Inheretince

My grandfather was an amazing man.  He grew up on an isolated plot of land in Nebraska with his parents, who were both traditionally and classically strict in their religious beliefs.  However, no ill talk of them ever left his mouth.  There was always an air of understanding and respect whenever he retold stories of them during his formative years, even about their more…abusive forms of religious education. He lived with them up until his teens, when he joined the Marines and served close to fifteen of his prime years before settling down with his wife, my grandmother, in West Virginia in the early seventies.  From there, he raised a small family of three kids, one of them my dad, on a beautiful plot of land surrounded by forest, just on the edge of a humble little town.  He always had a vibrant personality, and he was loved by all in town for his wit and good humor. He lived a happy life and enjoyed it even more (so he tells me) when he became a grandpa.  He loved reiterating his life during those years, always smiling with every question asked, knowing he had a crazy answer to give, which in turn demanded a follow-up question. 

His ability to grip a room full of stupid, loud kids like my brothers and me still astounds me to this day; he perfected the art of storytelling.  Every experience he shared always ended with a quick summary of how it changed him and how it enriched his development as a person.  From his humble origins as a naive Nebraska native, holding all sorts of prejudices that were instilled in him by his parents, he managed to learn and grow despite them and is easily one of the most open-minded and loving characters I have ever known.  He remained implicitly religious; he considered himself an unspecified flavor of Christianity ever since leaving the suffocating embrace of his Baptist parents. 

He was very hands-off about that stuff, at least with his grandkids. The only times he ever “preached” to us were the few times he decided to read from the Bible instead of orating another episode of his life.  It was always from the book of Revelation, so props to him for choosing a book that would captivate a room full of mostly young boys with wild imaginations.  I loved listening to him recite the passages; he would jump from chapter to chapter and verse to verse. One passage I remember him reading a lot was: To him that conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone, which no one knows except him who receives it.

Even up into my adulthood, I always looked forward to the weekends when I could find time to drive from my little apartment here in Old Town Warrenton, Virginia, to his little homestead in Middle West, VA.  The handful of hours’ drive was always made immediately worth it every time I saw that front door open.  His jolly smile was highlighted by a salt-and-pepper mustache,  a bit unkempt, but if I were that old and married to the same woman for the last five billion years, I wouldn’t give a shit about my appearance that much either.  All in all, my grandpa was a joy to be around and was always a highlight in my inner circle of loved ones.

About eleven years ago, he was diagnosed with dementia.  It was a shock to me and most of all to my Dad.  What signs were there, we, obviously, had not noticed.  It’s crazy how you begin to notice things once a label is placed on them.  With each visit, it became more visible and more potent.  His smile was the first thing we lost; it was still there, just dimmer.  His eyes were becoming vacant, and his energy progressively diminished.  What hurt the most was his stories.  A couple of years in, they began to be a burden.  It got to the point where each attempt at re-telling one, names were repeated, actions were noted without reason, and locations were jumbled mid-sentence.  The oracle I grew up with was lost in himself.  The archive of his life was being ransacked, and his countless tales and the well they flowed from were drying up.  

One day, about nine years in, he lost it entirely.  The dementia, our family physician told us, was “aggressive”.  It didn’t take a doctor to see that.  He stumbled through time and place when trying to re-tell basic activities he had done that day.  Upon questioning, he would begin to reiterate his day, before, inevitably, putting his finger to his mouth as his mind tried to grasp at the strings of memory that were contorting just out of reach.  

Another year went by, and I hadn’t visited him for about a month or two.  I have to admit I had put off seeing him ever since he struggled to remember my name or my brothers’ names.  It’s selfish, but I wanted to avoid that hurt again.  When I finally grew a pair and visited him, the same thing happened, as expected at this point.  He would hamstring along a conversation, starting thoughts in the middle and working circularly.  I would smile and nod along, asking few questions.  My heart hurt seeing his once glowing face a shadow of a memory only I could remember.  I wanted to be there for him, so I smiled and went along without much energy put into conversation.  After dinner, I decided to leave a little earlier than planned; however, before I could leave, he pulled me aside to his study. 

I followed him inside.  The rustic, homey atmosphere of that room always filled me with a warm sense of glee and security growing up.  Now, it was a cluttered pile of incoherent design; furniture was moved randomly, and books and papers were scattered aimlessly across desks and chairs alike.  A material manifestation of my grandpa’s illness. 

