THE EGG

This is before the Assholes took office

I am caller number eight. It’s December, so they play some horrible chipmunk Xmas music for the luckless on hold and then a merry voice drops the excruciating fact that the first song ever to be played in outer space was Jingle Bells. In 1965. If that’s not depressing enough, imagine hearing it reported as a fun fact while your interesting plans for the day are disrupted by your own personal expiration date, one you never thought would arrive so soon. But what else can it mean? This pain in your esophagus? Well, you smoked for sixty years, give or take. And at 823 something ought to be the matter with you. Not to mention your other plan for the day which had been to write about the egg on your desk. What egg on your desk, one might ask. THE egg on my desk, is my only answer. A plain brown egg in its shell. I remember it was in my pocket before I lay it on the desk. But why? Why in my pocket then why on the desk? I will never know. As for my esophagus, I keep reminding myself I had an endoscopy last year because of having Barret’s Esophagus and there was no sign of cancer and it doesn’t show up this fast, or so they say. Suddenly the nurse broke into my thoughts, such as they were, asking my birth date, my name, and the reason for my call. She was unimpressed with my symptoms, although I was so flustered that she had finally shown up that I forgot to tell her it felt as if a hardboiled egg was sitting sideways in my throat. She asked if I had asthma, no, I said, did I have an inhaler, yes, I said, use it, she said and that was that. I stopped worrying. Nothing like a no nonsense nurse to snap you out of it. Now I could see what showed up if I started to write and stayed focused on that egg. Just a plain ordinary egg in its shell, uncooked. There it was, and there it still is, familiar now in what I almost think of as its proper place. I remembered I’d been going to make French toast, which I did later, but not with the original egg. I must have forgotten where I’d put it. Okay, this is boring, but hold on, the good part is coming. My friend Dawn arrived to meet my new dog Olive, because Dawn can speak to animals and we missed each other, and somehow the subject of eggs came up and I pointed out the one on my desk. She looked thoughtful, then wondered what might hatch out of that egg. This possibility had never occurred to me., although it sits underneath a lamp, warm when the light is on. Before I could respond, “Maybe an algorithm,” Dawn said. My brilliant friend Dawn! What a repulsively outrageous wonderful thought! An algorithm hatching out of the egg! MY EGG!. I could just see a brainy blob balanced on long skinny legs with hairs sticking out of them running all our lives because, well, I don’t know why, wait, yes I do-- because we can’t resist what we can’t resist and the blob knows what that is for every one of us, and every other thing about us that is not just what we talk about in public, but in private, in bed! to our dogs; mumbling to ourselves; the blob listens to everything , and in no time we find what we talked about is procurable one way or another-- found in something we need to buy or do or swallow or smear or read or seek help for or take courses about or eat--and everything costs money and time that goes into nameless pockets, eventually the blob knows what we dream, and what we think even before we do. And they are hiding everywhere, these algorithms, and if you find one, destroy it. Shut up egg. Stop screaming this minute or I’ll play Jingle Bells and put you on hold. You are going to be egg nog which isn’t the worst way to go. Brandy? Bourbon? Rum? What’s your preference? Of course it knows I have none of these drinks so it just keeps screaming. Too bad. And I crack it. One algorithm down. I feel triumphant. Two weeks later the landmines take office and everything is fucked.

one BROWN egg being cracked