Whisper House Press

The Egg Tree

by Val Chatindo 

(In loving memory of Zie)

Location: Uzo

Harvester 4009 POV:

You can always tell when an egg is ripe, so to speak. 

I couldn’t tell you the exact science except. . . if you know, you know. And when you know, you know. Well . . . we know. 

Each day we set out, baskets in hand. Fingers cautiously prying through sharp and polished ends of many thorns decorating the Acacia trees designated by some greater authority, for whatever reason, to bear the prized fruit. Breath held and muscles taut with concentration and great contraction, we move through the millions of rowed trees. Gently handling the task at hand, aware of our cosmic responsibility. Conscious that we are accountable for an entire ecosystem. 

The universe.

We cannot be arrogant. We cannot be selfish. Some call us robots. Others? Mindless freaks. Still, we cannot afford to debate your opinions of us. We only live for the task at hand. Our cosmic duty, as I have said before. This seemingly menial task, the core of not only ours but of the entire human existence. A seemingly menial task we take seriously.

No mistakes. No room for error. 

The mantra we chant each day as we set out. The mantra we chant as we pick our way through the fruit.

No mistakes. No room for error. 

The mantra we chant even in our dreamless slumber in a world where the sun never sets. A world where the sun simply fades to a dark green hue signaling the end of yet another day. This nameless realm with no concept of time nor seasons. 

A place where we have no identities or names. 

Here we simply are the harvesters.

Soul 0078667445764347744 POV:

I’ve always wondered what one person’s life is worth in the grand scheme of the universe. Whether our actions and lives matter. I’m a Christian, and we talk about predestination—that God has mapped out a person’s entire life before he has been conceived. 

“I knew you before you were formed in your mother’s womb.”

I often wonder whether that statement is layered. Because in as much as I’d like to believe in the idea of an afterlife. One where we are afforded another chance to live out our humanity minus the perversions of this world, I also have read other spiritual texts that imply that we are part of a collective consciousness. That we will simply be reabsorbed into that one thing when we die.

And so when God says he knew us, isn’t he somehow talking about his own self awareness—because, of course, he knows himself?

But hey. This is all speculation. And I’m Christian, so I shouldn’t be thinking these kinds of thoughts.

Harvester 4009:

Is one person’s life important in the so-called grand scheme of things?

In my many existences I may have debated the idea. Perhaps in one I was deeply spiritual and as such was absolutely certain that it was so, and then in another I was fixated by the mundane necessities of life and considered it not to be. Either way. Now I’m without a doubt sure that a life matters. For one existence sets the framework for the next and what comes after.

Every life matters. 

Today, like any other day, I’m up just as the sun’s brightness intensifies. I pull on my black robe, mantra leaving my lips in a whisper, my mind fixated on one particular fruit. 

I shouldn’t. . . but I can’t help it. 

Though the idea is absurd, I find myself attached to it. I mean, of course my attachment is absurd, considering that we handle thousands of fruit each day. Why, then, should I recall one fruit’s exact location or recount the number of freckles dusting its delicate brown shell? In a realm where I’m forbidden from sentiment and dissuaded from attachment, how do I find myself drawn in by one meaningless fruit?

Meaningless?

Hahaha! Who am I kidding? Of course I am attached. Of course I am interested. 

I am interested. 

I am invested. 

And yet the very act of caring is the greatest defiance to my vow. As harvesters, our job is never to ask, never track, never to think—but to simply harvest. And who are we if not the most meticulous and most callous lot from the human population? Our focus almost falls under the spectrum of autism and who’s to say we aren’t. The world sees it as a limitation, but here it is a coveted quality, unhindered by the emotions and distractions that plague the average being.

Am I a hypocrite then? A fraud, liar, an imposter? I chose this life, no one forced me. I vowed not to feel. I vowed not to care. I vowed not to be enamored.

Yet. . .

I’ve had my eye on this particular one. I’m haunted by its existence.

Freckled and a deep brown. Just about ripe. Almost there. . .

I will not be the one to pick it. We are rotated through different orchards every week and someone else will be the one to pull it from its stem, without any thought or sentiment. So I will savor this time. I will allow myself to be pulled by the chords of familiarity which have captivated me. I am Judas and steal forbidden caresses when no one is looking, rousing memories, projected like a tape in my mind.

I have aroused your curiosity, I’m sure.

You see, this fruit you see was planted by me. Because I too was once just another piece of fruit from the Egg Tree. This egg is mine. 

Soul 00006565664545445475666 POV:

It happened again. 

That dream where I find myself flung into a deep pit only to wind up pulled out to another side, to a world where my dead family members surround me, concerned looks on their faces. To a world where after the panic and anguish of being pulled, I’m suddenly at peace, overcome by a tranquility I can’t explain.

A premonition of death?

I’m not superstitious. If I were, death isn’t taking me anytime soon. My entire life has been a sort of tragedy: My parents died before my third birthday, my only sibling following soon after. I was not only orphaned but lived as a stranger in this world passing from home to home, relative to relative, as might a shadow.

No.

I won’t end up a tragedy.

I have dreams, ambitions, and goals. I have aspirations of carrying on the legacy of those who have gone before me who’s time was cut short. I have dreams and cannot die.

Yet. . .

