Egg Treasure

So about a month ago, I heard the new prompt for Round 11 of NPR's Three-Minute Fiction contest: write a story in under 600 words in which a character finds something he or she has no intention of returning. Due to the contest rules, I couldn't publish the story until after a winner was chosen, and now that that has happened, I can share my own story here. I worked very hard and continuously on it for three days, even printing it out and bringing it to work with me so I could edit it on my break. I had a lot of fun and will definitely enter future contests if those prompts inspire me as well. Disclaimer: Blogger doesn't allow the formatting to make this story actually look the way I wrote it (with line breaks and indentations), so if interested, I have the original .pdf that I can show. Thanks for reading!

✦ ✦ ✦

I was walking, following little shreds of found objects in the dirt. Strips of newspaper and magazine pages, bits of colored thread and yarn, a discarded trail of human material left for the birds. My neighbor collected these things in shallow dishes placed around her yard: tiny pieces of shredded denim, leftovers from knitted socks, even locks of hair she pulled from her combs. She sat on her deck on Sunday mornings, offering me sweet tea when she caught me watching her. I watched her studying her birds, the orioles and robins that browsed through the ingredients she left for them. I watched her beaming at the new nest taking shape in the tree above her chair. She was so proud, and I so lonely.

One Sunday, just before noon, she called me over, quietly, in hushed excitement. Her mouth was opened wide and dumb and she was flailing her hands, almost spilling her tea.

“Come here,” she implored, “come see!” Still swinging her tea with one hand, she pressed the other to her lips and, signaling silence, she called out another stifled plea, more sounds than words. Her eyes were wide. I stood up out of the shade and walked to her fence, stepped over it lightly and waited at the stairs by her chair.

“Come up here, there's an egg, look at the egg!” She could barely sustain the effort to keep from squealing. Her gardening stool was next to her and I stepped up on it to get a better view. Tucked in among the wool and fragments of Reader's Digest, it was there. Small and white, with dark drops of brown and black speckled across its poles. It looked warm and alone, and I didn't want her to have it. I wanted it in my hands only, cupped in my palms and moving slightly. I wanted to hold my breath and see if I could feel its heartbeat.


It was dark and still and my neighbor was asleep in her room. I was walking, following little shreds of found objects in the dirt, the discarded trail of human material left for the birds. Like breadcrumbs, I followed them up the stairs, climbed up on the stool and was met with the face of the mother bird looking back. Black eyes I could see in the dark, reflecting the moon glow off the clouds and staring at me in recognition or in anger. She shifted her weight and I could see the egg there under her wing, even whiter in the absence of daylight.

“I will have that egg,” I breathed, hardly moving my lips as I exhaled my promise. She bit and flapped at my hand, scratching across my knuckles with a shrill scream. It was easy to take that egg, easy to ignore the mother following me down from the stool, down the stairs, pecking at my hair as I stepped over the fence, cradling the little egg in my hands like a pearl. I could feel the movement inside it, the vibrations of insects trapped in a jar. The mother left me, and I curled up alone and happy with my egg treasure, a living jar with a child inside.


My neighbor remained sad that spring and her sweet tea tasted like salt. The nest above her chair was abandoned and her dishes of paper and fibers were full, but ignored. While thinking of the egg I stole, I skipped into her yard, smiling, and took a seat on her deck next to her chair.

The Hands' Descendent

Left behind.

Picked up.

Observed.

Prayed over.

Questioned.

Institutionalized.

Visited.

Entertained.

Fed meals.

Enjoyed company.

Spread disease.

Exercised.

Given a name.

Forgiven.

+ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +

Quick photoshoot I did today on my deck -- it was colder than I realized outside! I was going to remove my tattoo from the photo, but once I started that, it just got more and more involved and I didn't want to spend two hours just on that. I'm lazy.

I was thinking about a lot of things when I made this, but it was inspired overall by the movie The Sound of My Voice (2011). I rented it as soon as it came out, after seeing trailers for it months earlier. My first time viewing, I didn't really like it at all and was disappointed. But I kept thinking about it, decided to watch it again, and now I'm on my way to loving it (that happens a lot; I really need to open my mind)..

Vultures

Do you know why vultures eat corpses?

They're scavengers, they're lazy.

Some people think so.

What do you think?

Vultures were once people, lost people who stayed lost. The fog swallowed them.

That's only a story. Lost people are just people.

No, it's the Gods' honest truth! After it rains and the fog descends, all the missing people lose control. They scream and cry out. They are overtaken by a paralysis and their arms grow feathers.

Listen to you. Where did you hear all this?

Mr. Lester told me! He swears it. He told me his sister went missing once, but it was muddy and he could follow her footprints. He saw her fall in the field and roll, her clothes were filthy and he couldn't see her face. She was screaming and the birds everywhe--

You shouldn't take Mr. Lester seriously. His sister left for the City. He's been mad with grief ever since.

