The Egg Said Nothing - Caris O'Malley [28]
He reached out and picked up a telephone from the bedside table. My mom’s old rotary dial that she refused to update. Not that it mattered, I guess. She never used it.
“You should eat it,” the figure said, shoulders quaking with stifled laughter. Hearing me taunt myself made me feel ill.
I advanced toward him, my anger swelling like a fever blister. I grabbed the receiver out of his hand and, raising it above my head, brought it down on his face with all the power I could muster. The bridge of his nose cracked and collapsed under the force; a torrent of blood gushed from his nostrils. I wrapped the telephone cord around his neck and pulled it tight, rendering his gurgled cries inaudible.
We sat there together, in our mother’s guest room, until he went limp in my arms. I closed my eyes as his body fell to the floor. When I opened them, he was gone. All that remained of the whole encounter was the blood on my hands and a rusty old shovel leaning against the wall.
~Chapter 14~
In which the narrator taunts a fragile man over the phone and gets royally fucked up by some guy with a shovel.
The phone stared at me as a heaviness settled into my chest. Was I really going to do this? How could I justify harassing myself when I had just executed someone for doing the same? Not knowing if I would be able to change anything, or had changed anything already, I picked up the receiver and dialed my own number.
It rang.
“Hey, I’m out right now. Leave a message.”
Beep.
“Salt, pepper and chives,” I said. “Add a little cream to make it nice and fluffy and eat the goddamn thing. You must destroy it. All of you—the ones taped up on the floor, the ones lounging about in the Laundromat—you all need to go. That egg will bring you nothing but unhappiness.
“I’ll lay it all out for you. You’re going to go out, and your life is going to change. You’re going to fall in love. Ashley is her name. She’s going to love you unquestioningly. You’re going to bring her home. With her, you’ll attain a happiness you’ve never felt before. Then you’ll kill her. Like a rabid animal, you’ll crack her skull with the flat side of a garden shovel.
“Why would you do such a thing, you ask? Because she’s going to change you. She’s going to help you see the world for how it really is. She will help you develop ideas. I don’t know what they are, but they’re pretty fucking cool. You’ll change the whole country. And you’ll have a kid together, but then things will fuck up. Really bad.
So, you’ll get the bright idea you should be the one to change them. You’ll learn about quantum physics, or astral projection, or some such bullshit. You won’t be an expert. You’ll be no mechanic, but you’ll know enough to change your oil filter, enough to change a tire. But you’ll act as if you know more. You’ll overhaul the engine. You’ll try to repair a bent fender. You’ll apply some fucking Bondo. But you won’t read the manual.
“And your girl will still be dead. Your egg will be so remarkably disappointing. You’ll still have hatched nothing worthwhile. But you have the chance, even though your future self thinks it’s a bad idea. He’d rather you waste your life away and achieve nothing than to achieve something and have it not work out exactly right.
“And how do you feel about that? How can you feel? Is there a choice? That guy is you. His decision is your decision. His reasoning is yours. But, here’s the really fucking funny thing: you don’t have a choice in the matter. If you don’t do it, he can send somebody else. You’ve got the illusion of free will, but your actions are so meaningless they don’t even mean anything to you. Your existence affects you about as much as it affected your parents when they were children.
“Of course, you can try. After hearing this message, you’ll have all the information just a little bit earlier than I did. And then there’ll be two of us who can fight it, if you choose. It’s that preservation instinct. You should embrace it, though you won’t