Posted by John H. Watson
"What a lovely thing an egg is," Sherlock said, taking an egg from the box and cupping it in his spindly hand. He walked past the kitchen table, leaned with his back against the window, and held the egg up, gazing down at its tanned, speckled surface with that steely, introspective stare he usually reserved for the minutiae of a crime-scene. It was a new phase in his character to me: I'd never seen him show any keen interest in natural objects before. "Eggs capture everybody's imagination at some point, John," he continued quietly, "There's something there for everyone." He turned it around, frowning thoughtfully.
"There are so many different types of egg. Some for the aristocrat, some for the hunter, some for the bushman and some for the common layperson. They have an astonishing number of uses in cooking: Frying, boiling, hard-boiling, poaching, baking, scrambling, meringues, ice cream, pastries… Their shape – smooth, symmetrical, rounded and tapering off at one end. The random speckles on their shells, like constellations. The unthinking and widespread cruelty too often involved in their mass production. Their pleasing potential for the generation of new life and the connotations they therefore carry of a fragile, yet tangible hope for the future. Their transparency when held up to a bright light – like looking into a different world that science can only allow one to hint at or imagine. Their pungency and buoyancy when rotten – it begs for practical trickery. Their insides, split so preceisely into two distinct components, each totally distinct and opposite from the other. Hatching them is so instinctive to birds and is such a widespread phenomenon, yet it takes an exact and species-specific balance of humidity, temperature and movement to achieve. Not to mention the unique chemical properties of albumin and the astonishing nutritional content of the yolk itself."
"Water's boiling."
Sherlock had fallen into a reverie, with the egg perched between his long fingers. He came to abruptly and, placing the egg on a spoon, lowered it gently into the bubbling saucepan which sat upon the largest ring of our electric cooker. He then did the same for a second egg. Perhaps it was kindness, but more likely a mood of experimentation that had prompted him to cook breakfast for the two of us: He is liable to such fads occasionally.
"When I was in first year at university," Sherlock continued, watching the egg scoot around the bottom of the pan, "I and a couple of other chemistry students – Tony Briggs and Victor Trevor, decided to see how many different ways we could devise to kill an egg."
"Kill an egg?" I repeated, with twitching lips.
"Yes. We got four twelve-egg boxes and divided them up. Then we took our laboratory books and mobile phones and split up for the week. We reconvened the following Monday to discuss notes and compare video footage. It was quite interesting. Tony Briggs tried burning his in acid – that wasn't very good. It just sort of melted away and left a foul smelling curdled mess. Not worth the acid. Hacking one to pieces with an axe proved a bit more entertaining, if messy. He posted the footage on You Tube if you ever want to take a look. It got over twelve thousand views. Pathetic isn't it? People have far too much free time and no imagination. Slowly squashing them underfoot worked well too, as did rolling them down the stairs.
"Victor Trevor actually ate a raw egg whole, shell and all. He said it tasted of nothing in particular, except perhaps a hint of sulphur. I've never had friends but I disapproved of him a bit less than my other contemporaries. He had a pioneering attitude and admirable mental detachment when he so wished. He also tried dropping an egg from the top floor of his block of flats. He was lucky not to get an ASBO actually…the police were called out. It made a hell of a bang and mess when it hit the tarmac. The shell fragments also made several chips in the paintwork of a nearby car. I seem to remember one of the eggs got placed in the doorway and the door was slammed on it as well, and another was flushed down the toilet. There was talk of him trying to gatecrash the sewers to see if it came through the pipes whole, but unfortunately nothing materialised of that idea.
"As for myself, I was the only student whose living room had an open fire in it. I made my egg a nice nest of newspaper and kindling, lit the fire and then set it roaring with the bellows. Eventually there was a loud pop and when I raked back the kindling and burning paper I found that the entire wide end of the egg had been blown off. I suppose the air had just expanded so much in the air sack that something had to give. Oddly enough the narrow end lasted quite a long time, until it started oozing stuff and eventually collapsed. I also tried blending one, and hard boiled another and fed it to a pigeon, who actually ate it. Does that count as cannibalism? Well it was a different species of bird I suppose… What else? Threw one at the wall. It made a cheerful yellow smudge. I left the smudge there for all my time I was in those rooms. Then when I eventually tried to scrub it off it had sort of soaked in. Lost me my deposit. I think the stain's still there, if they haven't papered over it, that is. Actually I forgot about the egg experiment notes when we had to hand our laboratory books in for assessment. Nobody ever mentioned them so they can't have minded too much. So there's my egg anecdote. Now it's your turn."
"Er…" I racked my brains, trying to dredge up a memory of something that would match Sherlock's experiences. "Well I…once tried to hatch one?"
"Everyone's done that." Sherlock gestured in an encouraging manner for me to continue.
"Nothing really thrilling…I was six years old. Easter holidays. I made it a nest of grass in a shoebox and put it under my bedside light. My mum just left me to it… I suppose she hoped that if I tried and failed one time it would stop me trying again.
"Anyway, I lost loads of sleep over it; I had to keep the light on all night. I fell asleep in class once and had poster paint smeared all over my face and shirt by my classmates. My mum was not pleased. So the egg sat there for four days until I went off to school one day and came back in the evening to find the light bulb had blown. I tried to save the egg but it was too late: It had gone cold. I think I cried on and off all evening until curiosity got the better of me and I broke the egg into a jug to see if anything had grown inside. Nothing, so I started crying again…stop giggling, Sherlock – it was heart-breaking to me back then!
"Well, my mother's hopes were not to be fulfilled and I tried several more times. Once I put the egg under my pillow and ended up with a sticky mess in the morning. Another time I put it down my trousers and then slipped and fell on the way to school. I once tried to keep it warm in a pan of water over one of the rings on the cooker and forgot about it…you can imagine the result. At last my parents realised that I needed a long term distraction. They bought me a pet rat. It lived for three years. It was called Pickle."
As I finished my anecdote, which Sherlock had been listening to with a mixture of polite amusement and impatience, his watch beeped. "Five minutes…they'll be done now," he exclaimed. "Get the cups ready, John…"
A minute later we were demolishing the boiled eggs, sitting together perched on the sideboard (the table was crammed with chemicals, scientific apparatus, dirty dishes and junk mail). Sherlock dipped a long breadstick into his egg. His view was that it was quicker and easier to get a breadstick out of a box than it was to toast, butter and cut up actual bread.
When he had scraped out all the insides Sherlock turned the shell upside down in the cup. "Egg, John?" he offered sweetly, thrusting the now untouched-looking egg towards me. I brought my spoon down on top of it and Sherlock watched, poker-faced, as it caved in.
"Right…" he said, laying down the egg cup and clapping his hands. "Blackmail. Blackmail, blackmail, blackmail. I love a good old bit of creative blackmail…it's like a combination of chess and gambling with just a hint of call my bluff."
He skipped away to the living room leaving his spoon, egg cup and scraps behind on the sideboard. I sighed and began to clear up, but I really couldn't feel bitter. After all, he had eaten. And he had slept through the whole night which is practically unheard of. And it wasn't soup on the floor again or an avalanche of fingers from the fridge. Yes…all things considered the day had started surprisingly well.