No, she didn't leave for the City! If she did, how come no one's heard from her? She doesn't write or visit.

You've never met her. She left before you could walk. How would you know she hasn't written?

Because Mr. Lester isn't the only one who talks about her, and she isn't the only one who's gone to the City and never come back. No one ever comes back from the City. How do we even know there is a City? Have you ever been there?

Of course not, but that doesn't mean there isn't a City. You've never been to the Well with me, but the Well is still there.

Just listen! Mr. Lester said her arms flew back like they were pulled, her face grew long and her screams were terrible. He said it's the worse thing he's ever heard or seen. He said she started to turn black all over and the air grew cold. The wind changed direction and the vultures came from nowhere, sitting in the trees and watching like they knew her!

Vultures don't know people. Vultures are just large, lazy scavengers. They clean up the messes from the other animals. They let everything else do the work and then they leave. Don't let the stories of an old man fool you.

He isn't fooling me. We only see vultures in the village when someone goes missing, or 'goes to the City.' They're only here when it's foggy. Do you ever remember seeing them when the Sun is out?

No, I don't, but I don't concern myself with the movements of vultures. You shouldn't either. Look, you're sweating and working yourself up.

You don't believe me.

You're speaking of ridiculous things, the raving of a lonely man who has no family left. Vultures aren't people. I don't want you seeing Mr. Lester anymore.

But I like Mr. Lester. He needs someone to believe him. He saw these things happen, the Gods' honest truth!

He didn't see anything. I don't want you seeing him, I don't want him filling your head with his crazy stories. You shouldn't be so gullible.

♫ When the fogs roll in, the night is dark,

And the animals quiet, even the lark.

When the light is blocked by all the clouds,

Not even the priests will speak aloud.

That is when the lost are called,

One by one, alone, they fall,

And a lonely brother can see her there,

She goes away, he knows not where.

She joins the others in the sky,

To feast on corpses when the fog rolls by.

We don't believe the legends of the Wood,

But it's the Gods' honest truth that we should. ♫

The Black Window that Birthed Me

Here is another collage I made of five of my old photos. I wrote this story to go with it.

Somewhere in an empty country, there is an empty church and within it, a furnace. The few people who live there know the furnace is the heart of their God. He eats skulls and cats and traveling birds. And he spits out little humans, motley children formed in the dust.

The ritual started taking shape approximately 400 years ago. Those few people knew how to read and write then, but they also wanted to keep their secrets: the reasons why their relatives had such unusual coloring, why they were so good at climbing or swimming or hunting squirrels. They did not want the rest of the world to know about their apprehension toward a bipedal lifestyle -- they could walk on two legs, but it was uncomfortable. The only way we know about this history today is because some of those few people did keep their stories, stories their children kept as well.

On the last new moon of each cold year, the last and darkest night, those young adults, looking to conceive their first child, line up outside the church door. Each of them brings a large basket, containing a sacrificial animal, a libation of beer or milk, a lock of their hair. Alone, they climb the stairs and enter the church. What they see, they are forbidden to tell. God will test each of them individually, give them a personalized horror, extract from them an oath of silence, discover their true will within parenthood. With their offerings, they feed the heart of God, and hear his laughter. The milk and beer are burned away, those waiting outside inhale the scent of scorched hair. The floor inside the church is piled ever higher with the bones of the animals. Everyone can hear the screaming of a new baby.

Babies with dark skin and light hair and light eyes. Babies with yellow eyes and long fingernails. Babies with slitted pupils and full, black curls. They develop quickly, learn language easily. They don't remember where they came from, and they never ask. 

The population of this country gets smaller each passing year. Less prospective parents line up outside the church on the last and darkest night. They are beginning to forget everything about their past, and God is beginning to forget them. 

Death Collections

Even at the height of summer, the trees are dead in Winterland. It's a ghost continent, lost somewhere at the North Pole, erased from maps and memory, where the cold preserves almost everything, where people rarely die.

Death likes to vacation there, get away from the rest of the world where his services are constantly needed. The people of Winterland treat him differently: they invite him in for coffee and black jack, include him in their home movies. The children carry around his little effigies and play with them in the snow.

The people of Winterland give alms to Death, tithes paid in blades and black silk, polar bear hides if it's been a prosperous season. All their exports go to him, and before his return to the daily grind of taking souls, he makes his way through the towns of Winterland, stopping at gates and doors to receive his appreciation. "We'll see you next year, Mister," she said, bowing her head in quiet respect.

Death gently took her gift and turned away, the fog curling around the edges of his cloak, and shadows settling where he once laid his feet.