Talking eggs

I have always been amazed by the ways of memory, it is impressive how in a long life you can accumulate so many memories of the most unusual things. Sometimes, you don't even know that those memories are out there, but suddenly a smell or an image is enough to bring them out from the bottom of our brain...

I usually alternate my breakfasts, one day I have a mixture of oatmeal with several seeds and sweeten it with a little bit of papelón, the next day I eat two boiled eggs, without salt. If I am away from home I have no problem eating whatever I can get.

A few days ago I boiled two eggs. I didn't realize that one had a small crack in the shell, just enough for some of the white to leak out while boiling. As a result, a white tail started to come out of the egg. At that moment I didn't take the precaution of taking a picture of it. It was nothing extraordinary but it would have served me perfectly well for this publication that came to my mind later.

That image of the egg with the little tail immediately transported me to the times of my childhood, when a kind of ritual was done to make the eggs talk, to help to know the future.

I asked my wife if she knew about the ritual and she said she had never heard of it. Her answer made me hesitate because I was almost sure it was not a figment of my imagination. But since our families are from two different parts of the country it was likely that hers had not cultivated the custom.

In any case, whenever I have doubts about any information about my childhood or the family, I always ask my mother, who at ninety years old still has an excellent memory.

When I called my mother I asked her if she remembered that at one time of the year they used to put some raw eggs in a glass of water to read the future. She told me that yes, she didn't remember exactly if it was in December or Easter, but that on some of those dates the family had the custom of doing the ritual.

While I was talking to her, more images began to come to me about this subject that made me curious, the scene began to take shape in my mind.

On one day of the year, which I can't specify, the adults in my family would get together "to lay the eggs", we children were not allowed to do it but we were allowed to watch. The thing was relatively simple, they took a crystal glass, very clean, filled it with warm water up to a centimeter before the edge, washed a raw egg very well, said a little prayer and all at the same time broke the egg and threw it into the glass, taking care that nothing spilled out of the small plate where the glass rested.

These glasses would be taken to a corner of the house where a few candles would be left burning, and someone would make sure that the candles were lit all the time.

The next day, at a certain time, all the adults would gather again, say another prayer, I don't know if it was the same or a different one, and go to the corner to look for the glasses. I don't know how they did it because even if the glasses were not marked, everyone knew which one was theirs.

To my childish eyes the result of that experiment seemed very nice. The rows of egg whites took all kinds of shapes. And it was those different shapes that the adults interpreted.

Some of them saw visitors coming, others saw a marriage or engagement, maybe even an illness... Fortunately no one ever saw that someone was going to die.

I only knew this practice in my family, I never knew of other people who did it, who tried to read the future by throwing their eggs in the water.

At some point before making the publication it crossed my mind to do the test, I was tempted to put the eggs in water to see what they would tell me, but then it seemed like a waste of an egg.

All in all, at this point in life I don't have much interest in knowing what the future holds. I've made it a point to concentrate on the day to day.

Thank you for your time.