Now my youth, my memories will soon be gone. Like tears in the rain.