There was, however, one component of his room that was left in decent order, his safe.  The rather large metal safe was still sitting on its own designated private bookcase, locked and free of dust or debris.  It was still right where I remembered, an unmoving monolith from my childhood. I once asked my grandpa to open it when I was a kid, hoping to find it filled to the brim with cash and gold and maybe even a Tommy gun.  It was the only time he ever sternly denied me anything.  I can remember exactly what he said and how he said it.  “No, he has yet to instruct,” he informed with a seriousness no child could understand.  

I stared at it, reminiscing about that very memory when my grandpa mumbled, “How you’ve grown.”

I turned to share an acknowledging smile, the one you give to those in hospice upon visiting.  He was so frail and small next to me now that I couldn’t help feeling a wave of melancholy wash over my heart.  But when I locked eyes with him, I almost jumped.  His eyes were lucid.  A sharpness had returned to them, something I had not seen expressed from him in years.  I collected myself, hoping that I hadn’t flinched openly and hurt his feelings when he reached a hand out to me with a smile whose warmth and mirth I had missed so much I almost wept then and there. 

“How are ya, Clarkson?” 

No stutter, no stammering, no second-guessing, he shook my hand and said my name.  

“I’m great, Papa.”  I gave his hand a firm single shake, the same way he taught me all those years ago before my first job interview.  

“I taught ya well.”  He said, reading my mind, “I’m afraid I don’t have much left to teach you.”

The solemn statement further confused me. “How are you…papa?” was all I could manage to ask.

“Sad and disappointed.  The fruits of my labor were not enough.”

“What do you mean?”  

“Clarkson, did I ever tell ya about my tenth birthday?”

“Yes, you got a hockey stick and ice skates.  And when you went to try them on the lake, you wiped out and took three friends with you as you skidded across the ice.”  An uncertainty was returning to me, but I clung to the hope that my grandpa was about to be coherent and clear-headed for the first time in years. 

“Oh yes, yes, and I loved my parents ever so much for them skates, God rest their souls.”  He pulled a chair up to me, and I sat.  He heaved onto his leather lounge chair, the very one from which he used to spend so much time reciting his life to us,  

I allowed the familiar warmth of the scenario to fill me with hope for a moment, as he began, “Yes, well… that was not the only gift I received that day.  That night, determined to master skating so as not to embarrass myself in front of my friends yet again, I snuck out.  A daring thing to do with parents like mine,”  He let out a murmurful chuckle as he continued, “Well, there I went, creeping out my lil’ window, hoppin off the roof into the snow below.  With a plop, I landed safely, ice skates still clasped to my chest.”  His glow reanimated his face as he went on.  He was alive, and he was THERE with me in that moment.  He was… he was himself again at last.  

He paused a moment; he was sharp enough to see that I was distracting myself with these thoughts.  With a smile, he continued, “Well, there I was, marching through the woods in the middle of the night, praying to God that I was going in the right direction.  The night was terrible dark, and the snow just began to flutter as I burrowed deeper into the woods in search of the lake.”  He looked longingly at his hands, “I was shivering all the way.  Heh, well, after a few panicked minutes of trudgin along, I finally reached the treeline.  I had a flashlight that I finally dared to turn on, now that I was clear out of sight of my parents’ house.  As I was fumbling with my skates, the strangest thing happened.”  He paused, making sure he had my attention, “The snow stopped, and the clouds blew away in a shrill, cold wind.  I shivered against it before looking up at the night sky… it was a celestial painting I will never forget.  The stars beamed… billions and billions of them all shining clear and sharp, like a blanket of black silk embroidered with diamonds.”  I stared at him as he reminisced, this clear memory a beacon in an otherwise haze of confusion I had seen him live in for years.  

“Then, BOOM!”  He yelled, giving me a start, “It happened.  A shooting star zipped across the sky, cutting across its countless fellows.  I was in awe, its golden tail trailed behind it, then I noticed.  It was coming toward me.”  He grabbed my hand, “And it was coming fast.  I only stared like a dimwit for a few more seconds until I reacted to it burning up in the atmosphere.  It was coming right toward me, I swear on my life it was.  With a jolt, I began running back to the treeline when it made impact with the lake with a sizzling explosion that socked my behind clear off the ground.”  He zipped his hand into the air, “I hit my head pretty good; thankfully, the snow was a cushion for me.  I stumbled off the ground and gave a good look around.  A little uneasily, I scoped out the lake from a distance.  And oh boy, was there a sight to be seen.  A thick fog had erupted following the explosion.  With my flashlight, I dared to march into it to explore the star that nearly snuffed me out.”

