FICTION FRIDAY
Dippy Egg
Maybe it was for the nostalgia. Perhaps it was for the innocence. I didn’t think it would be for a truth. Late on a Friday night. Wife and kids are in bed and I’m peckish. I start boiling water in a pot on the stove and carefully slip an egg into the roiling ruckus. Keep an eye on the time.
Pop bread into the toaster to make regimented soldiers, as my father called them, for the dippy egg. I am still amazed at the tensile strength of the eggshell as I tackle it with the edge of a serrated knife, hoping I’ve cut down far enough to reveal the yolk.
One by one the soldiers descend and rise in the routine and discipline of consumption. Slipping in the teaspoon to excavate the flesh, the membrane pulls away from the inside of the shell like sunburn.
Now empty, I turn the shell over and crush it with the blunt force of the back of the teaspoon. My father’s words are found beneath each of the pieces of shell I scrape off the tablecloth, and with them, the truth of his lies.
Something new this week for Fiction Friday: a zine! HMU if you’d like to be the owner of it ($10 inc postage). First come, first served. One of a kind and not to be repeated.
A Fullness in Brevity - Adam Byatt 