Happy 4th of July!
The Wrong Flight and the Birth of an Empire
Some Holiday Fiction by John Reizer
Emily and James had met by pure chance at Charles de Gaulle Airport. Then, amazingly, they discovered their seat assignments were next to one another on the same flight from Paris to New York.
After takeoff, they engaged in small talk about work, travel, and places they hoped to visit in the States.
Before too long, as is often the case on long flights, both of them fell fast asleep.
Emily woke up first and discovered that
the cabin was unusually quiet. When
she looked around, she observed that the other passengers nearby were dressed in strange-looking clothes that appeared centuries older than they should be.
The men wore wigs, waistcoats, and strange- looking pants.
The women wore long gowns with lace collars and bonnets.
Oddly, no one was using a phone or tablet either, which Emily found extremely peculiar.
A short time later, James opened his eyes. “What’s going on?” he whispered.
“I don’t know,” Emily said softly.
The flight attendants were different, too. Their uniforms looked old, and they smiled politely without saying too much.
James fished out his mobile phone and discovered there was no signal. Even stranger, the date on the screen had reset to May 5th, 1776.
“This has to be some kind of joke,” he said.
Emily looked through the window. Instead of seeing the familiar skyline of New York City, she saw a wide harbor filled with wooden sailing ships. Beyond them stood a small colonial town surrounded by forests.
The captain of the plane finally spoke. “Ladies and gentlemen, we will begin our descent shortly. On behalf of your flight crew, we’d like to thank you for flying with us and be the first to welcome you all to New Amsterdam.”
Emily and James looked at each other briefly, each raising their eyebrows at the same time.
“Did he just say New Amsterdam?” Emily asked.
James nodded slowly. “That’s what I heard.”
Twenty minutes later, the aircraft landed on a grassy field beside a small settlement. There was no control tower or modern buildings.
When the cabin door opened, a man dressed in a colonial coat stepped aboard. He carried a leatherbound book instead of a clipboard.
“Welcome,” he said with a smile. “The current year here is 1776, and we have been expecting your arrival.”
The other passengers stood and calmly walked off the plane in an orderly fashion.
The man in the colonial coat asked Emily and James to remain seated.
The two confused passengers complied with the request.
Neither of them could remember boarding the flight with any of these other strangely dressed people. And neither could explain why, in the seat pocket in front of them, there was a boarding pass with both of their names printed on it.
According to the boarding pass, the departure city was Paris, France, and the arrival city read “Home.”
When Emily turned over the boarding pass, she noticed something strange written on the back.
The Interdimensional Transit Authority
Neither Emily nor James had ever heard of it.
After the other passengers had finished exiting the plane, the man in the coat sat beside Emily and James. “You two are not in the same timeline right now as you were before you boarded this aircraft. “
The cabin lights flashed on and off a few times. “You have accidentally crossed into a parallel dimension.”
Emily looked around. “Who are you?” she asked, still very confused.
“I am the transfer hospitality supervisor,” the man replied.
James attempted to stand up, demanding answers. “What’s happening here?”
The man hesitated briefly before answering. “Please remain seated,” the man said. “Your flight passed through what is commonly known as a temporal fold somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. These folds are pretty much invisible and extremely rare. Most conventional aircraft in your realm pass through them without any effects whatsoever. This flight, unfortunately, did not make it through unaffected.”
Emily stared at the man in disbelief. “So…this is another version of Earth?”
“In a sense, yes,” the man said. “The world you knew, and this one, were separated hundreds of years ago by a cataclysmic reset event. In your timeline, your government hid the truth from the public’s future generations. But in this timeline, America doesn’t exist yet. It will later become the world’s leading power one day. The territory outside is called New Amsterdam, and its calendar reads 1776, and time here has followed a much different path.”
The man pointed through the cabin window toward the small colonial settlement. “This colony stands at a crossroads, and without outside influence, it will remain small, divided, and politically weak.”
James looked puzzled. “What does that have to do with us?”
The man smiled. “Everything!”
Emily shook her head. “Can we go back home?”
“I’m afraid not,” the man said. “The temporal fold collapsed moments after your crossing.”
“So we’re trapped here?”
“Yes.”
The man closed the ledger. “For history…this is only the beginning.”
James looked over at Emily. “What happens now?”
The man stood. “You two will marry.”
Emily opened her mouth to object, but the man interrupted her and continued. “You will raise a family whose descendants will become inventors, generals, lawmakers, and presidents.” He smiled toward the settlement outside. “Generations from now, historians will wonder why this small collection of colonies rose so quickly into the most powerful nation the world has ever known.”
The man looked back at them. “They will never know that its empire began with two passengers who boarded the wrong flight in Paris, France.”
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