Oklahoma is an Egg

a.

It is Sunday. Stan cracks eggs in the sink. I have cracked the world, Stan mumbles. Stan eats eggs for breakfast and wonders if he would have liked being born Swiss.

b.

Stacey has blood on her face and she is crying and she is in the middle of the street. There are cars in the street and the cars are stopped. Why are all the cars stopped, Mike asks. Mike drives a Saab and he has high cheek bones. Why did you buy a Swedish car, Dan asks.

c.

You should tell the girl to get out of the street, Mike says to Dan. Get out of the street, Dan says to the girl. The girl does not move but the girl is still bleeding and she looks like she is from a movie that is about killing. Dan is a bus driver. He weighs two hundred and fifteen pounds. The children are in the bus and the children are making noise.

You should tell the children to be quiet, Mike says to Dan. Be quiet children, Dan says to the children. The girl is trying to kill herself, Jill says. I don't think the children can be quiet on Sunday, Dan says.

d.

The race is on Sunday. The race is uphill. There are many runners in the race.

e.

The Sunday paper says that the children in Oklahoma are hungry and that the children in Oklahoma do not have that many clothes and that the children in Oklahoma are really poor. Have you heard about the children in Oklahoma, Dan asks Mike. Why is the girl still in the street, Mike asks. She is still trying to kill herself, Dan says. I am going to miss the start of the race, Mike says. Did you know that the race is uphill this year, Jill asks.

f.

The race starts because the gun is fired. The men and women run uphill and the people on the grass clap their hands and some of the people give the runners water. The runners look serious and they run up the hill very fast and they look like they are meant to run uphill and it is quite a race. This is quite a race, Stan says.

g.

Now the girl has scissors in her hand and she is cutting herself and now her arms are bleeding and she is not crying anymore but she is very pale and she looks thin in the eyes. At least she has stopped crying, Mike says. The children in the bus are not making noise anymore. The children are watching the girl in the street. She is like a monster, Sally says. Sally is twelve.

h.

It is quite frightening, Dan says, to take the whole world and turn it on its end. But it is a good way to get to heaven and it is a good way to know how strong you are. Mike nods and Mike takes off his racing number and he walks back to his car. She will be dead soon, Mike says to Tracy. We missed the race, Tracy says.

Occasionally, it is the oddest thing to see a girl cut her arms open with scissors in the middle of the street in the middle of the city. She didn’t even cry all that much, Mike mutters, not even when she started taking off her skin.

i.

I think I am going to buy Oklahoma, Stan says to Rita. Oklahoma is very poor and the people in Oklahoma do not have that many clothes. Do they have eggs in Oklahoma, Rita asks. I don’t know, Stan says.

j.

In the afternoon, Buck wins the race and he stands on top of the hill and he looks at the mountains and he thinks that the mountains are very beautiful like they too were made from an egg.


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