The egg

Serendipity has never been one of my faculties. I can be walking along minding my own business whilst those with me can find £20 notes, gold watches or, in one case, a stolen wallet. I never see these things so when I was out walking and found it I knew it wouldn’t bring me luck. I wouldn’t have found it except I fell over a tree root. I’d hurt my knee and was sitting down, feeling sorry for myself; the tears were beginning to roll down my cheeks when I saw it glistening in the sunlight. Drying my eyes I moved to pick it up.

It was a dull gold colour and had some inscription on it, which was partially obscured by the leaf mould that clung to it. It was egg-shaped, about the size of a duck egg. It didn’t rattle or make any noise. I like the stone eggs that you can buy and I thought that when this was washed and cleaned it would look good in my collection.
I limped back home and after washing my poor injured knee I took the egg into the bathroom and washed it. I had some jewellers rouge so I carefully tried to polish it. But it remained a dull gold however, I could now read the inscription.
“Antonius me facit” and under this was something else “Caveat actor”

Antonius made me. Let the doer beware or let the one who does beware. The doer of what? How strange, how intriguing. Surely it should have been “Caveat emptor” it made more sense to say let the buyer beware. I wondered who Antonius was, why would he make something to be wary of? I’d never know, as I couldn’t go back in time and ask him so I put the gold egg in with my stone ones and didn’t give it much more thought.
I was telling my friend Phil about the egg later on that day and he asked to see it.
“It’s in with my stone eggs, over there on the mantelpiece in the basket.”
Phil went over to the basket of eggs and looked in it.
“Jodie, come over here.”
“Now what’s wrong?”
I went to where the basket was sitting on my mantelpiece. Inside the basket was not one but six other gold eggs! I picked them up one by one but couldn’t tell the difference between them, each had the inscription in the same place it was impossible to tell which one was the original. Removing one of the eggs I took it to my kitchen where I put it into a bowl with two hens eggs. It just sat there doing nothing that I could see so I went back to the others. Phil was getting excited about them.
“I think that they are real gold.”
“Don’t be silly, you can’t change stone into gold.”
“These are heavy. Was the one you found heavy?”
“ Heavier than a stone would have been. But I doubt that they are gold.”
Phil went into the kitchen.
“Jodie.”
I could tell by his voice what had happened but I had to go and see it for myself. Sure enough in the bowl were three gold eggs.
“Come on I’ll drive you into town.” Phil was already out of the door. I followed him holding onto the bowl with two of the gold eggs in it as if I was carrying real eggs.
We went to a jeweller who had a reputation for dealing fairly with anyone who was trying to sell jewellery. He looked at the eggs and weighed them.
“From their weight they might well be gold. But I can’t value them, as they are not assayed. If you leave them with me I’ll send them to the assay office and get them to do it. It will take about three days. I’ll give you a receipt for them.”
When we went back to my house we found that the basket had turned to gold as well as the eggs. Phil was really excited.
“You’ll be rich Jodie. You’ll have so much money that you will be able to do anything.” He grabbed my arm and started dancing around the room. Pretty soon we were breathless and we sank down onto the sofa laughing.
“ If I’m rich then you’ll be rich as well. I’ll give you an egg and you can make some more for yourself.”
Phil went home a happy man that night. Nestling in his pocket was one of my eggs. He phoned me when he arrived at his house.
“It turned my tissues into gold!”
“Gosh that was quick. Just be careful where you put it.”
The next day I had a phone call from the jeweller. He wanted to know where I’d got the eggs. I told him that I’d found the first one.
“You found only one?”
“The others sort of just appeared.”
“It’s happening here as well. The drawer where I’d put the bowl has a large portion of it that is gold. How do I stop it?”
“I don’t know.”
I put the phone down and went to look at my eggs. Sure enough now I had a fireplace that was mostly gold. I took the remaining eggs and then was going to take the basket as well but it was too heavy for me to carry that and the eggs. I went down to the wood where I’d found the original egg and dumped them there in a deep hole. Going back home for the basket I bumped into Phil.
“ I’ve a bed of gold,” he said
“I thought you wanted to be rich”
“I gave the egg to my neighbours because they didn’t believe me, now they’ve got a gold fridge.”
“This is getting silly. If everyone has gold then it’s worthless. I’ve buried all the eggs that I’ve got. I’ve come back for the basket.”
“It’s bit late look at the walls”
Sure enough the fireplace had spread the gold into the walls. Soon I’d have a gold house. Then the phone rang again. It was the jeweller.
“How do I stop this? It’s taking over my shop.”
“I don’t know. It’s going through my house. I won’t have anywhere to live. The walls are so heavy that they are collapsing. I found the original in the woods. Half buried in leaf-mould.”
“ It doesn’t seem to grow as fast in the dark, perhaps if .... No that’s not possible.” He said.
Pretty soon I was passing houses with gold patches on their walls. It was spreading like wildfire. There didn’t seem to be a cure for it. I walked back to the woods and there was no sign of any gold. I unearthed the eggs I’d buried; there were five stone eggs and one gold one. I took the stone ones out of the hole and reburied the gold one. I slept out in my garden that night and when I woke up the stone eggs were still stones.
“There must be something about the leaf-mould that prevents the gold curse from working.”
I thought as I ran to Phil’s house and told him about the stone eggs.
“But we can’t cover the houses in leaf-mould.”
“We could try something else, perhaps if we brought some bags of it into the house and sprinkle it around. That might work. I’m going to cover the mantelpiece with it and see what that does. I can’t afford to buy another house.”
Phil started laughing and I looked at him; puzzled, then I realised what I’d said. My house was turning into gold and I couldn’t afford to buy a new one. I started laughing and we stood there laughing until tears rolled down our cheeks. After the hysteria passed we went into the wood and dug a couple of bagfuls of leaf-mould.

The leaf-mould didn’t look very good lying on the gold mantelpiece but after a couple of hours I saw wood where it had been gold. I left the house and went to tell Phil of my success. We drove into town and told the jeweller, who had more gold in his shop than he’d ever seen before. He found some old sacks and we went back to the wood where he filled the sacks.
“If this works I’ll be very grateful to you.”
“Grateful enough to give Phil a job?”
“Why yes. If he wants to work for me.”
“How about with you rather than for you? I’ve seen some of the jewellery he’s designed and it’s great. He’s wasted working for the sewage farm.”
It was agreed and we all went back to our respective premises to scatter leaf-mould over any flat surface we could find.

Back at my house the walls were beginning to look more like real walls instead of something from Eldorado and I sighed with relief. It was a shame that I couldn’t keep any of the gold but I’d sooner have my house back rather than have everything unusable. I could understand the story of Midas far better now. The curse of everything you’re touching turning to gold isn’t so funny when it’s actually happening to you.

So if you find a gold egg with the inscription Caveat Actor, take heed from my story and bury it deep under leaf-mould.
©2001 Chris Winfield