For ten days, a fresh egg was Zoe Barcza’s best friend. Her other friends were all in school. She found the special egg at the restaurant where she worked, in a cardboard package among many others almost like it. It was vaguely bluish, just like the inside of Zoe’s arms, or the light falling on Zoe’s sheets in mid-morning, when Zoe was tired of everything.

After she destroyed the other eggs—broke their little bodies and ruptured their little organs—she held her special egg against her cheek, thrilled by its cool touch. Then she showed it around the kitchen. She said, here is the mixer where I might have fluffed you up. Here is the rack where I would have put the bread your corpse might have been a part of.

Though the egg couldn’t speak, she felt as if its empty surface was asking her questions.

You’re not like me, she said, because your mom didn’t get the right level of rooster jizz. That’s why you aren’t running around excreting things all the time, like me. That’s why your body doesn’t have any corners or holes or angles. I’m sorry you can’t have that. But it’s not so bad, being the way you are.

She said, I don’t know what will happen to you after you die. You will be somewhere else. But I will still have this job. I will smell like canned barbecue flavour at the end of every day. I will think of you, as I scrape the bits of you off the bottom of the sink.

Then, on the tenth day, she made the egg into an omelette. She stood over the pan solemnly as the egg was frying, just like in the movies. That felt stupid, but she didn’t know what other feelings were available. As she was putting it onto a dinner plate, the omelette fell on the floor.

Text by Sasha Chapin, Bangkok, April 2016.

Zoe Barcza - Texas Liquid Smoke
Loyal, May 25 - July 2
www.loyalgallery.com