Paris-Tele-Portatiom

fantasy story

“I don’t know, maybe, I sound old-fashioned or retro-style thinking, but visiting Paris, the City of Love and Fashion, with all its art attractions and small surprises, beautiful boutiques and… Moulin Rouge is one of my deepest dreams,” Anton, a twenty-one-year-old student with a nerdy appearance of an A-student took off his glasses and looked at Ann, his University group mate, a glamour girl with noble manners, who socialized with him just only because he was her summer cottage neighbor.

“So, what’s the matter? The only thing you have to do is to plan your trip, to choose a tourist company, to pay the cash, to say ‘Bonjour Paris!’ and to enjoy Montmartre with its funiculaire and petite train!” Ann smized ironically, putting her long wavy hair in order.

“For you, it is so simple; for me, it is bloody hard! You forget that I am just a student. At first, I must earn some cash; secondly, I should persuade my parents; thirdly, I ought to convince you to go with me. Just only after that, I can plan my trip to Paris, a divine place for lovers!” Anton glanced at the cheetah-licious girl biting her lips.

“Sorry, my four-eyed friend! A trip with you, even to Paris, is not in my plans. For the whole year, I’ve been trying to hammer into your high IQ and low EQ head one simple idea, that we are just only good neighbors, good group mates, good friends, and you are still cherishing some fairytale fantasies.”

Ann waved her head as in a time-lapse shot, showing her sparkling blond hair in all its natural beauty. She lunged for her ankles graciously and got back on her feet. “I will toss up one idea… Remembering that you are one of my trekkie and techie friends, I’d like to advise you not to do tomorrow what you can do today. The saying of my Dad… So, instead of mouse milking at night in dubious dives, go crowdsourcing, launch your startup, and in a month or two, the Musée d`Orcee, the Musée Rodin and the Musée National Picasso will open their doors to you…”

Three weeks later, after a fascinating flight on the dreamy wings of Air France, Anton cleared his throat, propped his glasses, and set off searching the Louvre Palace. Every cell of his slab-sided body just screamed with joy, “He was in Paris! He was on the right bank of the Seine! He was in the Tuilieries Garden! He did it! The etchings of Salvadore Dali, the impressions of Claude Monet, and the peculiar pictures of Claude-Max Louche are inviting him to share their abstract and surrealistic, impressionist and representational beauty! Wow! Wow! Outch! Once again, Wow!”

However, the jubilant mood got gradually up in smoke; his sidelong sight just stumbled on some sudden serpentine scene stretching up not far from him. A huge crowd of protesting people were yelling something menacing, “Filthy pockets kneel down! Liberté, égalité, fraternité!” Suddenly, Anton got a burning desire to leave this area and, without any hesitation, he rushed along the amazing alleys of the Tuiliers Garden. Trying to tangle his trails, he turned right and left, dodging among arty-looking trees. The threatening shrieks caught up with him, “Filthy cats! Liberté, égalité, fraternité!” Anton sped up with only one overall thought flashing in his inflamed brains, “Back to the summer cottage! Ann… To Ukraine! Back!” All of a sudden, he slipped, lost his footing, and banged the nearest tree with all his young energy…

Nobody knows exactly how long his blackout was. Nevertheless, while opening his eyes, he saw the foxy face of Ann, with her smiling sad eyes, as well as the brick wall of the summer cottage of his folks.

“What are you doing here? Anton! I thought you fled to your lovely Paris and… you are just lying here without any shoes, without any socks, with a bruised face and a smell of some French wine!”

The loser looking guy looked around and scratched his head, “I don’t know how it happened and how it works… However… Umm… Yeah… Let’s stage an experiment, shall we?” He stood up decisively and glanced at Ann, “Keep our hands together and run to that old oak with a shrieking scream, “Louvre! Louvre! Louvre! Let`s get the ball rolling!”

Ann burst out laughing hilariously and followed the flashing fella fast, “I knew that you were extravagant but I didn’t expect that you were completely crazy!”

Anton kept on whooping and waving his hand, “Louvre! Louvre! Louvre!”

Ann yelled at the top of her lungs, “Louvre! Louvre! Louvre!”

When they smashed the old oak, Anton fell down, not forgetting to help his long-legged companion to do the same… This time they got a blackout together…

Just in while, a group of demonstrators people with banners and loudspeakers bent down and slapped the cheeks of two youngsters lying without any signs of life under the oldest tree of the Tuiliers Garden. “Hey, you! Chickens! Are you alive, êtes vous vivant? ”

Ann shook her legs the first, Anton sneezed and raised his legs the second... “Uhm… We are Ukrainian tourists who got lost in your Catherine de` Medici Jarden. We would like… to get to your Louvre chef-d`oeuvres et croissants...”

