The Egg Said Nothing - Caris O'Malley [3]
Then something tripped him. He fell to a heap on the floor. The shovel clanged as the head of it broke free from his grasp and hit the stairs. Quickly, I seized the tool and leveled the motherfucking playing field.
He scrambled to his feet. I stepped back and hit him in the face with the shovel. Blood spurted from his ruptured lips, starbursting all over dollar store wallpaper. He fell to the floor, clutching his face, muffling his screams. Turning on his side, he wriggled like a snake with a broken spine. His legs kicked frantically, and he rolled around the hallway, adding his own contribution to the dirt and cat urine already residing in the carpet. I walked over to him and dropped the shovel on his writhing body. There was a soft clank as the handle collided with something in his pocket, and a slight rustling as several quarters fell out.
“Where’d you get those?” I demanded, picking up the shovel. He murmured something incoherent. I raised the shovel over my head and brought it down on his left knee. “Where’d you get those quarters?” I kicked him in the ribs. “You’re gonna steal from me, you son of a bitch? Those are my fucking quarters!” I raised the shovel again and brought it down on his chest. Then again, this time swinging it like a golf club. The edge of it caught him in the arm and ripped a gash in his flesh.
“Get a job, you piece of shit,” I said.
Crouching, I picked up the quarters. Six of them. One dollar and fifty cents. I walked down the hallway towards the stairwell. Turning back, I held the shovel like a spear and flung it at the motionless body. It hit the carpet a few feet in front of him. The end of the handle bumped his leg gently.
Still counts.
~Chapter 2~
In which the narrator falls in love with a waitress, keeps his egg warm and beats some guy to death with a shovel.
Scrubbing the blood off took a while. Somehow, unknown to me, I got it under my fingernails and in my hair. It was all over my clothes, so I just put them in the Goodwill box. I stood for a long time under torrents of hot water and even longer under cold. Sometimes I scrubbed, but most of the time I just stood there wondering how the fuck I laid an egg.
It’s pretty goddamned complicated when you focus on it. I wasn’t even paying any attention to the physical logistics of the dirty business anymore. I was thinking of the psychological repercussions. I was thinking of the moral responsibility of being an anomaly. I was thinking of how the first fish that walked along the shore must have felt.
My hands shook like microwave popcorn bags when I finally reached for my towel. The air was freezing. My egg was using my heater. I wrapped the too-small towel around me and rubbed it frantically against my skin, allowing the friction to bring some life to my frozen shell. I rubbed until I glowed, but was still cold. Walking into my bedroom, I pulled on a pair of cargo pants and a long sleeved t-shirt. I plopped down on the bed next to the egg. The force of my weight caused it to shift a bit. I reached out and righted the egg, reinforcing its position by stuffing an extra pillow into the nest.
“Hey,” I said. “How are you doing?” My eyes traced the lit edges of the egg, pausing on its spots and minute lines, searching for myself.
“What are you?” I wondered aloud. I flicked on my bedside lamp and hefted it onto the bed. Placing it behind the egg, I tried to discern shapes in the shadows. I could see light around the edges, I thought, but the solid parts just seemed consistently solid. No matter where I maneuvered the light, I couldn’t see inside. What if I were to crack it open?
“No,” I said. I shook my head and pressed my fingers to my temples, gently massaging, and pushed the thought away. Cracking the egg would destroy it. It had to hatch on its own.
But what if it doesn’t?
What if I just leave it here on my bed and it rots and I have no idea what has happened? I don