He paused and gave me a smile, which I did not understand, but I was happy to see his glow returning as he continued.  “I cut through the thick saturation, and as I approached the cusp of the lake, a red glow emitted just ahead of me.  I continued toward it, every step into the crunchy snow echoing in the fog.  And there it was, I turnt my flashlight directly on it.”

He stared at the mantelpiece in front of our seating, face red with life, eyes beaming with conscious awareness.  “My stone…my egg.”

I didn’t say anything, for fear of insulting him.  I simply let him continue.  “It was… magnificent.  A petite metal the size of a fist.  Smooth as a river stone, pattern of a Damascus blade… and an eternal warmth that I have felt to this day…”  He turned to me, “A generational inheritance I have been eager to reap the reward of.”

I was a little off-put, the returning fear of my grandfather’s condition ached in my stomach as I clawed my mind for a polite response to such a tale of discovery. He gripped my arm lovingly, “I know this is a lot for you to believe, but please, allow me to finish, and I will show you.  It is your inheritance as well, don’t you know.”

I gathered myself and let him finish, “I examined it for a moment, this… divine revelation bestowed to me… I laid my hand on it, and a pulsing heat radiated from it.  It enveloped my body in such a lustrous way… I pocketed it.”  My grandpa seemed to be melting in his chair, “I forgot all about ice skating, and marched back home, my egg in hand.  Its warmth filled me all the while… I snuck back inside and hid it beneath my pillow.  What a night that was… a peace had blanketed me I had never felt before.  I drifted off soundly and shortly, only for the dream of the prophecy to come to me in my sleep.”  He raised his now radiating eyes to me, the soft darkness of the room making them glisten all the more.

“It was a revelation I would dream of every night since.  It spoke to me…my egg.  It told me its secrets, of secrets to come… and what it needed from me in the meantime.  With these secrets came my mission, my divine mission!”  His elderly frame seemed to grow, “It…He chose me to cradle this, the seed of our world’s reconciliation.  My boy, you must understand.  I was tasked all these years to mother this egg.  Its secrets of the world to come and guidance on my holy mission were essential to my life all these decades.  Now my time has come… It will take all that is left of me… it is now up to you.  Your inheritance.  You must shelter the second coming of Christ, this egg of our redemption from which He will sprout.”  My grandfather sprang from his seat and went to that safe, that eternal presence in my life. 

I watched as he spun the dial left and right in seemingly random patterns before a click signaled its unlocking.  With elderly hands, he pulled the thick little safe door open.  There it sat, as if it always had been, the little meteorite my grandfather had kept all these decades.  Its glistening exterior seemed like a beacon of warmth, a warmth I felt sitting across the room.  With childlike reverence, my grandfather cradled it in his hands and carefully marched over to me, arms extended, presenting my inheritance.  He stood over me, as I remained seated, thoughts racing.  In a whisper, he said, “This, holy relic, must be cared for in my absences.  I have little… left to give it… It has grown hungrier as it’s developed.  This divine mission is to be your inheritance.  Once it is yours, so will be its secrets.”

He continued for another hour into the night; he went on and on.  I was barely present now; my head was ringing.  New fears of his mental deterioration flooded my mind.  I stared at that smooth extraterrestrial debilitator.  For reasons I would soon find out, it contained the source of this madness that now enveloped my grandfather’s eroding mind.  This, supposed, seed of the Second Coming.  

The taste of that night lingered for several days after.  The way my grandpa giddily handed me that alluring stone, the way his eyes shone with a passion I thought had long been snuffed out by delirium.  He placed the stone back into the safe before collecting himself, saying, “I know it is a lot to take in…and I don’t have much left to give…so my time to explain it all is dwindling fast.  But this mission must be carried on.  My son refused me, many, many years ago.  My boy, Clarkson, please just think this over and quickly.  It is your birthright, and one more essential than the whole of existence.  Please return for a visit as soon as possible.  There is much more to talk about.”

Well, I thought about it.  I went straight to my dad, informing him of the episode, hoping he would be willing to invest in getting a specialist involved to help with this very specific form of dementia.  My dad was silent throughout the entire conversation.  He asked me to drop the idea, “This is… not a new form of delusion.” He started, “He tried peddling this meteorite story to me constantly throughout my young adulthood.  Even hinted at it in my childhood.  Some grand mission from God, yet so secretive and… implicit in his behavior.  It’s funny…looking back on it, if he truly believed this story he told himself, why not be more radical?  I’m not sure why he didn’t simply shelter us away like a cult… Force feeding us this narrative of our generational duty to shelter this rock all our lives.  Ensuring we were brainwashed little servants of this God he believed was gestating inside the stone.  Waiting to hatch and begin the end of the world.  Now, I think it’s because he’s hiding something.  I think it’s more than just a babysitting job.  And I refuse to find out.  I steered clear of that ‘egg’ ever since.  You should, too.”

