Who Laid the Giant Egg? (Short Story)

Who Laid the Giant Egg?

by Renee Moore and Tony Anderson

  James turned and walked away from the window, eyes wide and mouth open,
for he saw the damage behind him… a total wreck.
He thought scenes like that only happened in movies and far away places.
He goes outside and looks around to find someone who can tell him what happened.
Gathering to the smoke like moths to light, people joined him.
He finally gets someone’s attention and asks. He says, “From the sky… so loud, bright…
it’s not right!” 

  “He’s crazy,” the neighbor remarked.
James decided to find someone else who can give him more information.
“It looks like blood everywhere, James thought. “I wonder if a meat truck exploded?” 

  “Hey Rick!” he called to his neighbor.

  “A meat truck exploded! We are still not sure why,” Rick tells him.
James heads a small zing as a tiny flaming rock falls past him from the sky. 

  “What the world was that?!” James exclaims.
There is a glowing orb in the sky that keeps getting bigger.
More small zings sound as tiny meteorite pieces break off the giant one hurtling toward them,
cutting through everything from trees to houses. Everyone runs for safety.
James dives into a nearby concrete ditch, being missed by mere inches.
He’s not sure what sound is worse - the hurtling, flaming fireball, or people screaming.
The big chuck finally hits the ground, and splits open to reveal
the brightest, biggest, shiniest egg anyone could have imagined.
James gets out of the ditch, cautiously walks over to it, and wonders,
“what kind of chicken laid this?” The creatures he imagines, terrifies him.
A large yellow beak pokes down from the cloudy sky.
The bird-like thing is at least 50 feet large, from beak to tail.

  “Pardon me, my apologies!” it quacks. “I guess I didn’t build my nest strong enough,”
the space poultry remarks.

  “No problem,” said James. “But, what are you going to do about all the damage?
Are you a golden goose?” he asks. 

  “Of course not”, it replies, “I’m a silver duck.
Apparently you creatures think my egg shells are very valuable,
so you may have this one once my baby hatches if you like.”

  James asks, “How long before it hatches?”

  “Not long,” is the reply. “Hmmm, what now?” James wonders, looking around.
“Not long can mean a couple minutes or several years to a silver duck.”
Just as those thoughts are going through his mind, he hears a cracking sound behind him.
“Well that answers that,” he laughs to himself.
The thunderous splitting of the egg is followed by a reappearance of the beak
bringing piece after piece of solid silver shell to the destruction site.
The shell is gathered up and distributed among the town’s people.
They are overjoyed at the relief the shell’s value will give them,
but still distraught by the damage and injuries the event has caused to begin with. 

  The space bird says to James, “ I’m very sorry for this.
I will do my very best to never let it happen again. In fact,
if you rebuild your homes in a large circle shape,
I will put a used shell in the middle of the circle each year.” 

  “We would enjoy that, James responded.
So, the town’s people get together to discuss the idea.
It doesn’t take long to agree to a plan, and they decide on a time and design in order to rebuild.
The only problem they have is how big to make the circle.
They look at how big the area of damages, but the bird, they name Silver Sue,
reminds them the future shells will be set down gently, not crashed.
They choose to make the circle 500 feet across. In between each yearly delivery,
the circle will be used as a roller skating rink, group tai chi classes,
and any other flat ground activities they could think of.
The town used the yearly deliveries not just for their own town, but for other towns nearby.
Many large anonymous donations were also made to charitable donations.
The eggshells were a blessing to everyone.

  Sadly, this was not earth, but one can dream.

The End