The
Egg
by
William Becker
Genre:
Horror
When
it comes to having kids, there are no such things as mistakes, just
“surprises” or even to quote the late Bob Ross, “Happy
accidents.” May Dawes isn’t so sure about that when she gets
pregnant, considering she isn’t attracted to men and has never had
sex with a man. The beauty of childbirth becomes much less
beautiful when her child is revealed not to be a child at all, but a
strange, alien egg that seems to be driving her every action. THE EGG
is a horrific and hopeless journey into maternal instinct,
depression, obsession, and loneliness.
The crimson lights in my room make her hair seem red without any intruding natural light. My head is in her lap, her skinny jeans comfortable against my shoulder-length hair. My eyes are closed, almost as if not seeing the moment will make it slow down or last eternally. I wish I could hold onto the moment forever or hold it in a photograph, dipping my impressionable heart in whenever I need to feel real. She’s playing with my hair and in the background is the sound of “Plan 9 From Outer Space” playing at an overwhelming volume, practically screaming out from the television. It’s just noise to me, filling the air with a distraction that only serves to deviate from our impassioned silence.
Everything is okay. Her short nails grazing along each strain of my hair is enough to make me want to fall asleep. Everything about her feels right. Her perfume has mostly faded after a long day with me, but the scent is more comforting than anything else in the entire world. My mind flashes back to prom, when we told my parents that we were going “as friends.” That’s where the smell takes me. Other times, the smell takes me back to my first kiss with her, when time seemed to shatter and my stomach felt like a glove for a little frantic demon inside of me. It’s nostalgic and makes me miss her, even though she’s right next to me.
I’m drifting between being awake and being asleep. When I open my eyes, she’s looking down at me, only she doesn’t seem as unstrained as me. She’s turned the TV volume down. The sun has gone down, making the room completely red with my LED lights that have been tacked up along the ceiling.
“May,” she whispers flatly, the words cutting through the silence like a gunshot. Her voice is cracked and dry. The words seem like they are struggling to escape her throat. Something immediately seems to shatter the serenity.
“Yeah?” I say back, barely having the strength to open my eyes.
“Can we talk?” She asks without any hint of emotion. Something inside of me drops. In situations like this, it’s usually nothing important, but her saying stuff like that always makes me anxious. It’s usually related to an insecurity or something stupidly minor that I end up laughing about, questioning why I was even worried to begin with. This time, something actually feels horribly wrong. Suddenly, I’m thrown out of my comfort zone.
"
Why did you release "The Egg?"
Because I write for the money, not the fans. I don't give a shit about the fans or any of the people who read. In fact, I hate them.
(Editor’s Note: Not sure what Becker is talking about, considering his last two stories were released for free. The Egg is also free. This statement is also confusing considering he personally thanks every person who follows him on Instagram.)
As it pertains to the economy what is your position on allowing dogs the right to use public bathrooms?
Well, it depends on a lot. You have to ask yourself a lot of different questions, like is that dog required because of a disability? Then what tasks does it perform? If you say in response, "it comforts me," then the owners of the bathroom have every right to say that’s an ESA not a service dog, please leave. I also think if the dog isn't well behaved, then the police have every right to ask you to leave. But if the dog is being polite and has a job and a tie, the cops won't say anything to you. I can confirm.
How do you like to make ramen and how important is the authenticity of the broth to you?
The authenticity of the broth is highly important to me. I've recently come under some heavy fire for my consumption of raw ramen packets and appropriation of culture, but when I decide to cook it, adding some soy sauce, chilli powder, and sesame sauce all help to make ramen that feels much less cheap.
How many gallons of milk do you drink a day?
I usually have a glass of milk with every meal, so that's nine right there, plus my snacks, which brings it up to 13. 13 cups a day. I have never had a problem with osteoporosis.
Do you prefer your fats saturated or non saturated?
Trans, obviously.
Do the literary works of Robert Frost impact your sex life in any negative way?