I received no reassurance from this talk.  My concern expanded, and I planned to visit my grandpa within the same week.  Before that, I spent a day digging into my memories.  Was this narrative always hidden in the background?  Did I not see it, or was my dad ensuring we weren’t exposed to it on our visits?  The only thing I could think of was those Bible passages he read to us.  I struggled to unearth any other passages from those memories that I could look into.  Eventually, I resorted to just reading through the entire book of Revelation.  And I found them.  The ones I remember distinctly, from whenever grandpa managed to have time alone with us.  The first one I already mentioned was the most repetitive of them.  The second was:

And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to Earth, and he was given the key of the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace. 

And another being:

And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child, and she cried out in her pangs of birth in an anguish for delivery.  And another portent appeared in heaven; behold, a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven diadems upon his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth.

Stars. The fixation with stars.  It had always been there, this… self-grandising myth.  Hidden knowledge and signs of the Apocalypse, these were not just stories to my grandpa, as they were to me growing up.  This obsession was deeply rooted.  So, I decided I needed to understand the seed of all of this, that seed that bloomed into this decrepit, festering plant.  The next day, I visited my grandpa.  

After work, I drove through the evening and pulled into the driveway.  The house was dark, the front porch covered in shadow.  My anxiety was intense enough already, but as I stepped to the front door, it was blaring.  I knocked, waiting to hear the steps of my grandma, or maybe even the carer they recently hired.  Nothing.  Hesitantly, I tried the knob.  With a twist and a click, the door opened without resistance.  I poked my head through the cracked door, afraid I might alarm one of my grandparents into cardiac arrest from the surprise. 

The lights were off throughout the interior.  I stepped inside, giving a whispered yell into the house, announcing my arrival.  No response came back.  I feared the worst and started exploring the house, checking bedrooms and knocking on bathroom doors, all while turning on every single light I came across.  A barren kitchen, tidy bedrooms, and empty bathrooms were all I found.  There was only one other room to check.  

I stood there a while, just listening, praying for some reassuring sign from the other side of that door—total silence.  Bracing myself for what could be awaiting me, I pushed the heavy door open to the study.  The nostalgia and joy I used to feel in this room were eroded as the creaking hinges swayed.  Another dark room.  I nearly tripped on something as I searched for the light switch.  With a flicker, a dying bulb produced a soft glow in the room I once begged to enter, all those visits ago.  

I found him slumped over in his chair.  The dim light did not hide any of the details.  He was dead, in the very seat he had orated his entire life from.  I stood over him, half expecting him to look up and excitedly tell me about the time he fled a Boy Scout camp to “see” a girl.  The light flickered, revealing the grey, lifeless face of a man I loved unconditionally.  Whatever I was hoping to achieve by coming here didn’t matter now.  He was gone, with all his vibrance and the tales that brought us all so much joy growing up.  His story was snuffed finally, and I was yet to understand its climax.  

My eyes glazed over as I stared at him, an emptiness filling me.  I shouldn’t have been surprised when I saw it.  It sat in his lap, with his dead hands lying gently over it.  It was like his last moments alive were spent overdosing on the ambient warmth produced by that anomaly of a rock, hoping his cold corpse would be warmed once he left it.  The egg’s luster seemed to absorb the limited illumination and shimmered gloriously from underneath that carcass of love and devotion it had corrupted.  

I stared at it, my attention gripped by that meteorite of calamity.  I jolted in disgust as I realized I had brushed my grandfather’s hands off of it.  Before I could turn away, I noticed.  It looked… bigger.  It lay heavily on my grandpa’s lap, once no larger than a baseball, now the size of a small football.  Its mesmerizing patterns were different as well.  They seemed to fluctuate, ever so slightly, like an ocean gently cascading on a shore.  I tore my eyes away from it.  That is when I felt the waves of warmth sweep over me.  My grandfather’s hands must have been syfining it, I barely noticed it until now.  Like a pulsing sun, the engorged egg filled the room with an unseen light; in the otherwise dim sarcophagus, I had found my grandfather in.

