Prologue

   The beginning of the construction of this shell could be done on purpose, or it could be done without the person even being aware of it. Most people know it as a defense mechanism. But it can be agreed that this mental apparatus is used to protect oneself from entering the same situation that triggered the assembly of the shell.

            Okay, the last statement needs to be rephrased. This mental apparatus is used to deceive oneself into thinking that they are protected from entering the same situation that triggered the assembly of the shell. Ten times out of ten, excluding those who move into a cave and hibernate for the rest of their lives, they enter the same situation. Ten times out of ten, they crack. And I’d say maybe three times out of ten, they leave their yolk out in the open. The other seven are the unlucky ones.

            You could say my job was to speed things along. My job was to crack those eggs, and pick up the pieces. My job was to oversee all those who built the wall. Strange job, right? And I’m not even on payroll. I guess you could call me that “God” humans are always looking for. I’d also like to mention that nine times out of ten, I’m hearing your prayer. And nine times out of ten, I really can’t help you.

            I really hate talking about myself. It leads to questions about my shortcomings, which quite frankly I don’t really like to talk about. But I do love to talk about one of my main strong points, which is dealing with death.

            I know a thing or two about death. It’s part of my job description. And I can assure you, when you die; it’s a hustling, bustling affair. Billions of people die every day. Trying to accommodate all those souls takes work. Dying is like waiting in line for a football game, except times 5 million people. Although you may not see this as a punishment, those who are bad in real life are reborn. They are reborn to experience all the suffering that is life again. I guess it’s like saying they get a second chance to do something better than they did in their last life. For the good, they actually die. Nothing happens. As in, they face nothingness for the rest of their lives. Only, it’s not a life, because they’re gone. Oh my goodness. How do I explain this?

Ugh, I got off track. See, this is why I don’t like talking about myself. I’m supposed to be talking about a girl. Okay, let’s pretend the last paragraph or two never happened.

And so there was a girl, a flimsy piece of yolk. She was only ten years old when she began to construct her egg. She lived in a small town called Reed Creek in Virginia, where news spread faster than gunfire.

            It all happened when her father went to his follow-up appointment about his heart surgery.

            She and the rest of her family sat in the waiting room, patiently waiting for their father to come out. One of the most irritating things about hospitals was that they randomly didn’t allow patients to follow their family in. Another irritating thing about hospitals was just how long everything took. Since they had chosen an appointment that was so early in the morning it still looked like nighttime, there were few patients in the hospital. However, they had been waiting for over two hours now.

            The girl’s mother and her grandparents were apprehensive. Her grandparents were both heart disease survivors, and they expected their son to survive too. But you can’t always be too sure about these things. There’s always the ripple in the pond, a crack in the plate, a chip in the paint. And as of her mom? Her mom had always been a worrier. Not a warrior, a worrier. I mean, her daughter was ten for god’s sake, and she still had her in a booster seat during car rides. She was the type of mom to slather you in sunscreen even if you weren’t even at the beach. The point is, she worried. And she worried a lot.

            And of course today, the girl’s mother was worried. For good reason, but still. She was visibly shaking, her cheeks flushed with apprehension.

            Finally, the door opened. The door that the man had passed through hours ago. I sat there waiting along with them, though they didn’t know it. And I’m not going to ramble on with that cliché “time passes by so fast when you’re old” comment old people like to say. It lasted a pretty long time.

            “Hello, how are you guys?” the doctor asked, and they exchanged slightly awkward but marginally pleasant small talk.

            Small talk tops the list of one of my least favorite things about humans. But I digress.

            His father wore a lazy smile, and the doctor wore the I-just-treated-a-patient expression. If you looked at them, you wouldn’t think anything was wrong. You wouldn’t think of the words the doctor was about to utter next.

            “So, everything’s fine with his heart?” The wife was unusually straight to the point.

            “Something went wrong,” said the doctor, his already flimsy smile fading. “I-I made a mistake.”

            His father managed to retain the lazy smile. I’d say he came off pretty genuine, but being who I was, I knew he was faking it. On the inside, he was being ripped to pieces. His world was being knocked off its very balance. He would have to leave his daughter, his wife, and his parents. And of course, he would have to die. And because of that heaven stuff you humans like to entertain yourselves with, in the back of his mind he was wondering where he’d end up.

            He was just another crack in the plate. Things like this happened everyday. In reality, he was no different than any other unlucky guy who was cursed with a crappy doctor.

            But to his family, he was a meteor hitting the earth. This event was the last day the sun shined. This was the bad throw that made the team lose the game.

            The wife fell back in her chair like she was expecting it. It was as if someone had pushed her, and then held her in place so she couldn’t get back up.

            “You’re kidding,” said the grandmother.

            The grandfather let out a profanity. “God, it’s the 21^st century and doctors are still making mistakes?”

            The wife said, “So what happens now?” It was always the wife that was the sensible one.

            “We think he only has about two weeks to live,” the doctor said.

            The wife stared at him. Her eyes were frozen to his face, unmoving. And I sat there and watched. I silently agreed with the old man.

            “Something went wrong? So you made a mistake? He’s only got two weeks to live? What?” the girl said all in one breath.

            That what shattered my heart. That what was like the fall that finally breaks the teacup you keep dropping, the storm that breaks all the windows, the roof that you’ve been planning to replace that finally caves in.

            But it wasn’t like I hadn’t dealt with stuff like this before. I mean, I watched little girls scream. I’ve watched little children just stare emotionlessly at a casket. Death and depressed children were pretty much the title of my job.

