The eggs, a scramble

Sitting in their Styrofoam, the eggs waited. They had been waiting since the warm dark, since the cold move, since the bright packaging even when jostled and jostled again, warm then cold, they had been waiting. Every once in a while the flimsy top to their treasure chest home would open, select, then close.

Now there were only the last two and the last two were waiting. They had sat next to each other for weeks, hard shells thinly sweating secrets, aching for crack or closeness. They had floated for days with the camaraderie of two nonspeaking beings, sulking together as they strained to hear outside.

The select pressure of the warm grasp wasn’t as indelicate as you would expect. Fingers were careful, tremulous, touching lightly and setting the last two eggs onto cloth padding. The next pickup was still gentle, caring, then a hefting and a sizing-up movement, till—crack.

It rang doleful throughout the pan, a dolloping noise of horses, a drop against the metal heat as the egg was thrown fully undressed into the sizzle. Then, the next—another crack, a bit stickier as it slid in and a spoon followed, fishing out some of the remaining shell. 

There the two eggs gaped wide up into the fan, into the sweating face above. There the fork whisked efficiently, spreading open the yellow of an inner sun until they all swam into each other. And, as they began to lose their lower feeling, they felt a true, indiscernible joy. 

“This is closeness! This is life! This is wire uncoiling, the first stretch of a sore muscle!” they sang. 

“Did you know did you know did you know did you know,” they echoed back to each other, waiting for affirmation that the other didn’t but now did. 

They languished, unloosing themselves in the other, as the heat slowly reached farther, as they were scoop-shuffled and over-turned. 

“Now we know now we know now we know,” their scrambled song began to ring. 

In the Styrofoam package, the eggshells with their reluctant fluid tossed.

“Tell us, tell us all,” they sighed.