The Good Eggs and The Bad Seeds

Funny how we're always changing our minds from A to Z and fail to notice the truth is somewhere in-between.... Number 12 of the No One Special Fairy Tales

The Good Eggs and The Bad Seeds

Once upon a time there was a kingdom that was rent in two. On one side, there were the good eggs. Everyone knew they were good because they were pure white and always provided light and sustenance to the people who lived near them. On the other side of the kingdom were the bad seeds. Everyone knew the seeds were bad because they were black and hard and never produced any fruit. So, most of the people lived with the good eggs on the one side of the kingdom. They lived there and they prospered, living good lives with everything in line with their expectations. 

One day, things started to feel different. They noticed that some of the eggs weren’t as white as the others. Some were yellow, and brown, and even black the further they dug. They ignored it for a long time but finally they realized that the eggs weren’t really as good as they had always claimed. In truth, nearly half of the eggs were all very bad. They also started to notice that on the other side of the kingdom, some of the bad seeds didn’t look as bad as they had thought. Some of them really were producing fruit, and they saw that the bad seeds really weren’t so worthy of their disdain. 

Still, they continued to ignore the truths that had presented themselves for a long time, not wanting to break tradition, and wanting to stay firmly rooted in the comfortable rut they’d settled into on the side of the good eggs. Finally, a small minority of people grew and grew until the majority of the people of the kingdom that lived with the good eggs, decided they were wrong to favor the good eggs all of these years. They decided they would go live on the other side of the kingdom with the bad seeds. 

They issue and edict that the people were no longer allowed to call the bad seeds, “bad” seeds. They were to call them the “good” seeds, and to call the eggs the “bad” eggs. 

So there they lived with the good seeds for a time, until a small minority of the people started to notice that many of the seeds really were as bad as their former title had suggested. They really didn’t give good fruit, and life here in this place was not suitable, and not as good as they had expected. So that minority soon overtook the population and convinced the people who lived with the “good” seeds to move over once again to the land of the bad eggs. 

Once back there, an edict was issued that you were not allowed to call the bad eggs, “bad” eggs, but you must call them good eggs. As for the seeds, surely you must call them “bad” seeds.

And so the people started to run back and forth across the kingdom, with shorter amounts of time in between each move, the more they moved. Finally, it escalated to nothing more than a frenzied panic this way and that way throughout the land. Good eggs, bad eggs, good seeds, bad seeds: it seemed like they could no longer distinguish between them anymore. 

And yet, no place they moved to ever seemed good enough, or like it could fulfill the needs of their population. For wherever they landed, it simply was not adequate for them, and in the end they would always leave and run away. They were miserable and could never decide where to live, and so it continued, and continued, and continued. 

What the people of that kingdom didn’t realize, was that their entire kingdom was built upon an enormous scale, held up by a single point in the center. As they ran back and forth, they tipped the scale this way and the next. And so whichever side of the scale had more people, it began to fall and become bad for the people. 

And what they certainly didn’t realize, the saving truth that eluded them even more: was that the only truly happy people in the kingdom, were those who live on top of the point which supported it. And in that city, there were seeds and eggs together, but only the good eggs and the good seeds. 

But the people who were not of that city, never seemed to notice this, as they ran by from end to end. 

Author's Note

Written as something of a combination fairy tale and social commentary. Open to interpretation.