CLUMSY EGGBOY

Look at me. I’m a goddamn clumsy eggboy. Standing in front of the mirror in the morning, cold water running from the faucet. Bags under my egg eyes, my teeth feel like they’re coated in fur. My facial hair is getting too long, I’m starting to look like someone who doesn’t take care of themselves. Well, to be fair I don’t exactly take care of myself. But if I shaved and did start taking care of myself then I would be someone who takes care of themselves. I leave the house without shaving, but I do brush my teeth. I tell myself I’ll shave when I get back.

I walk down the city streets. Every step I take is a stumble. Every ten or so I really have to catch myself before falling. Every hundred or so I tumble to the ground and sit there. I become a stone in the river, everyone walks around me, too busy to notice the clumsy eggboy. That’s what I tell myself, but I feel their eyes. I’m a goddamn clumsy eggboy, who wouldn’t watch the train wreck. I don’t crack, though. No, I never crack no matter how many times I fall. That’s curious, I think.

I arrive at the bakery to pick up some bread. I do this every morning. Carbs make me feel full without providing me with actual nourishment.

Outside there’s this duck sitting on a bench. I’m stopped. Why? I didn’t want to keep moving, I just wanted to look at this duck. I felt it. She was looking at me. I sit down next to her. She looks worried. I’m falling, but not like how I normally do. I feel like I’m tumbling down the deepest cavern in the world but I’m sitting down next to this duck. She brushes her wing against one of my egg hands. She smiles at it. I realize it actually is love. I don’t move my hand, I expect to be hit with a sudden surge of nerves. I don’t. I just feel her feathers. I see her eyes. She’s looking at the clumsy eggboy. There I am, I see myself in her eyes. Ew, I don’t want to be looking at me, I want to see her.

I don’t get any bread. We go to a park instead. We sit on a patch of grass in the sunshine. There are badgers and stones and honey waterfalls and a lake of long hair. The shade of a nearby chocolate tree moves over us. It’s cooler. I scoot closer and press my egg leg against her duck leg. She puts her leg over mine, then the other. I put mine over hers. Then my other. We are tangled, a mess. I run my fingers up and down her arm, her feathers feel like they’re hugging back. I look up and she’s looking right at me, waiting. She’s anticipating something, fuck. She’s anticipating me. Shit, to be the source of someone else’s anticipation, what a lot of pressure. Her face is closer to mine now. She’s not looking at my lips though, and that’s what…well maybe she’s different. I move my face closer to hers. Her beak is inches away. I look at her, and she softly nods. We kiss. The flowers on the grass around us are pulled into the sky, slowly drifting into the air around us. Her feathers point upwards, and I feel my legs being pulled from underneath me. She floats into the air and with her hands grabbing the sides of my arms I float too. We moan and kiss. We kiss and lick and bite and moan and fly. Flowers and hair and honey swirls around us. It’s messy and beautiful and a true cacophony of life. I feel it all sticking to me and I don’t care. I don’t think about having to shower it off later or how I’m allergic to honey. I just kiss and kiss and kiss. And then the wind stops and the flowers around us start to plateau, they remain for a moment. We each stay, floating for a moment. We look at each other. I feel it in my stomach. It all falls. The flowers, the honey, the hair, me. I tumble downwards towards the Earth. My arms and legs dangle towards the sky. I look at her, flapping her wings she’s staying in the air. He looks at me and cries. She’s crying so hard, and her tears are falling towards me too. But not her. She smiles, frowns, cries, laughs, cries, winces, and then flies off.

I’m tumbling. In the mess of honey and hair I see the few tears that are coming with me, that I stole. I never got that bread, hmm. Oh, wow she kissed me and I hadn’t even shaved. Well, maybe I didn’t…maybe I didn’t need to. How do eggs even grow facial hair? Stop. Come on, live in this. That was…I don’t know what that was. She was really good. Really good. Oh, wow she’s gone. She’s actually gone. Oh no, that hurts so much. Why…shit. Clumsy eggboy falling to Earth. I wonder if this one will crack me. I’m used to it now, I’ve fallen hundreds of times, but something about the ground looks awfully hard right now.