Today - I fell in love with an egg!

[Fragonard]

Mini, you can't get rid of Omsk! Surely she must be ready to hatch out of her shell. Won't you at least wait and see the mystery that lies within? It might be a breath-taking sight. Give Omsk a chance before you return her to the spot where you found her. She might be the missing part of your life.

[john t]

With all this poetry about an egg...it really is scrambling my brains...

 

I feel like my my brain is being hard boiled.....

 

 

jt

[miniminch]

I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, I can hear the birds outside and see the light behind the curtains.

 

Remember when you said we were going to go away, where no one could find us? We were going to find our own place somewhere. We could build a house out of wood, on stilts and live in the deep forest, just you and I; remember? We could go where the butterflies are as big as dinner plates and the light changes everything. No? I never said it although I have thought about it often.

 

To hear you on the telephone after that night, Rachel, was more than I could stand. I felt removed from you, for the first time. Detached; like a painting is from a subject. There I was, at seventeen, sat in the dark at the bottom of the stairs in the old house, trying to fit a life spans worth of words into a few hours we had left. And I was speechless.

 

The point is this; she wasn’t perfect, I never said she was perfect. She was a bit of a tomboy and she was never the smartest. She was abandoned as a child; then adopted by her parents. She loved art but only ever painted bunny rabbits; like a little girl would. She spoke like a child sometimes. But she was perfect for me, you know? We were not the best jigsaw in the shop but we fitted well together. Where there were dark things, she brought light. Where there was suffering, she brought relief. Where there was science, she brought magic.

 

Omsk is perfect, because she has no life, just as Rachel is now.

 

I look out of a chink in the curtain and I see a man on the roof of the building opposite. He is dressed in black armour and he is carrying a weapon. He is as a crow in the persistent rain, fluft out and standing in the umbrella of its own self. The rain, tacks streaks into the glass. If there were a time for Omsk to hatch, if this were fiction, it would be now. I am willing her to show her face, not just her beautiful belly. She will not.

 

The phone rings and it is a man who wants to know who is here with me. He is softly spoken and kind. I tell him about Omsk. He asks if she is Ok. I say fine. He asks me if I want to come outside. I ask him for what? He says it is just to talk. I tell him I am talking. The phone goes quiet. I put it on the floor.

 

Somewhere, a long time ago, I was on a gravel path behind the mourners following my girlfriend. She had a beautiful, smooth white coffin that was small and light. I used to pick her up and throw her over my shoulders. Now, on shoulders again, she is carried gravely through this field in silence. Such small steps. Such tiny feet. Scraps of flowers, fading letters and windmills line the path. Cuddly toys; an alligator, a swan, a snake placed beneath shining marble stones, to what end? Then, a magpie clatters over the drizzling horizon. I am momentarily lost to this universe.

 

The numbness that began that day has only changed by a matter of degrees since. I am, myself, alone.

 

The heat in the room is changing. The light fading again. And I have brought Omsk to this place so I must stick with her. I do not leave my love ones. They leave me.

 

There is nothing in the fridge but I am Ok with water. We are ok, Omsk and I, we make a promise to each other to stay for the other. I made that promise before. The body needs so little to survive; just water, a little food, love and hope. And, this is all we are, lest the things we truly do not need!

 

I have lived without hope for so long; I have forgotten what it tastes of. In my memory it tastes of an English summer in a meadow on Gatley hill; the perfume of young bodies; the drifting shapes of clouds.

 

I am sat at the table, Omsk sat on it. It has gone dark. There is no electricity. I can just catch the last sheen of her shell in the light that manages through the drawn curtains. I am beginning to lose my faith in her.

 

Twenty years ago, when they lowered the coffin into the ground, I caught her mother’s eye. She looked at me as if to say, you’ll be Ok! I couldn’t take my mind off the box and it’s shell and the cold earth surrounding it. All I ever needed was in there.

 

I came back the next day, alone.

 

From behind a curtain in a house across the road a man sees a crow black figure stood motionless in the rain; a magpie bounces across the wall. He has no flowers, or words or ideas.

