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Chapter 6 - Chapter 6: The Stinky Egg (part 5)

Stinky egg, spring... spring, stinky egg...

I kept mulling over these two words in my head, tryin' to figure somethin' out. I ain't nothin' special—truth be told, that sounds like a compliment compared to how useless I really am. I'm the type who never learned nothin', always tryin' to sneak around and steal whatever I could get my hands on. Pretty much every bad thing a kid or a young punk could do, I did it. Compared to these folks here, I reckon I'm probably at the bottom of the barrel.

But then again, who here is really any better than the next person?

Jack was right: Everything has a cause and an effect. No matter how you act in front of others, if you end up here, there's a reason—these folks were bad people in life, or at least they had bad hearts.

A person who wants to be bad, even if they ain't done nothin' wrong yet, their heart's already dirty. They might try to hide it, but sooner or later, their actions are gonna give 'em away. Just like this stinky egg, it might look smooth on the outside, but inside it's all rotten and stinky.

Human evil, it's something you're born with. Can't prove it, can't disprove it. Maybe you only see the truth after you die. And here it is: The truth. The bad folks are strugglin' in the shit, day in and day out, year after year, sufferin' for the bad seeds they planted back in the day.

People always get what they deserve.

"Hey, Jack, you notice anythin' funny?" I asked.

"What?" he replied.

"That 'spring'," I said.

"Spit it out all at once. I ain't got all day to listen to your ramblin'. And after you're done, get back to work. We're used to silence around here. Lookin' for the key has made us numb. Nobody wants to waste time on nothin'," Jack said.

See? I knew it. This old man's got some issues.

I cleared my throat. "This damn 'spring' keeps pumpin' out stuff, but the shit only comes up to our shins. So, where's the rest of it goin'?" I asked.

Jack didn't say nothin', just waited for me to keep goin'.

"These piles of shit, they could be recyclin', right?" I asked.

Jack thought about it. "It's possible, but where's the recycle hole? We've felt around in here a thousand times and ain't found nothin'."

I thought for a second. "So, that means the spring is the problem. It's a two-way hole."

Jack looked thoughtful. "But what's the point of designin' it like that? A red herring? Even if it is, with all of us lookin', we shoulda found the key by now."

"Have y'all ever gone down to check?" I asked, then immediately regretted it. That was a dumb question.

Jack saw my embarrassment and chuckled. "If you know how to dislocate your shoulders, sure, you can go down. Or if you're up for it, we can squish you into a human stick, and you can check it out," he said.

My head started to hurt a little. I ain't never thought about nothin' this hard in my whole life.

Jack saw I wasn't sayin' nothin', so he got back to his usual thing—lookin' for that golden key.

I stared at the spring and slowly closed my eyes. Maybe I was just tired, or maybe the stench was gettin' to me.

In my limited memory, I ain't listened to much music. Not 'cause I don't like it, but 'cause I ain't got the patience. I always figured if you sit through a whole song, you're losin' a few minutes of your life.

I suddenly remembered bein' at a gas station once and hearin' a song playin' in someone's car. I didn't catch the name, but I heard the singer with his damn froggy voice singin', "Malice never ends, malice never ends, withered flowers, shining like damn neon..."

If life's a septic tank, then the dirty stuff in your soul is like the shit in here. Some folks live their whole lives, thinkin' all kinds of filthy thoughts, and they probably never even bothered to count 'em.

I reckon there's an old sayin' that goes: What goes around comes around. When you're alive, every time you cuss someone out in your head, or curse 'em, or even rape 'em, God's keepin' track. Waitin' for you to die and go to hell so He can settle the score.

So when you look back, it's just like here. After bein' shameless, despicable, and fantasizin', people finally realize how dirty and rotten these things really are. The question is, how many folks in this world ever figure it out? And if they do, do they ever repent?

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