An Egg’s Reflection on ‘The Great Consumption’

Sitting in a field of green, otherwise known as an Egg Salad, one egg said in a pleasingly reflective and resigned manner, ” I always wanted to be a chicken when I grew up”, “Well, you never did grow up did you” said his more sarcastic cousin,  only ‘The Great Selected’ go on and produce eggs of their own”. “The Great Selected” they both said in voices of resigned but wondrous reverence: a progress far beyond the imaginings of the average egg.

Beside, and slightly under them if we seek precision, a leaf of lettuce said,  “I wanted to star in my own show”. “Failed” said both the eggs in glorious and insensitive unison, and the lettuce visibly wilted under their combined scorn. The more pushy egg could not leave it there and added, “It is called an EGG salad and not a Lettuce salad I hope you know, and at least we are whole eggs. I mean where is the rest of you; you’re almost naked.”

“Oh be fair now” said the kinder Egg, “She does have a light dressing on, if you can call tomatoe ketchup a dressing”. “Well, however I’m dressed, we are all destined for ‘The Great Consumption” by an fourteen year old boy, whose mother is trying to get him to lose weight, and still enjoy his meal” said the Leaf, which had been on the plate longer than the eggs, and picked up some of the pre-meal inter-generational negotiations. Both eggs rolled around slightly, because even though they were not among, “The Great Selected” they had an instinctive wariness when it came to tackling adolescents: a wariness shared by parents of all species apparently, excepting, turtles, whose timeless wisdom was revered by all who understood the secrets of slow-motion.

This did not include, one Sheldon Bragg, currently fourteen years old, and  bored by a diet of healthy food and parental disapproval: he looked at his salad without enthusiasm. Suddenly the world seemed to spin and swirl around them as the surprised occupants of the plate were slipped into the trash can to join the survivors of a Chinese take away, and a ball of dust from the weekend vacuuming. “Finished” they heard the boy lie, but all else was lost to them as the lid closed. “Saved against all odds” said the cheerier egg, and certainly there was an atmosphere of bewildered celebration from one end of the bin to the other: this was the life indeed.

After a period of reflection, some small speck from the vacuuming dust piped up  saying “I used to be Napoleon, you know: well part of him anyway: a bit of his kneecap if I remember”,

“Oh shut up”, said Grumpy Egg, don’t start boasting about past lives, or we’ll never hear the end of it”, but it was too late for that. Molecules of every ancestry began boasting of connections with the ‘greats’ of history across a wide number of species and devices. Napoleon who had already had his allocated mention, and  isn’t that always the case, might have been less flattered by the knowledge that a particle of his being now resided within the bruise on a small tomato, currently sharing its memories of the good old days with his dust bag relative, but other claims were more obscure. Some piece of fuse wire, peering across at the lettuce leaf seemed to have the instinctive belief, that a particle of that lettuce leaf was a bit of Cynthia Paxton, the love of his life when he was John Carpenter some centuries before: would he be recognised?  He kept his eye on her and prayed that at the next ‘Great Fusing’ they finally and truly, might become ‘one.’