My father’s warning shot through my head, and I forced myself to turn to the exit.  When I turned, I saw on my grandfather’s desk a letter, neatly placed underneath a dim lamp.  I grabbed it as I left the room, knowing it was safer to read anywhere but here.  I admit, it took an intense amount of willpower to leave that room.  The gravity of that rock was… more than compelling.  

I sat in the empty kitchen, the absence of my grandmother unnerving me further.  I tore open the letter, the front of which was labeled Inheritance.  There were two notes inside it.  Glancing over the first one tore at my heart.  It was the familiar gibberish I had seen festering over the years, incomplete sentences, misspelled names, and random events strewn all over the page.  This was the dementia asserting itself one last time.  The last line was the only coherent one.  My vision blurred and my throat stung as I choked back tears, tears that had been building for years.  It simply read:

I am sorry, and I love you.

The dam broke, and what stoicism I thought I contained shattered.  I cried for what felt like hours.  The memories of my grandpa’s smile, sitting me on his lap, making me and my brothers laugh for hours, all of that was a bittersweet fuel that drove my weeping on and on.  With a conscious effort, I contained myself and wiped my face at the sink.  Cold water cleansed the traces of tears, but as I looked in the mirror just above the kitchen faucet, my red eyes could not be washed away.  

I went back to the kitchen table, the second note still neatly folded in the letter.  I wasn’t sure what to prepare for, already emotionally drained, and the weight of the phone calls to come bearing down on me.  The hollowness of the house echoed while I stood over the table.  My desire to get over this last hill helped as I pulled out the paper.  My head began to hurt at this point, but I needed to get this over with before I could call for an ambulance.  I needed whatever closure this letter might contain before I could begin that next step in the sad process of closing my grandpa’s story forever.  

Flipping open the paper, I read the short note my grandpa had left.  It read:

It has grown hungrier.  Please take care of it.  It won’t be long now.  Our reward awaits.  I love you all, and I am sorry for the price you all will have to pay.  I will see you again at the end of time.

The words seemed to burn my eyes as I read.  My headache worsened with every letter.  I wanted to tear the letter, burn it, erase this stain of my grandfather’s delusions from my memory of him.  Instead, I folded it delicately and placed it in my pocket. 

I found myself back in the study.  The bulb had finally died, and the room was lit only by the kitchen light that seeped in behind me from the open doorway.  My phone had an operator on the line asking for more details as it hung loosely in my hand.  All energy was gone, and my head felt like it was splitting.  I couldn’t answer any more questions.  The faint static voice mentioned an ambulance was on its way before I hung up.  Alone, I stood over the cradle of my inheritance.  He seemed so at peace, his body still absorbing the heat of the rock he cherished.  Numbly, I squatted down in front of the chair to get a better look at his vacant face.  Satisfaction.  But something else lingered on it, too.  Remorse.  

I felt the note crinkle in my pocket.  The title of his letter resurged in my mind.  Inheritance.  It held my gaze like a beacon in that dark room.  I basked in it for a moment, pulsing with its touch.  My headache dimmed with each minute in front of it.  I needed its warmth.  My father’s words of warning blurred away as I reached down to the stone.  Before I could stop myself, my finger touched it.  I never felt more ok.  That warmth fills you, it blankets you inside and out.  The smoothness of the meteorite swelled within me an almost sensual pleasure.  It felt like sliding my hands on the bare skin of a lover for the first time.  Not just a lover, a soul mate.  The visage of remorse that was inscribed on my grandfather’s cold face jolted me back to my senses.  I pulled away in shock.  

Catching my breath, I decided to go to the kitchen and remain there until the ambulance came.  As I left, I turned to consume the sight of it one more time.  I froze.  The silhouette of my grandfather’s corpse accentuated the rock perfectly in the sliver of light creeping from the open doorway.  It looked… slightly larger than even before.  I broke into a cold sweat as the words of the note, my grandfather’s final testament, reemerged in my mind:

It has grown hungrier.

Shaking off my paranoia, I slammed the door behind me and went into the light of the hollow house, waiting for the EMTs to arrive and maybe calm my nerves.  The touch haunted me, the sensation replayed through my mind and body in a cycle I couldn’t control.  I sat cradling myself on the kitchen floor, a single thought dominating me.  I wonder how blissful it felt to hold it like Grandpa did.  I was no longer worrying about where my grandma was or how my Dad would react to the death of his father.  Now, all I could think about was how jealous I was of my grandfather.  I saw the ambulance pull up, lights blaring, through the window.  

