For three weeks Robert had been waking up at 9 a.m. to the strange sight of a Goose standing in his backyard. It was no ordinary Goose, that much was obvious. The Goose stood perfectly still in his backyard all morning until it flew off every day at exactly 12 o'clock. Robert did nothing to provoke the Goose as he was certain he knew what it had come for.

Robert woke up at nine o'clock in the morning because he didn't have a job. He didn't need to work because for the past four years he had been excreting a solid gold egg once every six months. He was able to sell these eggs for $100 000 each, allowing him to live a life of comfort and leisure. The first egg that he'd excreted had caused him profound anxiety. He had sat down on the toilet for what he had thought would be a normal excretion and what was feeling like a normal excretion until he heard a loud crack from beneath him that sent him flying off of the toilet seat and across the bathroom. Once he had determined that the coast was clear he'd crawled across the bathroom floor on his hands and knees and peered over the toilet rim. Resting at the bottom of the toilet bowl was a gold egg. Robert went downstairs to the kitchen, retrieved a pair of rubber gloves, went back upstairs to the bathroom extracted the egg from the toilet. The egg was so heavy that he needed to use two hands to lift it. He didn't sleep that night, and for days after he was only able to sleep fitfully. He kept the egg in his sock drawer, unable to decide what to do with it. After excreting the egg there was nothing in his life that changed, no other supernatural events occurred to make him believe that his excretion of a gold egg was part of a much larger series of strange events. He took the egg to be appraised and was told that it was worth upwards of $90 000. Suspicious of the egg and wanting to be rid of it he agreed to sell it and thought that he was done with excreting golden eggs until six months later when he heard another loud crack underneath him when he was on the toilet. He sold that egg for $110 000 and with $200 000 in his bank account he gleefully quit his job as a tax accountant and started thinking that perhaps the golden eggs were a miracle.

Robert settled quickly into a life of watching TV, surfing the internet, reading and staying up until the early hours of the morning trying his hand at writing. He turned out not to have any talent for writing and quickly gave it up. He was single and lived alone, and had put on a considerable amount of weight from eating take-out every day that he had delivered to his house. The money from the eggs had caused him to slip into a deep apathy that he couldn't see himself getting out of, that is until the Goose started appearing in his backyard. He thought that eventually the Goose would get tired of waiting for whatever it was waiting for and go away and never come back, but every morning it was there, staring through his kitchen window. One morning he tried to intimidate the Goose into leaving by staring into its eyes but he was the one who ended up averting his eyes. The Goose had stared back into his eyes with what he came to feel was intense and dangerous menace and if he didn't look away from it the Goose was going to use its mystical powers to fire something out of its eyes in his direction. He tried ignoring the Goose. He kept the curtains above the sink closed in the morning and didn't look through them to see if the Goose was still there. He couldn't ignore it, he knew without looking that the Goose was there, waiting for him. Watching television wasn't much of a distraction, all they were talking about on the news was the escalating hostilities between Iraq and Israel. The whole world was going up in flames, and hearing about it and seeing images of it was not preferable to speculating about the Goose.

Robert was busy ignoring the Goose when he heard a commotion in his backyard. He ran from the living room into the kitchen, looked through the curtains above the sink and saw two well dressed men in the backyard attempting to capture the Goose. Robert watched as the two men did everything within their power to capture the Goose but were outwitted every time. Try as they might they couldn't lay a finger of the Goose. The Goose's evasive skill was a marvel to behold; when one of the men tried to come at it from above it quickly stepped to the side, when one of them tried coming at it from behind it quickly jumped out of the way, and when the two men tried to double up on it the Goose moved in such a way that they went crashing into each other. It was as if the Goose possessed telepathic abilities that were letting it know exactly what it needed to do to evade the men's attempts at capturing it. Robert decided that he had seen enough, there was clearly something very special about that Goose and he wasn't going to allow those men, whoever they were, to take it away without him learning what it wanted with him.

"Hey! Get away from my Goose!" He ran into the backyard and yelled at the men.

Recognizing the opportunity that it had been presented with, the Goose jumped on one of the men's heads, shat on it, and scuttled into the kitchen. Robert ran inside after the Goose and quickly shut the door. The two men that were trying to capture the Goose leaped over the fence into one of Robert's neighbor's yard and ran off. Following the ordeal in the backyard the Goose was remarkably calm. It felt entirely at home in Robert's kitchen and thought nothing of hopping up on the kitchen table. Robert regarded the Goose warily, there was no telling what great power was contained within it.

