Big Eggs

A few days ago, while I was napping on my keyboard, I dreamt that my grandfather and I had moved to Italy.

We had a house in the less fashionable part of Rome, and in our garage we kept a pink motorcycle and a neon green wheelchair. We also hired a dark, swarthy local to wheel him up and down the streets, to drive him around on that noisy old machine, to feed him warm apple sauce using golden spoons I'd picked up for 100 lire a piece at the market. Though the man we hired was little more than 20, he had already been married twice. His four sons also told us that he kept a transvestite lover, Tartara, on the side. I liked him because he brought his pet ostrich to work with him every morning. My grandfather adored him for it.

I saw Y. there, and in the dream, we became friends again. When she helped me push my naked, laughing grandfather up a cobblestoned slope, the rolls of his brown, ancient flesh rising and sinking like bread dough, it was clear to both of us that life was far too funny for us not to be friends. I hugged her, we cried, I repeated my apologies, but she waved it off.

It was a stupid boy. Forget about it.

I know, but I shouldn't have ...

He has a new girlfriend now. Do you know? And get this - she's a midget.

You mean, she's short?

No. A midget! A dwarf! A little person!

What?

Yes!

I'm still sorry. All these years without you!

Yes. Never again.

My grandfather called out from our kitchen, do you want to eat or don't you? I kissed her goodbye, then went inside. On the long oscillating table were ostrich eggs and chocolate-covered eggplants. I refused to eat these, much to my grandfather's dismay. When I turned to get my coat, to go into town for decent pasta and a gelato, I heard something crash behind me.

It was the sound of the ostrich eggs hatching, one after the other.