The Egg Said Nothing - Caris O'Malley [0]
Caris O’Malley
~Chapter 1~
In which the narrator lays an egg, keeps it warm and royally fucks some guy up with a shovel.
The morning I laid the egg is just a blur to me. I say laid because it seems to be the best word for the situation. I have no idea how it came out of me, but it did. I imagine it growing in my belly, slowly gathering its features from my raw genetic material. But it doesn’t have my mother’s shell. It doesn’t have my own runny yolk.
I was not hatched from an egg. Neither were my parents. As far as I know, there are no birds in my family. Nor have I ever had any sort of intimate relationship with a bird.
And yet, I found myself one morning lying there with an egg.
The windows were undisturbed; I keep them covered with newspaper for fear of being seen by my neighbors. I don’t mind the sunlight. Or the streetlamps, in fact. But I don’t like the idea of people seeing me doing anything. It’s odd, sitting on your couch eating toast while being watched by the lady across the alley.
The newspaper is taped over the whole window; it isn’t tailored in any way. It’s lopsided and too large for the mass it’s expected to cover. The effect is a bit disorienting. If you were in my apartment and looked at my wall, you probably wouldn’t expect to see several pages of the July 14 New York Times unceremoniously duct taped there with grocery store brand adhesive. But, then again, I didn’t expect to look down and see an egg between my knees.
When I woke up, I had this odd sensation. My lower half felt more sensitive. Felt exposed. If you’re the sort of person who sleeps nude, you might not understand. Or perhaps you will. Maybe that’s why you do it. But, for my own reasons, I never do. It’s uncomfortable for me. I have a healthy sense of shame about my person. Only rarely does someone come into my apartment. And if that person comes in while I’m sleeping, that person will not find me without my clothes on.
And that person will never find me in any state of undress because people do not come into my apartment without me knowing about it. And I would never let anyone in while I was sleeping. I’m not the sort of guy who leaves a key under the mat so visitors can come as they please. I have a single key to my apartment on my chain. The only other copy is buried in a park six miles away. It is in an unmarked hole. And everything I just said about the whereabouts of my spare key is a lie because I don’t want you to know where my goddamned key is.
I have eight different locks on my door. Four are where you’d expect them to be. One on the door handle, one deadbolt, one sliding bolt and one chain lock. Then there are two deadbolts on the side where the hinges are, and another deadbolt at both the top and bottom of the door. Yes, you can install deadbolts wherever you want. There’s actually a ninth lock, but I’m not saying anything about it because you’re staying out of my fucking apartment.
When I woke up naked with an egg between my legs, I looked about frantically for my pants. I found them hooked on my left foot. Due to their lack of warmth, it seemed apparent they had been there for some time.
The windows were, as I said earlier, unmolested. The locks on the door were in place. My key was on the chain and the spare—my none of your fucking business key—was safe in its spot.
Logic seemed to point to me as the source of the egg.
I went back over to my bed and lifted up the blanket. There the egg sat. If it had eyes, I’d say it looked up at me hopefully, but, since it didn’t, I’ll say instead it looked at me speckled. It was a light blue with reddish speckles. Like I think a robin’s egg might look, only bigger. But I’m not aware of ever seeing a robin or its egg, so I have no real way of knowing.
In the bathroom, I dropped my pants and performed a quick inspection. Not only did I find no feathers; I found no evidence that anything large had been expelled from any orifice known to me. There was also no soreness or signs of blood loss, which seemed necessary to lay