Baguette Rhymes with Dead || ONC 2024 | ✔

Chapter 4: Baguette Rhymes with Regret

When I was fifteen, an American tourist on Grafton Street had roped me into a conversation with him and asked me if I'd ever encountered a real leprechaun. Thinking he was taking the piss out of me, I'd told him that yes, I had seen leprechauns before, but they didn't thrive in urban environments like Dublin, so maybe he should try his luck in County Wicklow if he wanted to spot one? It was only when he looked at me with far too much glee, thanking me profusely for pointing him in the right direction, that I realised he'd been dead serious.

If I could end up in a city full of dead people while visiting France, though, maybe that tourist running into leprechauns in Ireland wasn't as implausible as I'd thought. Perhaps I ought to make the trip to Wicklow myself sometime when I was back home.

But there was a necropolis to explore first.

Béatrice drove us through the Other Paris' midnight streets, cruising with the windows rolled down under the glow of street lamps and the light spilling out of shops and restaurants. The roads were much less traffic- and pedestrian-packed here than in the Paris I knew, probably due to the late hour, the smaller population size and the lack of tourists and commuters filtering into the city each day. Yet, ironic as it was, this Paris teemed with life all the same: people, most appearing to be roughly between twenty and fifty years of age, strolled along sidewalks, ate and drank at quaint cafés, and leaned on bridges admiring the view of the Seine by night without being disturbed by flocks of tourists intent on snapping Insta-worthy selfies.

"We don't technically need to eat or sleep here, even if we like to do so at times," Béatrice explained, one hand on the steering wheel and both eyes on the road, "so the necropolis is bustling twenty-four hours a day. Because we must keep our society functional, people do have jobs. They're overseen by the City Council and on a voluntary basis. You'd be surprised how many people want to work when it isn't a necessity for survival and they have all the time in the world." She smiled at us in the rearview mirror. "I spend most of my own time following interesting classes on all sorts of subjects, but I've been thinking about learning how to drive buses or subway trains. How fun that sounds! Don't ever let anyone tell you they're too old to learn something new, darlings. They lie."

I nodded along, taking her words and the many sights around me in quietly. My brain struggled to comprehend how work could be fun, but I supposed people were people, and people craved routine. For the most part, I was mesmerized by how this Paris looked so much more pleasant than the one I'd left behind. Gone seemed the shady weirdos, the scammers and pickpockets pawing at tourists' cameras; gone were the tourists themselves, the rats by the water, those funny smells that had bothered my nose to the point of discomfort.

This Paris was as picture-perfect as could be.

The thought that Caitlin would've loved to see this struck me by surprise, and I felt a pang of sadness at my inability to share the place with her. She would've hung on to Béatrice's every word, insisted on enjoying all the best sights without an abundance of other people there to ruin them, and drawn scenes of the Other Paris and its inhabitants in that sketchbook of hers filled with art that I'd always felt belonged in the Louvre itself. She would've cherished a unique experience like this one with all her heart.

Then again, if she'd come on this trip with me, as my girlfriend or the beloved friend she was before, we wouldn't have ended up here in the first place.

"But you have proper entertainment here, too, right?" Luc, in the backseat next to me, asked Béatrice around a mouthful of demi-baguette sandwich with ham and cheese. "Because you saw Terminator 2, you said, and you definitely didn't watch that in the 1940s."

"Our city is, in many ways, like a mirror." Béatrice stopped for a traffic light. "Not even death provides answers to every question, so I cannot tell you much about its exact inner workings. We simply don't know. But our stores and facilities, be they for groceries, clothes, books or anything else, contain the same things you'd find in their counterparts on your side. It keeps us entertained and informed. Many of us may have missed out on living in your century, but we aren't forced to exist in ignorance."