Two Eggs Sunnyside Up

Originally produced as a radio piece for a program of dream-based audio by Mairead Case for Neighborhood Public Radio at the 2008 Whitney Biennial. Printed in Leftovers Again?!.

“IT MUST INCREASE BUT I MUST DECREASE.”

-André Gide

A prisoner sits in a cell with her sole companion Two Eggs Sunnyside Up. Oh Two Eggs Sunnyside Up, my sole companion, without you I’d be nothing nobody dead // Lovingly adorns her companion in hot sauce. licks tenderly his edges. Swirls her tongue in his golden center / coos. oh Two, two two two Eggs, //

(A LOVE SONG TO TWO EGGS SUNNYSIDE UP)

Never run never run never run never run dearest

Your whites are the rafts that keep me afloat

Your yolks the suns that bind me to the spinning earth

And your crisp brown skin is the parchment on which every love story is written.

Two Eggs Sunnyside Up, my gaze penetrates your golden eyes

I suckle at your golden teat

My tongue throbs against your tender membrane

Until my lips drip with your rich… creamy… uohhhhhhhhhhh…

Two Eggs Sunnyside Up, wear your finest bib of hot sauce

I’ll wear all I have

Never run, my dearest

Together we’re the toast of… this place.

After making love, in a fashion, to Two Eggs Sunnyside Up, she curls up with her tenderly nibbled companion and soundly sleeps. LITTLE DOES OUR PRISONER KNOW THAT EVERY NIGHT WHILE SHE SLEEPS THE WARDEN REMOVES HER GENTLY LICKED COMPANION TWO EGGS SUNNYSIDE UP FROM HER CELL, REPLACING HIM WITH TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT EGGS. AS FAR AS SHE’S CONCERNED TWO EGGS SUNNYSIDE UP REGENERATES NIGHTLY IN HIS SLEEP JUST AS SHE DOES. FOR THAT MATTER A CAT COMES IN ON OCCASION AND UNCEREMONIOUSLY EATS THE LEFTOVERS OF TWO EGGS SUNNYSIDE UP AND SHE’S NEVER EVEN SEEN THIS CAT. She’s never even seen the warden, poor bitch.

One day she wakes to an unknown woman standing in her cell holding Two Eggs Sunnyside Up and before she can open her confused, ugly trap to defend her lover’s honor the woman speaks:

ou on’t now ho m, oor itch, ut ow ou’ll now oo ell. ou ave een y risoner ince efore he eginning f ime nd ’m ick f ooking ggs or ou hat ou on’t ven at. ngrateful itch. or his eason ive ou hoice, nd ake t uickly efore hoose or ou: ither ou wallow hese ggs r ’m oing o eed ou at eat rom ow ntil t uns ut hich ill robably e n ouple ays nd hen ou’ll tarve. ct ow r ie, itch. //

Unfortunately, the warden speaks an obscure highbrow dialect, eliminating the first letter of every word spoken, and the prisoner has no idea she is being asked to make the most important decision of her utterly unimportant life.