 

A patch of bare earth like a plaster lies silently in the field. The earth will settle they say. Things move on. I will be ok.

 

I am drunk with hunger. I wanted to tell you a story about an egg. I cannot even do that.

[walter wall]

I think you have issues

[Babooshka]

I think you have lost faith in Omsk, and that YOU are leaving her...not the other way round. Maybe you expect too much....maybe you expect too little, and are unaware of the magic that Omsk can show you. It is time, Mini. Time to crack open the shell and allow Omsk to reveal herself to you. Put your faith in her. Give her your hand.

[miniminch]

I think you have lost faith in Omsk, and that YOU are leaving her...not the other way round. Maybe you expect too much....maybe you expect too little, and are unaware of the magic that Omsk can show you. It is time, Mini. Time to crack open the shell and allow Omsk to reveal herself to you. Put your faith in her. Give her your hand.

no never, babooshka:)

[Babooshka]

Has she cracked out of her shell yet, Mini?

[Halibut]

Very beautiful.

[LordChaverly]

Very beautiful.

 

 

Unlike Omsk

[miniminch]

I have begun to think a little more loudly. I hear the rain and it sounds good. I am overpowered by the voices that are creeping under the door and try to get to Omsk and I. My imagination is beyond the ceiling that threatens to fall; bowing with liquid that runs down the walls. The ants are back. Their universe seems so solid; unshakeable hierarchy of ants. I watch them crawl over your skin.

 

Sometimes, when I sleep, I can hear the forest, talking simply of creatures and drifting airs. I am alone in the bracken by the glass brook. I hear the call of animals, I cannot put a name to, perhaps dragons, swans or eggs! I see the sunlight fall in spots across the floor. The blossom is out again, soon she will fall.

 

Where am I?

 

Here with Omsk, I feel an ending, as the spots of lights trace across the curtains, pulling me down.

 

From the door I spy a man on the roof pointing a gun. I see the police cars in a line, one by one. I will be swallowed by their uniforms. The blues and the reds of the police lights bathe the bricks of the houses opposite with their curtains drawn and their mouths tightly shut. I am beginning to unravel.

 

Alone, in the dark room for the first time, I close my eyes and light dawns. A bedroom, perhaps a million years ago, full of toys still and the walls a shrine; a dizzy height, overlooking the garden with its shed and your arthritic Labrador. Somewhere, a child wails and voices blunder unintelligibly from the road.

 

Life is still here, my lovely. So still. I will be soon inside you and I will reach the eggs you have.

 

That was the first moment of all this. It had to start somewhere. Every moment since, can be traced back to this time; our prehistory!

 

That’s when I decided to walk out into the lights. After being in the dark for so long I find it hard to see in this glare. I cannot see beyond it. I am made to stretch my arms out wide; like a crow in the comfort of the sky. I am made to kneel before this world.

 

If Rachel could have become pregnant, I might not be here, kneeling in the dirt, surrounded by police, with an egg in my pocket. Although, you never know, do you?

 

A dull summer in Gatley, Manchester, a light easterly breeze. I find you lying quietly on the bed, listening to The Smiths, thinking, plotting a way out. You were smarter than me, by a mile. Oh, I had the words, but you had it all. And, all that could have hatched never did. We never stood a chance. Reel around the fountain.

 

But it’s OK that things don’t hatch, like Rachel or Omsk. Some things never change or lose their way. Some things are above life’s menial demands.

 

And with the cuffs on in the back of the van I see the city slip by one frame at a time. Shop by shop, the adventures and hatchings of people are revealed, as stills.

 

Closing Down,

 

Half Price Sale,

 

Everything Must Go!

 

I am quiet in my head and yet I can see the woman in the park hanging from the tree in the mist, swinging on the dog’s lead. She is quiet. Her eyes strain in her face but she is still, the bloody animal at her feet. The city below lies still and permanent. My hands are sore and wet. I can smell her blood. It smells like Rachel’s blood.

 

 

The end.

 

 

 

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