Whispers and premonitions of death plague my sleep. I must pray the God I believe in is working harder than the devil chasing after me. That black hooded figure won’t get me.

Harvester 4009:

It’s interesting how it happens that people die.

Each person’s experience of death really depends on their ‘faith’—by what they believe in. For those who believe in an afterlife in which deceased family members are waiting, that is their experience.

And the faithless?

Human beings are powerful creatures able to manifest almost anything they believe. It becomes sad for the person who dies believing in nothing. For them, only darkness awaits. Many of these people are also secretly afraid, and dying is a traumatic experience for them. 

I should probably also mention that each person sees their harvester as they pass on. I don’t know why this is necessary. It only happens that way. 

Even the faithless don’t die alone.

Soul 00006565664545445475666:

I’m almost thirty and I don’t own a house or car. It’s one thing for a woman to say this, but as a man the idea presents a whole set of problems.. I want a family: a wife and children. But how will I afford them the life they deserve when I haven’t even achieved the goals I set for myself?

In my teens, I imagined I’d achieve more by my current age. Man! I used to judge my older cousins for having done nothing commendable with their lives, but look at me today. What have I done?

I own my business, but it feels more like a WWE wrestling match trying to stay profitable. Zim is one big circus, and the circus master is a crazy psycho who can pull any kind of trick out of his ass.

I know I’m doing enough, yet I’m always hounded by the idea that I could be doing more. My friends insist I’m too hard on myself, but am I tough enough?

Val called the other day and told me I should be proud of myself. 

“Proud of what?” I wanted to ask. 

Proud of what . . .

God I’m tired.

Harvester 4009:

I should tell you about the sponge tree.

They say—and by “they” I mean those who’ve been here longer than I have—our masters told them when the sponge tree runs out of sponges, time will end. I don’t know why a sponge tree holds such significance or why the universal clock determining our end chose to masquerade as a sponge tree. Why sponges? It is a beautiful tree.

You should see it.

Every so often, a collective moaning travels like a wave across this tiny planet. These are the wails of the harvesters and all the others on Uzo. The wave begins from those closest to the tree and ends with those furthest. We all wail each time a sponge falls.

You might think we have ceased to fear death, that we have embraced the fickleness of life. But are we not still human? Do we still not try to hold on to that with which we are familiar? 

What will happen when the final sponge falls?

What will happen to life?

Will there still be eggs to harvest? Life to plant?

When an egg is harvested, the person existing in your world dies. Their cosmic obligation is up, and it is time for them to begin a new existence.

After we harvest the egg, the Planters bury it in soil. The Gardeners then water and fertilize it, allowing it to grow into a tree that produces more eggs. In this way, one soul becomes hundreds and thousands and millions, and so it goes. Each egg is important. 

Today I mark my egg, drawing a single dot on its shell. This initiates the dying process.

Dying doesn’t happen instantaneously, by the way. That’s kind of heartless. In our world it takes a full day. In yours, it might take longer—much longer.

I wonder what they’re doing at this exact moment? And how will they pass on—in their sleep? A tragic car crash? Either way, I will not be there to see it. Someone else will be harvesting my egg.

Soul 00006565664545445475666:

So much to do, and not enough time. 

I’m always in a rush, and I don’t know why. I guess I’ve always been this way. I always needed to do things quickly.

Tonight, though? I’m feeling good about myself. 

I rarely do.

Tonight, everything feels right, like I’m going to be okay. I’m not saying I’m dying, but if I did in this very moment, I feel a certain amount of peace about it because I know I’ve lived life the best way I know how to.

I fall asleep with that clarity, and, even as I’m met by the black hooded figure in my dreams, I’m at peace. 

Harvester 4009:

I watch as a harvester two rows ahead pries my egg from its stem.

It’s all over. Just like that. 

I sigh and turn back to my work, but not before I hear shouting. Everyone around me hears it, too. I see the boy running towards us. Gardeners mostly present as children. It’s strange because the Gardeners hardly come to the harvest fields due to the melancholy. The boy reaches our elder and gestures wildly.

All the harvesters are close enough to gasp when the elder drops his basket of eggs and runs off with the boy.

We never drop the eggs.

Soon, harvester after harvester follows.

I reach the basket with my egg and slip it into my own. I am alone in the fields.

The silence is different. Ghostly.

I follow the trail to the crowd and slip between shaking bodies.

When I do I look up at the tree that once held many beautifully and intricately coloured sponges. Pinks, purples, and colours we do not have names for. The tree has looked that way for a while. For a while, only one sponge has remained in the sponge tree.

The shaking amongst the crowd intensifies before everyone stiffens. And as we watch the final sponge falls slowly to the ground.

End.

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Valerie Tendai Chatindo is a University of Zimbabwe biochemistry graduate, now a writer and sexual health & awareness educator. She’s a regular contributor for The Kalahari Review, Enthuse Magazine, The Diplomat Zimbabwe and EarGround. Her work has also appeared in Pink Disco Magazine, Creepy Pod, Agbowo, Omenana, Writer’s Space, and Literary Yard. Her short story “Sheba,” was shortlisted for the African Cradle African Heroines literary prize, and her work published in Povo Africa’s Nehanda Reimagined. The twenty-eight-year-old writer resides in Harare, Zimbabwe with her cat, Muffins. She runs her own Literary Platform, Shumba Literary Magazine.