Running Out of Eggs

'Pride and and prejudice, what else?' Rose exclaimed with a sigh.

For the last ten years the book club, her best friends, welcomed the new year with the read of Jane Austen's masterpiece. The wine and cheese followed together with the screening of one of the many cinematographic incarnations.

Rose hit reply all and added in a hurry.

'Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth's edition'

'Hopefully they'd go for it!' Rose exclaimed and refreshed her inbox.

She exhaled when the only new message proved to be just another mailing's list new year's greeting.

'Celebrate the new year with these just released free books.' it said.

With tomorrow's choice now well settled, she scanned the list of the new editions.

'Old manuscript wreaks havoc at a university in Peru.' one headline read.

Rose sighed as she read the synopsis. Just another one of those pseudo-science books in the tradition of Zecharia Sitchin.

'People are so gullible.' she sighed. Then she felt the red devil landing on her shoulder.

'It's free, why not? Might be just the right thing to kill the next hour till the ball drops.'

The white angel reminded her she could kill the time watching fireworks from around the world.

The red devil homed in with a final argument.

'Nothing beats a glass of red wine and a bunch of drivel. Life would come back soon enough.'

Life would come back too soon, Rose agreed and proceeded to add the new free book to her Kindle collection. She settled on the couch with the glass of heady red wine close by and skimmed through her new acquisition.

'More of Don Juan's teachings and a new mescalito.' Rose mused.

In the true tradition of Zecharia Sitchin, the book proceeded to describe how the new interpretation of the ancient writings led to the discovery of a tear in the fabric of time and space. Rose skimmed through the complicated equations showing how the chaos theory and the butterfly effect could be used to determine the exact time and place of the next rupture.

Rose sipped more of her wine and smiled. There was more. At the right time and place a small action as pushing a chair or stretching your legs could propel you in this parallel world. Current data indicated that most of the passages happened around the change of the years.

'Yeah and Nibiru winks at us from the south.' Rose laughed and stretched her hand to reach for her glass of wine just as the revellers in New York started to countdown to the ball drop.

The wine in the glass sloshed, and the bottle on the side table rattled. Then it disappeared altogether, and she found herself on a mountain plateau. Round, egg-shaped structures dotted the vast expanse and sparkled in the sun. People in white coats strolled among them and typed on their smartphones from time to time. Other folks would step into the structures as if there were no doors. Then at random other people would exit them and walk exactly on the straight lined connecting them just to disappear in thin air.

'Excuse me, what are those?' Rose coughed and pointed at the egg-shaped structures.

'Dream machines. The space-time continuum is so weak here, they'd propel you in the parallel world that matches closest your most hidden desires.'

'How do you get out of there?'

The man in the white coat chewed on his lower lip.

'That's what we're trying to find out. See that guy?' he pointed to a man walking the line with his shoulders hunched.

'Most of them run. Some of them walk like him; however, we cannot stop them and ask questions. '

Rose watched in wonder a handful of other men and women running into thin air and heard the man in the white coat sigh.

'Running out of eggs, that's how we call it. Not all who enter would come out again...'

'What happens to them?' Rose asked breathlessly.

'If they're lucky and well-off someone discovers them in time and puts them on life support. There are cases when they come back after a long coma. If not...'

Rose drew in a deep breath.

The man smiled and pointed at the egg.

'Care to try? There's the only way out, you know. Unless you want to stay here and help us with the research. ' He winked.

Rose shivered and stepped through the egg-shaped stone right into the shy light of the rising sun. The long white shift covered by the heavy long coat encumbered her, yet she broke into a run towards the dark haired man approaching in the distance.

She stretched her arms as she run in a warm welcome then she had to come to a sudden stop. She pushed the offending gate in frustration with all her might, then stretched her arms again in a desperate call. The man stopped and looked around him disoriented as if searching for someone. Then he sighed and turned around with his shoulders slumped.

Rose cried in despair and run after him. The more her legs stretched to cover the distance, the deeper he sank into the fog until he was no more.

Exhausted, Rose fell to the ground and cursed the weakness of the time and space together with her carelessness. She's waited so long for Mr. Darcy, and she'd been so eager to at last meet him that she'd run herself out of the egg.

She opened her eyes and pushed the Kindle away.

'That was a hell of a dream.' she winced then glanced at the emails waiting in the inbox.

In one, Amazon regretted they had to retract the book at the request of the publisher and promised a full refund. The others, from her friends, reminded her to make her pick for the upcoming book club meeting.

'Not all who enter want to come out again...' Rose sighed then she typed the reply.

'Pride and Prejudice' the email read as she pressed send.