I peel off the paint bottle’s seal, and a strong chemical smell wafts off the top. The scent reminds me of the hospital’s ICU corridors and the ache that filled my chest when my mother and I entered Room 520A to see Nana a few days before. I swirl around different colored paints and recreate the fiery orange sunset and the same brilliant blue sky from last year when Nana and I walked along the shore during our annual beach trip after Easter Sunday Mass. My little brother plunges without thought into his palette and haphazardly washes his brush against his egg’s shell. His designs turn out formless, and his colors mix into drab shades of brown and gray. He eyes my egg and then looks down at his, and his cheeks flush. His eyes flash in warning as his idea is hatched in seconds. Still, I don’t move fast enough and watch in horror as he smashes the Easter Egg I painted for Nana to the floor, sending pieces of memory flying through the air; these things are fragile.
Our ride to the beach is quiet. I wish Nana could be with us again this year, singing her Easter hymns or playing I-Spy with my brother and me as we drive through the city toward the beach. A sudden rush of briny ocean air pushes through the car’s vents and disappears—Nana. My mother wiggles in her seat; maybe Nana’s saltine breath is washing over her, too, and then she breaks the silence.
“With Nana in the hospital, you’ll have to be my co-pilot, Maggie. Keep an eye out for a good parking spot,” she says, but I only shrug my shoulders in response, my mind still stewing in resentment.
“Get over it, Maggie! I said I was sorry. And you’re upsetting Mom,” my brother lectures from the back seat.
Memory killer, I scream in my head.
“Leave her be, Jimmy! You’d no right to ruin your sister’s gift for Nana,” my mother scolds.
“What’s the big deal? She can make another one,” he protests softly.
But it is a big deal. No more eggs are left in the fridge, and Nana won’t be around for another Easter. Nothing will be the same.
My mother pulls a blanket from her bag and shakes it in the air. The blanket billows out like a parachute and rests on the soft sand. Waves, shells, and sand span my view. The scene reminds me of last Easter and the egg I painted for Nana that my brother destroyed. I storm away from the blanket toward the water, stomping my feet along the way. Wet sand squeezes up between my toes like playdough, leaving angry impressions of my twelve-year-old feet behind.
Sulfurous fumes from low tide fill my nostrils, and my fists clench as the odor calls up the boiled eggs from this morning’s events. A seagull with a broken wing hobbles by on the sand, a dead fish lies in the muck, and freshly picked clams fan out along the shoreline; the beach is full of tragic memories and the smell of death.
Image by Hans from Pixabay – a bowl of broken, painted egg shells.
literally stories 
Family interaction, loss and grief and days when nothing is right. they are inevitible and searing and very very hard and this hits you right in the eye with it all. As George Harrison was fond of saying ‘apparently’ All Thing Must Pass but by gum when you’re in the middle of it all that’s hard to believe. This was unrelenting but full of the passion of the moment I thought. Not a cheerful read but very worthwhile I reckon. – Thank you – Diane
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Margo
Great to see your story up today. I particularly like the way the title adds an extra dimension. For such a short piece it gets a lot done!
Leila
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Fantastic job on creating the scene. I could feel the emotional charge of this radiating from the page. Grief is such a complex emotion, and I think this will really resonate with a lot of readers.
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Hi Margo,
Weird little piece.
I think that the MC wanted the egg to be the last memory of her gran but her brother smashed that. I reckon if she had a nice trip to the beach that might have helped but all she got was pain, death and despair.
I reckon this is quite poetic in a depressing sort of way!!
Very interesting!!
All the very best.
Hugh
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Wistful memories-to-be, disintegrating at the hands of a baby brother; such are the stuff of resentments built over the years. This story took me by surprise: it was so very short! You covered a lot of emotional territory in a brief time, Margo. Very well done. bill
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Packs a punch in a few words — family dynamics, loss and grief. The concluding imagery is especially powerful.
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Margo,
You made me think about those last things we wanted to give loved ones before the left us, but either didn’t or couldn’t or wouldn’t. “I’m sorry.” “I forgive you.” Even, “I love you” one last time.
What would Nana, at this stage, do with another painted egg? I guess it’s never about Nana, is it?
Gerry
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Maybe not be quite universal, but the bro and sis dynamics echo and reverberate for many including myself. The family days at the beach are also familiar.
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Margo,
Sigmund Freud wrote about how we all hate our family members as much as we love them, at least most of us most of the time. Some folks scream and yell, becoming loud and histrionic (probably the better reaction in most cases). Others turn away, becoming distant and cold. Your story undermines the silly, idealistic notions of family life in a realistic way. The child narrator has an anger and a reaction to death that reminded me, in capsule form, of the way the brothers furiously hate each other in “The Brothers Karamazov” by Dostoevsky, before, and after, their fathers’ death (murdered by one of the sons). Thanks for a sharp little tale that explores the way we can all be taken over by darker passions because we do live (on the surface at least) in a world of death.
Dale
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Poignant and insightful, with a surprising kick at the end – a bit of a brutal start to the week but very well written.
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Very atmospheric and sensual prose in this one that belies a sense of doom, loss, and hurt. This is a really good example of prose poetry for me.
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Evocative…. Smell brings forth powerful memories that can’t be killed. There’s the family there by the eternal sea, and the anger the child experiences at its edges, at the low tide…..she’ll carry these associations for the rest of her life. The differences in response between the brother and the sister will likely be a pattern.
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