Rose wants to find a man

Rose found herself looking at the picture of the man in her pendant, his dark eyes looking at her from somewhere in time.

“Why me?” she had asked.

“The Lord wants it,” her sister said.

Rose couldn’t question anything the Lord said, as men had finished in her world and she had to find them through the realms of probability, wherever that might be in the time continuum of the universe.

“You have to come back before midnight,” her sister said. “I’ll be waiting by the Piccadilly lights.”

Rose studied a map her sister held in her hand, depicting a few things in the way to the city, full of wonderful stuff she had never imagined.

“I have done this,” Rose said.

Her sister showed her a booklet about collapsing the realities, proving that she couldn’t have gone that way before.

“I remember us standing by the mirrors,” Rose said.

“The laws of nature keep everything under control,” her sister said

She made preparations for her journey to that place of multiplicity, as Rose pondered about her trip to the unknown.

“Don’t they fail sometimes?” she asked.

“The laws of nature are constant,” her sister had said. “Otherwise we would live in a nightmare.”

She explained how they went through their fractal line of time, thanks to their senses collapsing the waves of probability.

“We touch reality in many places at the same time,” her sister said.

“Just like the waves of the sea,” Rose said.

Her sister nodded. “That’s what I mean.”

The waves of probability collapsed their passage through reality, when anything that could happen must have happened in a multiplicity of lives.

“I had a good journey back to this world,” Rose said.

“You must have imagined it.”

“Take this medallion,” she said. “It has been in the family for generations.”

Rose had seen that face while dusting her mother’s wardrobe.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“That’s for the Lord to say,” her sister said.

Rose knew all about the man living in a castle at the edge of reality, famous for leading them towards the realms of the extraordinary.

“Take care,” her sister interrupted her thoughts.

She told her a few things about conquering the waves of probability, in spite of the laws of physics anchoring her to reality.

“I don’t know anything about it,” Rose said.

“You concentrate by the surface of the mirrors.”

“They must be magic,” Rose said.

Her sister wrote down a few of the mathematical formula their teacher had taught them in the school, not forgetting the steps they had to take in order to achieve their goal.

“Infinity lies at the end of your journey,” she said. “The waves of chance will get you there.”

Reality split every time they blinked, according to the priests studying those things at the hall of possibility.

“Is another one of me going to the dimensions?” Rose asked.

“The equations suggest that,” her sister said.

Rose had shrugged. “We can’t perceive parallel universes.”

“They exist alongside reality.”

“It’s all too complicated,” Rose said.

She thought of her mission in time, while following her sister through the Hall of Mirrors.

“You must remember your duties,” her sister said.

Rose nodded. “I hope to reach my target.”

She had to stop her thoughts affecting the fractal line of time, according to the teachings of the quantum Lord of reality.

“The wings of a butterfly might cause a hurricane,” Rose said.

Her sister nodded. “Whatever you do will shape your future.”

Rose looked at the fields going up to the horizon, thinking of her job through the line of probability.

“Don’t forget the medallion,” her sister had interrupted. “Never take it off.”

“I know the power of the Lord,” Rose said.

“Put your trust in his rule.”

“I will.”

Rose had looked at the face in the medallion, noticing his features interrupted by a few imperfections in the photograph.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“That’s not for us to question,” her sister said.

“I don’t want to go,” she said.

“You promised to help,”

“It’s scary,” Rose said.

Her sister led her through the passageway, before a few windows disrupted the darkness around them. The corridor finished by a door, interrupting their access to the rest of the building.

“This must be it,” her sister said.

On pushing the door, they had found a chamber full of mirrors, showing them the mysteries of the other realms waiting to be discovered in the dimensions.

“That reminds us of our multiplicity,” her sister had said.

“I’m worried,” Rose had said.

“Shut your eyes,” her sister had said. “And think of nothing.”

Rose found herself in the darkness, the surface of unreality clouding her world as her sister’s words interrupted the emptiness around her.

“Touch the mirrors,” her sister had said.

On feeling the surface of the glass, a ray of light shone amidst the continuum of time.

“Go on,” her sister said. “Don’t collapse the wave.”

Rose had gone closer to the mirror, her breathing getting together with the molecules in the glass, while waiting for something to happen.

“I can’t do it,” she said.

“You must stop the wave function,” her sister had pushed her towards the glass.

“How am I supposed to do it?”

“Think of nothing.”

She had found darkness on opening her eyes and her sister had disappeared.

“Help me,” she said.

