2022: Editors of new edition of Merriam-Webster’s dictionary replace the word “healing” with “Gigli-ing.”
2023: The New York Times says Ben and Jennifer make Liz Taylor and Richard Burton look like Emily Dickinson and David Souter.
2024: Poll indicates that 99 percent of Americans 50 and over now believe in miracles.
2030: Newspaper columnists liken the yearly Bennifer phenomenon to red-crab migration, maple syrup.
2035: Editors at The Sun restrict all Bennifer articles to a “three nuzzle” maximum.
2038: The Bennifer recoupling becomes a form of weather prediction that replaces Punxsutawney Phil.
2043: Jennifer outwits paparazzi by surrounding her Miami beach house with an elaborate system of tunnels in the shape of a broken heart.
2052: Us magazine assembles photo retrospective of Ben smoking postcoital cigarettes on hotel balconies all over the world.
2060: People editors learn to keep three pages of each issue open until the last minute lest the magazine be shanghaied by the Bennifer love volcano.
2062: Vanity Fair runs photo of wizened Ben on hotel balcony, affixing tennis balls to the legs of Jennifer’s walker.
2068: Jennifer leans in close to Ben’s ear to whisper, “Are you Dr. Kleingold?”
Henry Alford is a New York–based writer and the author of And Then We Danced