“Bien, and why do you look like our ‘sans logi clochards’? With black and blue faces, without any shoes, barefooted?” The puzzled people surveyed skeptically.

Anton glanced at the sliced skirt of Ann and grinned, “You see we are hippies, I mean neo-hippies…your slogan is “Liberté, égalité, fraternité!” Our slogan is “Flower-power!”

The crowd chief smirked with disbelief, “Hippies plunged into oblivion twenty or thirty years ago. My Dad was a hippie, and you are just fooling us around!”

“I can’t say that we have a lot of neo-hippies now. However, my Dad keeps on saying, “Do not hate. Meditate.” So, will you help the new generation of Flow-Pow-Love-Wow hippies to enjoy the smashing sights of the City of… Love and Lights?”

“Ha! You are a funny fella!” The crowd leader looked around at his perky peeps. “D`accord, we will show our Pantruche city to you and your belle… Ukraine, war, why not… Though, she is in a holey vest and a shabby skirt now, in one or two weeks she wouldn’t be disappointed here!”

The shouting and singing crowd took Anton and Ann in tenacious hands and dragged them to a brisk bistro.

In spite of the chaos and clutter, Ann tried to whisper into the ears of Peter all the abusive words she knew since her childhood. As for Anton, he did not lose a moment and kissed her cheerily, not forgetting to stroke her scruffy-muffy hair.

“You are just an amorous moron… I am in Paris without my passport, my credit cards, my clothes, my smartphone…”

“You are with dozens of French copains and me, who will protect you, my sweetie, in any part of the world!” Brave Anton, feeling like D’Artagnan conquering Paris, slipped at first and almost fell down, straightened his shoulders and wiped his geek glasses, chanting slogans with his bouncy buddies, “Liberté, égalité, fraternité!”

“By the way, Idiot, how do you plan to cross the frontier without any documents? How will we come back?” On the one hand, Ann was ready to burst into tears; on the other hand, for the first time in her life she was shocked, turning her head 360 degrees around.

“Don’t worry and be happy! My diva-licious dream with lovely eyes and ears. Did you not notice that I cracked one secret? The hush-hush secret of Paris-tele-trek-portation! The key idea is that we should keep together and not lose sight of the old tree where they found us. Our way home will be the same as our way to Paris!”

“By the way, what will we do in Paris for one week?” she looked suspiciously at Peter.

“Honey month is waiting for us! We’ll eat honey to have healthy kids and stroll along the streets of this city to have them cute too! It will be the happiest period in our lives!” Anton smiled and kissed Ann passionately, “You just don’t have any choice!”

“Stupid nerd-idiot, somewhere at the bottom of my heart, I felt that our relations would wrap up with some screwball surprise… But I have never thought that at this solemn moment of my life I would be dressed like a hobo-bobo without a euro in my pocket...”

Anton found a metallic screw-nut and gave it to Ann, “Will you, Ann, take this engagement ring and be my wife?”

Ann looked thoughtfully at a seasoned screw-nut and put it on her ring finger, “I just do it to divert the attention of our new buddies, moron! Though, I know the reaction of my parents… But today, I will say, ‘Oui’!”

In a while, the cheery crowd dragged Anton and Ann along the amusing streets of Paris full of cozy cafés and bistros, expositions and museums, big and small hotels. One of them gave Ann and Anton shelter for the whole two weeks thanks to a new ‘copain’ working there at the reception… The second one organized their visits to Opera Garnier and the Louvre through his friends selling tickets there… The others threw hilarious parties, not giving a chance to the young couple to be in a mood for a snack…

Epilogue.

Two weeks later, the frightened parents of Ann and Anton found the bodies of their ‘kids’ under the big bent branches of an old oak. At first glance, they looked unconscious. However, Anton cuddled Ann’s waist too close for a friendly hug and clutched her as his property… Both of them were dressed in some French pants and t-shirts…

“Who have you turned into, my dear? A shameless story,” Mom of Anna dashed to her daughter trying to take her out of the hands of her… boyfriend.

Gradually, Ann came to her senses, fluttered her eyelids and pulled the hands out of her mother`s, “Now, he is my husband. I ask you to respect him. And please, don’t nag me about it… Excusez moi, mais je suis un peu fatigué... Toutes les questions plus tard...”

“She never spoke French!” The mother of Ann fainted and fell under the old oak too…

Ann slapped the face of sleeping Anton, whose hands reached the waist of his future mother-in-law and pulled her to his body… Ann helped him to bounce back and to take a seat, “Amorous moron, don`t forget who is who. Tu m`a compris? Notre mariage est dans une semaine. Be good to go! And NEVER, you hear me, NEVER hug and offend my Mom!”