A Box Without Hinges, Key, or Lid

Content warning: Mentions of death

Eggs were for eating back then. I mean when the little girl was small. The white or brown oblong balls her mother and father used for cooking were a fascination. She loved holding them new from the fridge, cradled in her hands like a snowball that did not melt. They would grow lukewarm after a time, and the egg would finally be taken away to go into pancakes or brownies or whatever was being made. When the shells were down in the garbage, it was funny to look in and see how the brown ones were white on the inside, but others were white inside and out. 

She was allowed to help with the cooking as she grew older, and the wet, messy-sounding crack the eggs made as she struck them against a pot or bowl and pried them open unsettled her. She felt as if she were breaking a glass on purpose. 

“What’s wrong with it?” she asked as she stared at one fresh egg yolk with what looked like a pinch of paprika just under the surface. 

“Nothing,” her father said, scooping out the red spot with a spoon. “A rooster put it there.” 

“But a rooster’s a boy,” she said, “and only hens lay eggs because they’re girls.”

“A hen laid the egg, but a rooster put his mark there.” 

She wondered how the rooster was able to put something inside the egg without breaking the shell. She never came up with any idea that made sense, and she resigned herself to the mystery. 

On a cousin’s farm, she helped collect eggs right from the source. Some hens in the nest boxes pecked as she stole their fragile treasures. The eggs were warm as a mug of tea against her palms before she placed them in the basket. Should you eat treasure? She frowned. The little chicken beak scrapes on her hands and arms stung. Her aunt’s golden scrambled eggs were flecked with black from the iron skillet. 

She watched chicks come out of their eggs one day on her visit, and marveled at how they were curled so small in the orbs. They were covered in wet hair, or so it seemed, until they dried and their feathers fluffed. She held both hands out like a bowl and her aunt filled them with tiny new-hatched chicks that struggled and peeped. Some fell the few inches to the floor and stood and ran, and her aunt chased them with a tiny butterfly net, and she was delighted at the instantaneous strength in those young birds. 

She asked her parents for a pet parrot. It would be beautiful and strong and smart, and it didn’t need to be one that could talk. 

“No,” her parents told her. “Parrots can crush your finger if they bite. It’s not good to keep them in a small cage. We don’t have space for a big cage.”

“What about a tiny bird, like a budgie?” 

“No. All birds are loud and messy.” They considered. “Do you want a dog or a cat?”

“No.” 

“A fish?”

“No. I want a bird because they lay eggs.”

“Fish lay eggs.” 

“Not eggs with hard shells I can touch.”

“How about a tortoise?”

She didn’t know much about tortoises. But she did know they laid eggs. 

She got a female Greek tortoise; it was surely a female, for it had laid eggs before. One that had belonged to someone else first, and was already grown up. The shell pattern was said to look like a mosaic, and it was named Geek. She wondered if Geek missed her former owner. As the little black eye stared at her and the beak-like jaw chomped on a piece of lettuce, the girl wondered if Geek was happy here with her, or just didn’t care at all. 

She was fairly sure Geek wouldn’t care if her name was changed, as she never responded in any way when it was said. Geek became Av̱gó, Greek for egg. Her father would whine “Eggses!” in a high-pitched voice when he saw the tortoise plodding around the house or yard. 

Av̱gó was allowed to wander indoors only with supervision, as she would steadfastly try to get into places it didn’t seem she would be capable of entering, much less be interested in. She would dig in the yard, and one day the tortoise spent longer than usual digging with her entire rear quarter hidden in a hole. 

When the girl dug down with bated breath, she saw a handful of soft pink eggs, and her heart thrilled as she hid them again.

Only weeks later, the nest had been ripped open and shreds of pink leather were scattered like broken glass. She cried for the poor eggs, though she felt slightly silly.

The next time she caught Av̱gó digging a nest, the girl covered the finished vault with a heavy upside-down metal barrel to protect it from raiders. More than three months later, she finally dug it up to check on the brood. The eggs had rotted, and she felt hot at the seeming unfairness of their emptiness, the fruitlessness of her guarding.

Av̱gó grew older with her girl. When she was married, Av̱gó came with. The tortoise roamed the reception with a ribbon tied around her shell and a white-and-gold helium balloon straining above her so she would not be stepped on. 

Av̱gó was there when the newlywed woman miscarried, and when the tortoise’s next clutch of eggs appeared she cradled the pink pearls from the impenetrable living treasure chest and wept and did not feel silly at all. The empty shells were how she felt inside.

Av̱gó was there when the new mother brought her first child home, and the next eggs made her wonder anew what it would be like to have hatchling tortoises in the house, to grow up with her own baby. 

Av̱gó was there when her mother died. The next empty eggs were like the empty shell that was her mother’s body in the coffin, and her tears were rain over Av̱gó’s world. 

Av̱gó was there through it all, always needing her food, her water, her care, always giving the woman a concrete job, keeping her steady and sane when she felt just the opposite, giving her small accomplishments every day.

When a friend asked the wife and mother to watch her male Greek tortoise while she was away, the request was readily agreed to. The visitor was left with Av̱gó as much as possible. When her son shouted that the turtles were climbing on each other and making funny noises, she told him they were tortoises, not turtles, as she ushered him away with a smile. 

This time, the pink pearls finally turned white. 

Finally the mother and her children watched a minuscule white tooth poke through a soft, leathery eggshell, and a tiny tortoise wearing shades of yellow and brown struggled free. 

The empty shell had borne fruit, and it could be thrown away with no tears, only joy and wonder at what had come out of it. 

Eggs were for wondering at. Little wombs you could hold in your hand. So delicate the lives inside could be destroyed by a mere jostle. Tiny sphere-shaped treasure chests that hatched little living jewels.