"Can I get you anything?" Robert asked the Goose.

"Quack quack quack."

To his astonishment Robert understood what the Goose had said to him. It had complained about feeling thirsty and asked if it could have some water. Robert went to the sink, filled a bowl with water from the tap and set it down before the Goose, who drank from the bowl without a drop dripping from its beak and onto the table.

"Thank you, that was most refreshing," the Goose said when it was done drinking.

"Who were those men that were trying to capture you?"

"Can't say, there are any number of people working for any number of organizations that would love nothing more than to get their hands on me."

"Are you here because of the eggs?"

"I am I know that you've been selling them, that's not a problem, but you need to keep the next one, it's special."

"What's so special about it?"

"You'll see when you excrete it, which should be two weeks from now, I'll be back to speak with you then."

"You're leaving?"

"I need to report back that I've made contact with you."

"Who are you reporting to?"

"I can't tell you that yet, we need to be certain of your reliability first. Now, if you would be so kind as to open the door for me please."

"I could drive you to where you're going, those guys might still be around."

"Once I'm in the air I'll be fine. They might come back for you though, so you be careful."

Robert opened the kitchen door for the Goose and it waddled outside and took off into the sky. As soon as the Goose was out of sight Robert drank a half a bottle of scotch in one sip and went back to bed; the strangeness of what he had just experienced was too much for him to process just then. When he woke up later that afternoon he was still shaken by the fact that earlier he had been communicating with a Goose. He shouldn't have been as shaken as he was, after all he had been shitting golden eggs for three years.

The closest thing that Robert had to a friend was his next-door neighbor Peter. He didn't enjoy Peter's company so much as he was entertained by him, his endless grumbling about his wife and children reassured Robert about his solitary life. As he always did when he came to Robert's house the first thing Peter did was grab a beer from the fridge. Peter had just gotten off work and hadn't been home yet, intending to spend some time decompressing with Robert first. Peter envied Robert deeply, if given the chance he would swap lives with him in a heartbeat. When he was at Robert's house he was able to imagine such a carefree life for himself and that was enough for him to return to his home and his life feeling better about everything. Peter worked as an operations controller at a small power plant. The job was monotonous and he had long since stopped caring about it. He was desperate to know what Robert had done that had allowed him to quit his job but Robert wouldn't tell him and Peter's guess was that he never would. Robert told Peter next to nothing about himself, mostly because nothing had been happening in his life aside from the eggs, and he would never tell anybody about that. On this evening however he didn't need to say anything to Peter about what had changed in his life, it was obvious.

"When did you get that tattoo?" Peter sat down in the living room and asked him.

"What tattoo?"

"The one on your neck; what is that? A duck?"

Robert sprang up from his chair and ran to the hallway mirror to see the tattoo that he didn't know had appeared on his neck.

"It's a Goose, it's not a duck."

"Why did you get a tattoo of a Goose?"

"I like geese, I think they're interesting."

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"And why were you so shocked when I asked you about the tattoo?"

"You said it was a tattoo of a duck, I thought maybe they'd made a mistake."

The strange series of events that Robert feared his conversation with the Goose would set in motion had begun unfolding. Peter returned home after spending an hour at Robert's house, time they mostly spent talking about Robert's bizarre fascination with geese. For dinner Robert scrambled three eggs that he ate on toast while watching the news on TV, this time the lead story was about the growing concerns over the situation in Ukraine.

While asleep that night Robert had a dream that he was being strangled that was too vivid for him to ignore. He woke up earlier than usual, at 6 a.m., and went over to Peter's house. Peter was having breakfast at the kitchen table with his wife and two daughters. Robert, still dressed in his pajamas with disheveled hair, asked Peter if they could speak in private. Peter agreed and they went into the backyard, where Robert told Peter that he had reason to fear that he was in danger and asked if he could spend the day at his house.

"Why are you in danger? Is somebody after you?"

"No, no, it's nothing specific, it's just a feeling that I have, that something dangerous is going to come to my house."

"Have you gotten yourself involved in something shady? Is that why you were able to quit your job?"

"No, it's nothing like that, I don't even know that the thing I'm afraid of is human."