Constantly. I have problems, uh, getting it up because of how often I get lost in thought about him. Here is an excerpt of something I wrote in my senior year of high school for my English class. I would like to say that I made a 94 on this. This was edited for content, it was originally very offensive:
Many people think that “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost is an ambiguous poem about not always following the mainstream choice, or that it was some joke conjured by Mr. Frost, but they couldn’t be further from the truth. “The Road Not Taken” is very clearly written because Robert Frost was a devout worshipper of Satan.
Robert opens his poem by immediately making a metaphor about life, heaven, and Satan’s realm by writing, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood” It is glaringly obvious that the “yellow wood” is symbolic of life being a jungle, and seeing as tree leaves often turn yellow in Autumn, it can be inferred that the protagonist is in the Autumn of his life. In the same respect that Autumn is close to the end of the year, the yellow wood is close to the end of the protagonist’s life. Often, when a person is faced with the concept of their morality, anxiety about the reality of the afterlife becomes extremely prominent, usually morphing into paralysing fears, especially in those who have lived lives that are not the most “pure.” It can be assumed that Robert Frost’s fame allowed him to make some questionable choices involving drugs and prostitutes which ended up haunting him, so he vented his frustrations about his sins into his poetry, ending up with a hypothetical poem about his death and choosing between two paths, the first of which was asking forgiveness, the second of which was rejecting God in favor of Satan. Not wanting to let down his followers, Robert Frost understood that if he were to die, letting go of Satan would leave his followers to believe that Frost was a poser, a sellout, or not TRV KVLT. The first line is the classic comparison of the “Highway To Hell” and the “Stairway To Heaven.” Most reasonable people would choose to scramble up the Stairway, but not Frost, who believed that Satan was a much more reliable path, unlike most writers of his time.
However, the second line, “and sorry I could not travel both” shows that Frost was beginning to have some doubts about his savior. No matter how confident the protagonist/ Frost was about his religion, he wished that he could experience both paths, just to find out which was the right one. By the beginning of the second stanza with the line, “Then took the other, as just as fair” he rejects any idea of consideration, making an impulsive choice as death approaches him. From there, the poem turns back on itself in its own metaphor, with the protagonist realizing that neither path is less traveled. It can be implied that Frost was predicting the future, as a hundred years after the poem was written, atheism would become infinitely more prominent, suggesting that neither God nor Satan would be the correct path and that he would be wrong after all. Despite his religious peers, Robert realized that both choices were equally unfavorable and that a third path must be made: Atheism.
It is a common belief that Atheists are more depressed than those with any sense of religion, and Frost reflects on that with the 16th line, “I shall be telling this with a sigh.” As the realization that the protagonist’s beliefs are bogus hits, depression about the futility of existence shortly follows. Robert breaks the fourth wall here, suggesting that he would eventually have to tell his believers that Satan isn’t real and that death leads to a black, endless void. There is no point in being a good person if there is no God and no afterlife, so why do anything at all? Why do anything outside of falling into a ball of self-pity? The line suggests that the story shall be retold with a sigh because the realization is so depressing that it is crippling. The only point to life, Frost implies, is to mate and continue the human race with the purest genes possible. The final two lines, “I took the one less traveled by,/And that has made all the difference” suggest that Robert will use this knowledge to better the human genome. It has been found that Atheism can correlate with depression, and depression can lead to nihilism. It could be speculated that with this logic, Robert Frost developed a new level of apathy and disregard for the human race. All in all, it is glaringly obvious that Robert Frost displayed a powerful ode to Satanism and Atheism.
If you could play connect four with one of the Beatles who would it be?
David Draidman. I like the OWAHAHA thing he does sometimes. Very barbaric! Very cool! Thanks, David
How has women's rights, namely the growing of armpit hair, affected your life personally?
It makes me happy. My boyfriend and I don’t really understand this problem super well, but we both really appreciate the beauty of the human body and its ability to grow hair. It is interesting how similar we are to monkeys. I personally keep my armpits shaven, but that’s just because the hair sometimes gets caught in the car door.
What's your favorite tv show and why is it Golden Girls?
