The Egg Man
by Stacie HeintzeWhen I was a girl we lived in the suburbs in an uneventful and contained neighborhood. The couple who lived next door had no children. They seemed happy to me, but my mother said the couple was actually unhappy because the woman was barren. Because the couple loved children, every Easter they would dye hundreds of eggs in preparation for the neighborhood egg hunt. The couple would spend the night before Easter hiding the eggs in bushes and tall grass and abandoned toys. During the hunt they would proudly stand back and watch the children's delight as they discovered the eggs.
One year the man grew tired during the egg dying and had to sit down. He told his wife he felt ill and was going to rest a bit. He went into the living room and sat in his favorite chair, a massive brown Naugahyde recliner. He lay back in his chair and closed his eyes and propped his feet up and tried to relax, but his condition worsened. His stomach churned, and sweat formed on his upper lip and forehead. He called to his wife, "Dear, come quick, I think I'm dying."
She ran to her husband's side and truly he was in bad shape. She took his hand to calm him. "You'll be fine, you're probably just expelling a little gas. Take a deep breath and I'll massage your belly." She laid her other hand on his stomach and began to make slow smooth circles. "Oh, oh, oh," he cried. His body tensed and his teeth clenched. His wife stumbled backwards, frightened, and yelled, "Oh dear, there's something in your belly." She ripped open his shirt and saw the rippled bulges undulating on his stomach making an upward path toward his chest. His eyes bugged out and sweat poured from his body. He tried to yell but only a muffled choking sound escaped from his lips. His wife approached him with caution. She leaned back his head and opened his mouth and found a perfectly formed egg nestled on his tongue.
She removed the egg and marveled at the beautiful colors and pattern that dyed it. The base color was a deep china blue, fine red speckles covered the blue and a gold ring circled the center and both ends of the egg. Before she could recover from the shock of this miracle, another egg appeared in her husband's mouth. This egg was sea green, from the shallow part of the ocean, with tawny colored diamonds for decoration. "Oh, I like this one," she said. Her husband continued to produce more eggs, and by the time he finished there were a dozen, each individually adorned and colored.
"How do you feel," she asked. "Well, a little groggy, but much better," he replied. "Oh, good. You stay here and I'll go get a container for our eggs." She ran into the kitchen and grabbed an empty egg carton, and then she hurried to the bathroom for the cotton, which she would use to line the carton with so that the eggs would have a safe place to lay.
The next day the husband, fully recovered, went out into the neighborhood to tell his story and show his eggs. The neighbors laughed at him, including my mother, who said all those years of egg dying must have dulled something in his brain. But, when his wife verified the story and held up the perfection of the eggs as proof, people started to believe him. Then when Mr. Grenel, who lived down the street and was viewed with high regard, announced that it was a miracle, the entire neighborhood came to believe the strange story about the birth of the eggs.
The husband built a special crate for his eggs and lined it with lamb's wool and straw to provide extra protection. They set up a special room in their house to display the eggs and included a tour of the room on Easter as part of the ritual hunt. They had to have special security installed in their home after someone was caught trying to break and enter. At first, hundreds of people came from all over the world to see the eggs, but after a while the hoopla died down and things returned to normal.
This was the only unusual thing that ever happened where I grew up. If it weren't for the egg man I wouldn't have experienced anything unusual in my life, and my childhood would have been utterly dull.
Stacie writes stories, poems, and the occasional long letter. She lives in Chicago and refuses to write a pithy bio for Perfectland.