The Egg Came First, All Over the Face

I was 8 years old, holding a spoon with an egg on the end, standing on the grass and gazing at the sky wondering, is anybody ever right about anything? I spat onto the ground in disgust as I pondered yet another example of just how putrid and insipid the supposed knowledge of mankind was. Centuries of learning passed down over generations and there I stood, holding an egg and seething with contempt. As if the bible wasn't stupid enough, now I had oft used maxims to regard with scorn.

I looked at the winner, tossing his egg into the air in celebration as the race moderator placed the red ribbon of victory around his neck. How could this have happened? Just before the race began I called to mind the venerable aphorism, "Slow and steady wins the race", and of all races surely a race in which one must hold an egg on the edge of a small spoon would prove the soundness of that theory. And so when the order to commence was given I sauntered forth, slow and steady, mocking the competitors in front of me who foolishly dashed forward with eggs tottering.

Sure enough one by one they began to fall, eggs jolted by the frenzied rushes and reckless bounds, dropping from their precarious perches to the waiting grass below. I smiled as I ambled, wondering just how I would revel in the glory of my win, when to my dismay I noticed one boy far in front, with his egg seemingly secure. How could this be? Was he not flouting the wisdom of centuries?

It was with astonishment and revulsion that I saw him break the tape and exult, egg still atop his now glorious spoon, though he had been neither slow nor steady. My egg remained fixed atop my pathetic utensil, but my jaw dropped. The world had turned upside down and I stood there, immobile, and pondered this shattering blow to all I held dear. I looked down and saw a little caterpillar crawling over a green blade.

"Hey," I said to him. "Hurry up caterpillar. Slow and steady does not win the race. In fact it seems to be the precise opposite of what one needs. Speed wins." I gritted my teeth and clenched my spoon tighter.

I tilted my head to the sky and felt the sun on my face as I pondered this crushing defeat. Surely the necessity for speed is implied in the very name race itself! How could I have succumbed to such an obvious lie? Why would humankind conspire over the course of centuries to humiliate me so, looking so stupid, holding my egg, far from the finish line, a distant second?

Did the winner cheat? Did he hold his egg throughout the race with a wayward thumb? I took my egg and fired it at him, breaking into a broad smile when I saw it race through the air and strike true, cracking apart on his nose and splattering his face with yoke. It ran down his chin and dripped til it stained his ribbon of victory.

Soon they came. As they hauled me off the field with force I exulted. "Give me a bible to burn!"

In my haze of contemplation and fury I heard an adult admonish me. "You shouldn't have thrown that egg little boy! That's very poor sportsmanship! No one likes a sore loser!"

I looked at his face. I pinched my nose. He smelled.

"Aesop was a fraud," I murmured, and just when his eyes met mine with a quizzical expression I jabbed him in the throat with my spoon and ran into the woods, eschewing the useless slow and steady pace of losers, and embracing the unbridled speed of the champion.