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 Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 5:39 am
Marin slung the bag onto her bag, the books hitting her in the shoulder. Her once-monthly progress exam had gone well; she'd managed to remember most of the concepts she was supposed to be learning. Admittedly, she still wasn't putting in as much study as she should, but at least she wasn't failing. Pleased, she took a minute to look around. The park's lights had come on, although the sun hadn't fully set, and together they lit the grass and flowers with an odd, yellowish light. Despite that, it was a nice night and the park was a change of scenery. Spotting a bench ahead, she took the opportunity and slid onto it, slouching back.
She sat for a while, resting in peace, until the sun moved a little further down the sky. Something started shining into her eye. It was irritating, glaring away, and she couldn't seem to move away from it. Even worse, she couldn't even see anything that would cause it. Eventually it drove her up and out of her seat. From her new vantage point, she could see something sticking out of a hedge a small distance away. Muttering to herself, she went to see what was causing the nuisance.
The white spot was still nearly glowing as she approached the egg. Even though it was stuck in a hedge, and was a weird black and white colour with a bowtie attached, it still looked rather like a real egg. It was warm to the touch, with the rough texture of a shell. Cautiously, Marin looked around, but could see neither obvious cameramen or and kind of mutant bird. Amused by its accessory, she hefted the egg carefully and decided to take it with her. She could always use it as a footstool. Lugging it along, she took it to her car and set off home.
At home she considered the egg. It looked and felt so real, was it just a weird fake someone had left there? Her memory drifted back to odd summers at her uncle's. He'd kept hens. Hadn't he always checked the eggs somehow? Candling, he'd called it. You could see the stuff inside the eggs. She dug around the kitchen drawers until she found her big torch, and tuned off the lights. Shining it through the egg, she could definitely see a spidery collection of veins and a big blob of something.
"What the hell?" she said to herself. The egg looked genuine in every way, but it was huge, and a pattern she'd never seen in eggs before.
"Well, can't hurt to keep an eye out I guess..." Rising, she turned the lights back up and put the egg closer to the radiator. She felt a little foolish, and the egg would probably turn out to be just a hoax, but for now she could treat like a real egg. Just without telling anyone.
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Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2009 3:13 pm
Marin threw her keys onto the table and stretched. As they came back down, she inspected her hands, and decided they needed a good scrub before she did anything else. Her brother, always useless for anything practical, had fretted behind her as she checked out his clunky old car. Eventually she'd found the problem. While the car had oil, he couldn't remember the last time he'd changed it, and when she drained it, something more like tar poured out of the pipework. His car was out of commission, and she'd probably have to go back to change the filter and refill the car. The old oil was sat in a bucket in her shed, she'd take it to work and dump it with the rest of the stuff the recycled.
As she came back into the living room, she looked over at the spot she'd put aside for the egg. It was still sitting there, egg-like. It was wrapped in an old blanket, with one of the oil heaters nearby for cold nights. She put her hand on its surface and felt warmth. Strangely, she also seemed to feel the egg move under her hand. A minute shudder, nothing more. She moved her hand away, then replaced it carefully. Nothing this time. Maybe she imagined it.
"Mysterious as ever, huh?" She said to it, then felt silly. She still didn't know what to think of the egg. As she studied it, the doorbell rang, and someone stomped into the room.
"Hey, did you talk to Tam? He was moaning about his car ear-" Jess froze as she looked at Marin, who looked slightly guilty stood next to her weird egg. "What the f- is that?"
Damn, damn, damn, was all Marin could think. Of all the people, Jess was not who she would have picked to show the egg to. Jess had always been the cool one, stylish, popular, largely normal.
"Cool!" her sister exclaimed, walking over to touch the egg. "It's one of those bird eggs!" Then, seeing the look in Marin's eye. "You didn't even know did you? Still out of the loop." Jess shook her head dramatically, then woke Marin's ancient PC.
"How the hell am I supposed to keep up with all the crap people talk about?" Marin still had no idea what her sister was talking about, and currently preferred to keep it that way. However, as her sister surfed slowly to a news page, Marin scanned it.
"God, are you still on dial-up? Please join the 21st century sometime. I swear you're like 50 sometimes." Jess looked at her sister triumphantly as the last of the page loaded. "You found one without even trying. Nice."
Later, after Jess had left again, Marin wondered what would actually come out of the egg. The article hadn't mentioned it. What kind of black and white songbirds were there? Magpies didn't really count. Gulls at a stretch.
"Guess we'll have to wait and see."
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