A Good Egg
– Nonfiction by Julia Mais –
Honorable Mention in the 2023 Dreamers Micro Nonfiction Contest!
Which egg today? Dad comes over while I’m still in bed so that I can choose from a tray of mismatched brown eggs. I examine them and choose The Egg of the Day. They’re fresh from the farm, I picked them up yesterday. Some of them still had feathers on. I’ve never seen a feather on the eggs in our fridge. I can’t tell dad this though. It will break his heart.
Dad cooks up the egg as I have some cereal. Dad comes over with the egg I chose, now scrambled, on homemade buttered bread. The bread, like the egg, is brown. It has a hole in the middle – an indent from the bread maker, where the scrambled egg seeps through. The egg is always brown. White eggs are sacrilegious. White eggs, like white bread, are store-bought and soulless. Dad will have none of the small uniform eggs they sell in Styrofoam packages at the Fairways Supermarket down the road.
Once I commence my egg, I compliment it. Good egg. If the compliment doesn’t come, dad will have to ask how’s the egg? I time my compliment to intercept this indignity. There are rituals. There are requirements. This is an exchange. He makes me the egg, I say good egg. This is how our weekend mornings roll.
Sometimes, I don’t want an egg. But I have learned. To refuse the egg is a profound insult. It means I’ve disrupted the routine. The exchange of love between the egg-maker and the egg-eater. What?? No egg?? He seems so distraught. Fine I’ll have an egg. I always cave. It takes more effort for me to comfort my dad than to eat an egg.
The balance is restored. By eating the egg, I have no longer failed him. I have shown him that I love him. I have proven to him that some things can stay the same: I will always eat your egg as I know that you will always make me one. I know that he needs to make me the egg more than I need to eat it.
So I preserve the sanctity of breakfast. I eat the egg. I say good egg every time and I never question whether there are chicken feathers in the fridge.
About the Author – Julia Mais
Julia writes to reflect on the human condition and make sense of the messiness that is life. Her poetry and memoir work focuses on family, motherhood, spirituality and mental health. When she is not writing, she works as a policy and communications professional and enjoys paddleboarding, Pilates and picnics at the beach. She lives with her husband and young daughter on lək̓ʷəŋən territory, in an area also known as Victoria, British Columbia.
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