I led them to the study, informed them of all I knew, and they said they would keep in touch with me.  I hurried out of the house, glad they hadn’t been suspicious of the tote bag I had carried out with me.  The familiar weight of it alone filled me with a euphoria I could barely contain as I got into my car.  

I drove off, bag in the passenger seat.  Guilt, shame, and confusion rallied against me, as long as my hand was off the bag at least.  The long drive home produced a cycling war in my head that I could not avoid.  Grief was the only emotion that dominated throughout it.  My migraine returned with a blinding force with each passing minute.  The drug that grew next to me was the only coping mechanism I could utilize on that long car ride.  Towards the end of the journey, my hand was firmly planted on it.  

The following days were a blur of mournful calls and depressing legal conversations about wills, property, etc.  My Dad didn’t take it well.  Despite our conversation a couple of days prior, I could tell he still thought Grandpa had a few more years left.  I did too.  A funeral came and went, my grandma seemed oddly stoic, but I saw a pit in her eyes.  Perhaps she expected this.  Maybe she knew something that I didn’t.  I never got to have that last talk with Grandpa in the end, but I did receive my inheritance.  It got me through those horrid first couple of weeks.  Then the next month.  Now over a year has passed.  I don’t have it in a safe; I’ve grown too reliant on it to keep it locked up.  Every time I set it down, alarms blared in my thoughts as my crippling migraine worsened with each use of it.   Each time it would come harder and faster than before, all the while I would stare at the egg’s increased size.  They go away eventually, once my willpower is weakened and I find myself cradling it again.  The grief that remained present, even when holding the egg, has been replaced by a growing fear.  Even when consumed by its radiance, it sits in the back of my mind.  My father’s words are growing more meaningful with every session with the rock:

 I steered clear of that ‘egg’ ever since.  You should, too.

I never could get rid of it.  A part of me did consider it a family heirloom gifted to me before he passed.  It was a part of him in a sense.  And I couldn’t throw him away.  My headaches have escalated beyond recovery.  The moment I put it down now, my head splits in half.  I haven’t been able to see my family for several months now, or I think a year?  Time has been slipping by me.  My Dad tried visiting a couple of weeks ago, I think.  I had to cut the reunion short due to my aching head.  I told him I was feeling sick or something along those lines as an excuse.  I don’t know if I was paranoid, but the look he gave me was… telling.  There’s no way he knows I have it.  Can’t know.  

I had to start working from home with a new job that pays less, but I don’t care.  It’s got me, I’m too far gone now.  I wonder if this was how bad it was for Grandpa?  Or maybe it wasn’t as hungry as before?  It keeps growing.  More rapidly each day.  I think I know why now.  It grew up WITH my Grandpa, it consumed what little it could in passing.  I am a full-grown adult; there is much more to have and immediately.  

The fear has grown with each moment I hold that egg; its immense size covers my whole lap now.  The bliss I feel isn’t enough to stifle the voice screaming in the back of my head.  I don’t know if I will be enough for it to hatch, but I pray to God I’m not.  This egg dies with me, and I know I will die with that same twisted look of bliss and remorse on my face.  I don’t believe it’s the second coming; all I know is that it is my end.  I now know what it consumes as well, now.

I noticed some signs of it, but I thought little of it as it was between sessions of cradling my egg.  Even when it’s yourself, I guess the instinct is to not realize, or not take heed to what few signs you do notice.  I finally forced myself to get examined, driving to the doctor with that egg next to me, sticking out of the tote bag it once fit snuggly in, now almost tearing its seams.  

My head throbbed the whole appointment, my thoughts tied to the image of the rock in my car and the relief that would be coming soon.  Until they were rudely pulled away to the reality I had pathetically been blind to until now.  

The doctor confirmed a couple of days later, over the phone I had signs of early-onset dementia.  That it could end up being aggressive for someone who was still otherwise relatively young.  I haven’t told my family, and I don’t plan to until the time is right.  I wrote all this down while I still am able, and I hope that if you guys find it, you can forgive me.  I have maybe another year of being coherent.  I know the doctor said I had longer, but he doesn’t know.  This egg I have on my lap, throbbing, gestating off the nutrients of my Grandfather’s mind, and now mine, will be dying with me.  Whatever is growing inside can’t be allowed out.  I love you, Mom, Dad, Chris, Blake, and Phil.  I loved you, Grandpa; nothing about this changes that.  And I hope you were right. 

I hope to see you at the end of time.