Highly Commended Story - The Egg

“The Egg” by Veer Shah, Rustomjee Cambridge International School, India, is the Highly Commended story in the senior category of the first biannual Short Story Contest 2020.

The Egg

I was driving my way back home. Exhausted and drowsy, I steadily drove, parallel with the giant hills on either side. There was greenery all around me. Large trees and small shrubs surrounded my smooth drive on the buttery road. I was dressed in my formals. No idea why, but I started growing more conscious and meticulous as each second passed by. I could feel a hormone rush in my body. I noticed each detail in my vision even the number of bolts used to join two metals to form the barricades at the edge of the road. Out of nowhere, I got a thought about my two children and my wife. I recollected all my sweet memories and came on the urge of crying.

“Nothing like that has ever happened to me before!” I pondered for a while.

Then came, a sharp turn towards my left. I did that without any mistake, but a truck driver on the other side of turn couldn’t make it. The truck had started to skid and I slammed myself right into it.

It was a painless death, but fatal after all. My body had shattered into a million pieces. The last thing I remember was not the ‘thud’ sound from the crash but my family saying that have a happy journey.

I slowly opened my eyes. Everything was blur. The resolution increased slowly. The first thing I saw was something human shaped. I couldn’t get it in my head. When my vision cleared, I saw it to be human but still something was different (definitely not a human). My instinct told me. It had all its limbs and head floating near its body and merely touching. It had a dark complexion and a fluid running through his body. He had two black eyes which for some reason, stood out. However it was, it felt like I had some connection with it. Well, I thought he was God. To my surprise, he responded to me. He had read my thoughts and he agreed that he was in fact the God.

I felt silent for a moment. I acknowledged myself that I had died. I fell in a pool of disappointment. God reassured me. He said that everyone has to die one day and there was nothing to be disappointed of. I looked around, there was nothing, only we two. The dark background behind me and in front didn’t have a single speck of light till the farthest I could see. Yet, He was clearly visible to me. I asked him about my family and if they were okay.

He replied with joy, “See! That is a good thing there! You just died and your first concern is about your family! Don’t worry, your kids weren’t old enough to grow contemptuous about you, they will remember you perfect in every way. Your wife on the other hand, will he be crying on the outside but secretly relieved from the inside. The truth is that your relationship was breaking apart. For any consolation she will feel guilty for feeling relieved.

I let out a sigh and thought what would happen next? I raised my left arm high up and asked if I would go to heaven? Bright white light shone at me from that direction. Then I lowered my right hand down and asked if I would go to hell. Fiery red flames tried reaching me from there. God said that I would be reincarnated. I pondered upon myself.

I started to follow Him as he walked across the void. We were going nowhere in particular, it just felt nice to stretch even if it was just a few minutes being dead. While walking I saw structures like stalagmites, which were dark blue at the base and then turned to bright yellow near the top. These were fewer at start but increased in number as we walked further. I asked Him if all my experience I had in this incarnation would matter or not. He didn’t answer for a while. He stopped in front of something gigantic and took me by the shoulders.

He said that this was my consciousness, my soul. Then the humongous object - my soul opened up and actually showed me how immense it was. “Your human mind can only store a tiny fraction of the true reality”, said God. Fascinated by that, I asked that how many times I’ve been reincarnated. God replied that it had been done many times in the past and now I’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 A.D. I was alarmed when I heard that I was being sent in the past.

God knowing that I would have such a question smiled and said, “Time as you know it, exists only in your universe. Things are different from where I come. Yes! I come from somewhere else where there are others like me. Coming to the point, you may ask what happens when two incarnations of you meet each other. Well, that happens all the time and both lives are aware only of their lifespan, they don’t even know it.”

Yet confused, I asked him the meaning of life. He comfortably replied that for me to mature. I corrected Him that he meant humanity, but he denied. He yet didn’t change his statement. He added that with every incarnation, I become a bigger intellect, and that there is no one else other than us. Everyone on earth is me, different incarnations of me. I guessed that I am everyone and He agreed. I stared blankly at him for some time.

I said later on, “I am every human being who ever lived or will ever live so, I’m Abraham Lincoln and I am John Booth. I’m Hitler and millions whom he killed. I’m Jesus and everyone who followed him. So, every time I victimized someone, I victimized myself, every act of kindness I did, was to myself. Every happy or sad moment experienced by a human was or will be experienced by me.”

I felt silent and asked why to do all this.

God replied, “That is because you are one of my kind, you will become of my kind, you are my child. You too are God but not yet. You are yet growing, you are a foetus. Once you will have lived every human life, you will be have grown enough to be born.”

I trembled and said, “S...sooo, the whole universe is just an egg!”

He answered and sent me on my way to the next incarnation.

Note: The above story is a rewritten version by Veer Shah. Its original version is written by the famous writer Andy Weir.