It’s Gilmore’s Girls. Whoever wrote this question is an idiot.
What's your favorite brand of chewing gum and how has it affected your life?
The little gumball things that come in the green or blue containers. I can’t remember the name of them, but they’re much better than the little strips of gum that are wrapped in that whacky alien foil stuff. I love eating gum and drinking water after.
Does kosher salt offend you as a fascist?
Yeah.
What are your top ten Marget Vinton songs?
I have no idea who that is.
What's your favorite movie with heterosexual undertones?
Blue Mountain State. It oozes heterosexual energy.
Why do you sweat so much?.
I have hyperhidrosis. People gave me weird looks in high school. I would be up on stage in the theatre and my sweat would literally trickle through my dress shirt.
Would you rather be an enigma that everyone knows or a fraud that no one has heard of?
An enigma everyone knows, like David Blaine or Michael Jackson’s Ghost.
Is there a societal stigma you have faced from not knowing how to read?
As a writer, I get asked a lot of questions about how I do my stuff. I gain the ability to read after I eat large amounts of frozen chicken parmesan without microwaving it. I gained a lot of weight before doing this interview.
As a young author what are some of the challenges you face?
I don’t get them as much now that I’m older, but no one took me seriously. I suppose that might’ve been because I was terrible at writing. Some people say I am still terrible at writing.
if you could ride a deer, would you?
Yes, but I would prefer an ostrich or an army of toddlers carrying a throne, kind of like that one scene from 300. Someone with more time than me should google it.
Are you prepared to deal with facing complete nothingness when you die or something even more frightening?
No, not really. What if God is rude to me and makes fun of me for my inability to grow a beard?
How do you handle the more negative feedback?
I accept and try to understand where it comes from. People usually have an opinion for a reason, even if that reason is dumb.
What do you hope the reader gets out of your novels?
Depression and then AIDs. Maybe vice versa.
What is your creative process like?
Have you ever seen the Twilight movies? Like that, but in my brain.
What book is your favorite?
My favorite released novel is Grey Skies. My favorite short story is Seventh Circle, followed by the Egg.
If you could bleed from anywhere forever, where would you?
My hands or arms would be way too noticeable. My feet would get annoying really quick, as would my ankles and knees. I would say my nipples, especially if the bleeding doesn’t hurt. It would make for a very cool party joke about lactation.
What is your opinion on invasive species in the Mississippi river?
In the 1970s, Asian Carp started getting imported into the United States as a food fish. They’re really known for their ability to jump up to ten feet in the air when they are scared. Anyways, they’re considered an invasive species and I love them.
Can you share a political opinion that someone might have?
Orange man good.
Can you share a political opinion you have?
Orange man bad. Cop bad too.
Would you describe yourself as there forever or gone for good?
There forever but soon to be gone for good.
Do you have a favorite blanket?
Yes, his name is Ishmael
if everyone could have one haircut, what would it be?
Dreads.
Who do you think the devil is?
Jerry Lee Lewis.
William
Becker is a young horror author with a mind for weirder sides of the
universe. With an emphasis on complex and layered storylines that tug
harshly on the reader to search for deeper meanings in the vein of
Silent Hill and David Lynch, Becker is a force to be reckoned within
the horror world. His works are constantly unfathomable, throwing
terror into places never before seen, while also providing compelling
storylines that transcend the predictable jumpscares of the popular
modern horror.
His first novel, WEEPING OF THE CAVERNS, was
written when he was 14. After eight months of writing, editing, and
revising, the story arrived soon after his 15th birthday. During the
writing sessions for his debut novel, he also wrote an
ultra-controversial short story known as THE WHITE SHADE that focused
on the horrors of a shooting. Living in a modern climate, it was
impossible for THE WHITE SHADE to see the light of day. Following a
psychedelic stint that consisted of bingeing David Lynch movies,
weird art, and considering the depth of the allegory of the cave
wall, he returned to writing with a second story, THE BLACK BOX, and
soon after, his second novel, GREY SKIES.
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