i woke up this morning at 9am. okay fine, 9:30am. mostly, i woke up because i was hungry. i neglected to eat dinner last night because i fell asleep. i awoke a few times in the middle of the night and thought about eating something, but ultimately i decided that since i so rarely have a full night’s sleep, i should go ahead and ride it out.

a full night’s sleep didn’t really make me feel “rested.” i mean, i had a shitload of dreams, most of them mundane. but it’s not like i woke up and was like, “boy, i sure did have a good night’s rest. let’s start the day.” though i was less inclined to snooze-button for an hour.

i stood up and convinced myself that i was awake. it was chilly and crisp. i could sense cool air being held at bay by my windows. and i came to the half-conscious conclusion that a portion of the light-headedness i was experiencing might be attributed to hunger.

i rarely eat breakfast. usually, i have a cup of coffee. maybe some candy, or potato chips, or basically whatever is lying around that doesn’t require any preparation.

but this morning i was excited because of a rare combination of circumstances. i was hungry for breakfast. and i had breakfast materials in my fridge.

so there i was cracking open eggs into a bowl for imminent scrambling. the first egg was uneventful. crack, bloop, egg yolk. all as it should be.

but along comes the second egg. crack, bloop, “what the fuck?!”

there was blood in my egg. in the egg yolk there was a disproportionate amount of blood. because normally, there should be none. but in this egg, there was blood. there was also yolk. there was that yellow blob. but the surrounding egg-white wasn’t really clear or yellow-tinted. it was tinted red. or red-ish, i suppose. and on top of that, there was a small concentrated liquid mass of “not-egg-white” that had the color and consistency of blood.

the point is there was blood in my motherfucking eggs.

for a second i tried to scoop out the blood. but then some part of my brain took over. “what the fuck are you doing?” i dumped the contents of the bowl into the disposal. i actually had to take a moment to compose myself.

first, i confirmed in my head that this had actually just happened. yes. there was just blood in that egg. you weren’t imagining it.

next, for some reason i tried to search my memory for what blood in eggs might indicate or foretell. i had some vague recollection of some voodoo ceremony from a movie where there was blood in an egg. but since i couldn’t reassemble the full context of the scene, it was no help to me.

was it an omen? was it bad luck? am i going to die today? i was pretty sure it wasn’t a good thing. generally, good omens don’t come floating in blood. i had no actual knowledge upon which to base this assertion, but it seemed reasonable.

the second attempt at making scrambled eggs was bloodless. the toast too.

i sat there dazed, eating my breakfast, the autumn morning tranquility marred by an egg of potential evil prophecy.