            The doctor looked like he was ready to jump off a cliff. Ah, humans. You guys always manage to mess up at the wrong moments. Your whole life is spent training for the next moment. Everything you make, you make to prevent another mistake. But then by creating the next thing, you make another a mistake. Then another. Then another. And every time you manage to justify your reasoning. You manage to make an excuse better than the last.

            “I’m sorry,” he managed again. “Sorry” is one of those words that is totally overused. It’s one of those words that nine times out of ten, is only said out of courtesy and not because you actually mean it. But one of the main problems with the world “sorry” was that it didn’t solve anything or change anything. But for some reason, you humans use it as if it actually means anything.

            “You’re going to get fired,” the little girl said. “And you’ll deserve it.”

            I chuckled at that one. Ah, the ten year old mind. Your father is dying in two weeks, and you’re still trying to exact your revenge on a flustered doctor.

            “It’s got to be cause he’s black,” the grandfather declared.

            The doctor looked like he honestly just wanted to sink into the floor and never come back out from the depths of the ground.

            The little girl finally turned to her family. Her father had sat next to his wife and had his arm around her. His parents were crying hysterically. What was scary was that his wife was completely emotionless. She looked like her soul had been yanked from her chest already. Like he had already died.

            “It’ll be okay, just like it’ll always be,” her father assured his wife. “I’ll fight this error. Whatever that doctor did.” Words that he was supposed to say. Words that he knew, in his soul, weren’t true.

            “No,” his wife said. “It won’t be, Will. It’ll never be.” His wife had never been an optimist; in fact, she was quite the opposite.

            The girl, whom they seemed to be ignoring, heard. It’ll never be. The words rang in her head. She squeezed her mother’s hand, but she really wanted someone to squeeze her hand. She wanted to absorb the comfort. She wanted her father’s lies to be whispered in her ears until they both believed them.

            Her mother turned to her child. She had almost forgotten her daughter was there. She forced a reassuring smile on her face. It looked more like the grimace you make when you carry a high school student’s backpack with one finger.

            “Dad, you’re not gonna die, are you?” the girl asked. I always hated it when kids asked these types of questions. It just made me feel like a big idiot, to be honest. These were the times I loathed my job.

            “I wish it were like that, sweetheart,” he said with his now well-practiced lazy smile. “But I don’t have a choice. It’s all up to God now.”

            The girl nodded. “But can’t God make an exception?”

           See? I hate little kids, I really do. Usually I try to comfort myself by telling myself that when people referred to God, they weren’t referring to me. They were referring to a spiritual being created by the imagination of some ancient human.

            Still, I felt like an idiot when she said those words.

            He shrugged. “We’ve just gotta have faith.”

            And that was when I had to leave. I didn’t want to hear the next thing the little girl had to say. Besides, there were millions of other almost-dying people I could be watching.

            But that little girl stayed in my mind.

            Two weeks and three days later, I carried the man’s soul. He was a difficult one, let me tell you that. His time was done a week earlier than predicted, but yet he simply wouldn’t give up his soul. In the last week of his life, he got sicker and sicker. His whole family knew he was on his last legs. The extra three days was me leaving his soul alone. I wanted him to admit to himself that he was done. It was when he was sleeping that he finally gave up.

            Two weeks and three days later, without a lawsuit being necessary, the hospital firm promised compensation. The idiot doctor was fired long before that time.

            Compensation, unfortunately, would not bring that man back.

            Two weeks and three days later, the grandparents made plans to move out. When they moved out promptly after the funeral, they didn’t come back.

            Two weeks and three days later, another eggshell had been built. Not around the mother, and not around the grandparents.

            Around the little girl.

            You know, I never understood why people weren’t crept out by the whole “God is watching” thing. I felt a bit like a stalker as I promised myself I would watch that girl until I found the right moment to crack her shell.

            You could also say stalking was part of my job description.

            And guess what? You get to hear the story of that very same girl. Please take five minutes to consider how privileged you are before turning the page.

Author's Note

Are you interested to read more, or is it too boring?

Reviews

[Ashley Arita]

It's a very well written story. The whole eggshell is a bit hard to wrap my head around, but it really delves deep in the whole "God" formula. It's very edgy. I love the detail and the characters built around it. The mysterious all knowing character is also very interesting. Well done!

[Hannah Yusuf]

Thank you so much!

[Jacob Clifford]

Holy cow. This is one whopper of an introduction. Your voice is astounding. It seems so effortless it just blows my mind. I don't have a whole lot to say that the other reviews haven't said. It was funny at times. It alters the plane of reality that exists within my mind, a big "what if". The only thing that didnt' fascinate me was the exchange with the doctor. It just felt fixed, not natural.
I am beyond excited to see the rest of this. You have a brilliant idea with the narrator. I reminds me of Death from "The Book Thief" in that it is seemingly omnipresent and has its own personality. I can't express to you enough how anxious I am to read more of this.

[Hannah Yusuf]

Thank you!

[briget_01]

Wow! I really love the voice your narrator has. You really made it seem like they were truly speaking to the reader. I'm interested to see how this narrator looks at the world later on in the book. I also love all the metaphors you used throughout the prologue, they kept me interested as a reader and were great imagery tools. The only part of the story where I got a little lost, was the beginning. Since I had no idea who the narrator was and what they were talking about when they were referring to "the shell" I was a little confused, but once as I finished the chapter and reread the introduction, it made perfect sense. I'm definitely interested in the reading more into this story. I can't wait to see how you use the narrator's voice, and i can't wait to learn more about the little girl's growing shell. :D


~cheers

[Hannah Yusuf]

Thank you! And yeah, I can see how you'd be confused at the beginning. Definitely going to try and make that better.