Love, Eggs, Phonebooks

Vincent awoke with a terrible pain his stomach. His breathing was heavy and he feared that he could vomit at any moment. It immediately became clear to Vincent that he was in love. More worrying than his nausea was the fact that he had no idea who he was in love with. Science had always suggested that love could develop at first sight. Nowadays it was even possible for people to fall in love without seeing each other first, all thanks to Cupid's outsourcing to the Internet. Maybe, just maybe, it was possible for a man to fall in love with a woman before he was even aware of her existence.

Vincent's face broke into a smile. He was in love with a woman and he couldn't wait to find out who that woman was. He spent the next few days searching for her identity. He would wander the streets, peering into windows, browsing lingerie catalogues, climbing trees to gain a better view. From time to time he would call out a woman's name, whichever name felt right to him at that moment. If fate was guiding him then all he needed to do was shout "Alison" and the nearest Alison would reveal herself to be his one true love.

Sadly the identity of his mysterious soulmate did not reveal itself. The days of searching turned into weeks, the weeks became months and before he knew it those months had transformed into three wasted years. All the while, the feeling in Vincent's stomach grew stronger by the day. He would often become so overwhelmed by the directionless love that he would vomit.

One evening, in the winter of 2009, Vincent found himself scrolling through the names in a service station's phonebook , desperately hoping for one to jump out at him. Somewhere between N. Morgan and S. Morton Vincent began to cough. The pages of the phonebook became stained with blood. A moment later he was unconscious.

Vincent awoke in the hospital. Standing next to him was a doctor holding a clipboard. The doctor explained Vincent's condition. "You've got an egg lodged in the entrance to your stomach."

"Is the egg a metaphor for love?" Vincent asked hopefully.

"No. It's a literal egg." the doctor replied, revealing an x-ray of an unbroken egg nesting deep within Vincent's abdomen. "We're going to have to cut you open and take it out."

"So I'm not in love?" Vincent asked.

"I don't know. Are you?"

"I thought I was." Vincent said, looking longingly out of the window.

"Well the important thing is to get you into surgery as soon as possible."

Vincent closed his eyes and thought deeply for a minute.

"No. I don't want you to take it out. I want to keep it."

The doctor spent the next hour explaining the seriousness of Vincent's condition, but Vincent resisted the doctors pleas for sense with the same determination he had employed for the past three years of love searching. Finally the doctor had no option but to discharge him. A week later Vincent was dead.