The mirrors had gone and a few things occupied the space she had seen empty before. As she opened the door of a wardrobe, her hands had caressed the fabric of a few clothes from that dimension, the sound of footsteps disturbing her thoughts of life and death far from home. Someone with dark eyes and a strong body came in the room. It had to be a man, like the ones she had seen in the comic magazines of her realm.

“Is anyone there?” he had asked in one of those old languages she had learned in the school.

She had confronted the apparition beyond reality, after buttoning the dress she had borrowed from some of the things she had found in the closet.

“I’m Rose,” she said.

The man had jumped at the sound of her voice, as if he had never seen a girl in the world he inhabited.

“Has the job centre sent you?” he asked.

Rose had hoped to take him back to the kingdom beyond time, by doing everything right in that reality.

“Yes,” she had said.

“I’ll show you around then.”

He had taken her to a glowing screen with letters and numbers, surrounded by a few other things she had never seen in her life, even though her grandmother had a crystal ball to call the spirits of the departed.

“You will be my secretary,” he had interrupted her thoughts.

A secretary had to be someone looking after the screen, according to what he told her to do with her time. Then he had showed her a white container by the wall.

“You can keep your food in the fridge,” he said.

That word meant nothing to Rose, who kept her food in the pantry her mother had in some other plane of probability.

“I need to talk to you,” she said.

“We can do that during our lunch break,” he said.

Rose had imagined breaking the lunch, according to his words, instead of collapsing the wave function, the way they had taught her in the school.

“I haven’t introduced myself properly,” he said. “My name is Peter.”

“Nice to meet you,” she had said.

Rose had so many things to tell him, within the fractal world of her thoughts and imagination.

“I’m here on a mission,” she said.

He had shrugged. “You can start by looking at your files.”

“What files?” she asked.

“The ones in the computer.”

After activating some things the Lord of the land had implanted in her brain when she had been a baby, the customers’ accounts had appeared amidst a few names and numbers in the screen.

“I must kiss you first,” she said.

Peter stopped organising the papers in a drawer, letting a few things fall onto the floor.

“What?” he had asked.

“I like you,” she said.

Rose had to take him back to her time, according to the legends spread around her world.

“I must kiss you now,” she said.

“Oh,” he had said.

His lips had responded to her caresses, the noise of the cars interrupting her thoughts about the dimensions of probability.

“What is that?” she had looked at the traffic outside the window.

“They are cars,” he said.

“We have horses in my world,” she said.

He had shrugged. “You must come from somewhere exciting.”

Rose had to change the flow of time around her, in order to take the young man back to her fractal line of reality.

“It’s too noisy here,” she said. “We must go to the Piccadilly lights.”

Peter had disentangled himself from her arms, looking a bit flustered.

“This must be a set up,” he said.

“We must stop collapsing the wave of probabilities,” she had said.

He shook his head. “You are mad.”

Rose had fallen in his arms, the light of the sun coming through the window making a rainbow on the floor, as she kissed him again.

“It’s my lunch break,” she said.

“You have the wrong place,” he had said. “This is a publisher’s office.”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“We publish books.”

Rose had thought of the books in her house, while he talked of his novel writing job.

“You can write my story,” she said.

He had smiled. “That would be interesting.”

Peter had spoken of his need for something special to write, unaware of Rose’s wishes to take him to her realm.

“Do you want to come with me?” she asked.

She told him of her sister waiting for them by the Piccadilly lights somewhere in time.

“Let me get this,” he had said. “You are from another planet.”

“I have to find a man,” she said.

“And I’ll call the police,”

“Don’t do that.”

She had tried to explain the law of probabilities in a few words to someone she had just met, and about stopping the wave function in order to escape that world.

“Something doesn’t exist if no one looks at it,” she had said.

“It’s science fiction.”

“And observation collapses the wave,” she said.

“We can’t shut our senses,” he said.

She had looked into his eyes, whilst holding his hands.

“It’s time to stop the wave collapsing,” she said.

“I thought you wanted the Piccadilly lights.”

Peter let go of her hands, getting ready for some more madness, as she had found a mirror on the wall.

“This will have to do for the moment,” she said.

“I don’t think the agency sent you,” he said. “You are an intruder.”

“Shut your eyes,” she said. “And think of nothing.”

She had kissed him, while remembering the words her sister had taught her and touching the mirror.

“Man,” she said.

The world had fallen at their feet, waves of probably competing with each other to get to their fractal lines of time, and up to the point when the collapse became imminent. Rose found herself looking at the picture of the young man in her pendant.

“We have failed,” her sister interrupted her thoughts.

The end