"You know that you're sounding like a crazy person right now, right?"

"I know that, but I can't ignore this feeling that I have."

Peter found what Robert was saying to him disturbingly strange, but Robert was his friend and he wanted to be of help to him. He told Robert to wait outside while he went inside and cleared things with his wife. Cathy didn't like Robert, she thought he was strange and she thought he was a bad influence on Peter. She didn't want Robert in the house with her for the whole day but before the issue could develop into an argument Peter cut her off and said peremptorily that Robert would be staying. The day that Cathy spent with Robert as her guest didn't make her think of him as being any less strange. He spent the day in his pajamas staring out of the kitchen window at his house. She had always suspected him of being involved in something shady. With his background in financial services she'd thought that he was laundering money, and her first thought when he told her that he was in danger was that he had been stealing from his clients who were now out to get him and that by having him over at their house their lives were being placed in danger. She wouldn't allow anything like this again, when Peter returned from work she was going to make that clear to him.

Robert knew that it was only a matter of time before someone or something showed up at his house and confirmed that the dream that he had had was a warning. After waiting all day without anything happening he started thinking that perhaps he'd overreacted, until he saw the same two characters that had been trying to grab the Goose walking around in his house. They had come back for the Goose, and because he had said it was his Goose they were targeting him. Robert moved from the kitchen to the living room so he could see the two men leaving his house. He couldn't afford to waste any time. Once the two men had left he returned to his house, hurriedly packed a bag and left in his car. He drove from Queens to New Jersey and checked into a hotel where he would wait for the Goose's return, certain that the animal's mystical powers would guide it to him. The faith that he'd put in the Goose turned out to be well placed. A week later he heard a tapping on his hotel room window and saw the Goose tapping on the window with its beak.

"I see you received my warning," the Goose said to him after Robert let it into the room.

"The dream I had...that was you?""

"Yes, that was me, and the fact that you acted on it means that I was right about you."

"How did you do that?"

"There are lots of things that I can do, but that's not important right now; you need to go to the bathroom, right?"

"Yes."

"That'll be the egg, go and use the bathroom and we'll speak more after; oh, and before you go, would it be okay if I ordered some room service?"

"Sure, order whatever you want."

The egg that Robert expelled in the bathroom that afternoon was larger than the ones he had previously expelled. He had to nurse it out slowly, like he was giving birth. The egg was twice as large as the others, and more than twice as heavy. He rinsed it out in the bathtub and took it out into the room to show the Goose, who was enjoying a glass of Bordeaux having finished its meal.

"What did you order?" Robert asked, intrigued by the empty plate and used cutlery.

"I ordered the Salisbury steak, and it was excellent. Is that the egg?"

"Yes."

"Let me have a look at it."

Robert put the egg down in front of the Goose.

"Yes, this is it, this is the one!"

"What's so special about this egg, aside from the fact that it's bigger than the others?"

"Hold it up to the light and you'll see."

Robert did so, and saw a blue sheen shimmering on the surface that hadn't been there on the other eggs.

"What's this blue shine?"

"That's proof that it's inside."

"That what's inside?"

"I can't tell you that yet, first you need to be evaluated by the oracle, until then I'm going to remain by your side."

The Goose slept in the bed next to Robert. Robert wasn't concerned about any hygiene issues, the Goose smelled wonderfully clean and fresh. In the morning they checked out of the hotel and drove back to Robert's house in Queens. Robert used the long drive to get some answers from the Goose.

"Do you have a name?"

"I don't need a name, since there's no other being like me."

"How old are you?"

"I am thousands of years old, I lost track of how many thousands a long time ago."

"What exactly are you?"

"I am the blue egg's custodian, my job is to ensure that the egg is kept safe and that the steps that need to be taken for it to hatch are taken."

"Do the other eggs not hatch?"

"No, they're just waste that's expelled while the blue egg is getting ready to come into the world."

"Why do you keep calling it the blue egg? This egg is also gold, it just has a little blue shine to it."

"It's going to get bluer as it gets closer to hatching."

"Do I need to sit on it to keep it warm so it hatches?"

"No, the egg will take care of everything by itself."

"What's going to hatch from the egg?"

"That I can't tell you."

"If the first eggs were just waste and they were worth $100 000, what's this egg worth?"

"It is impossible to put a value on the blue egg, there is no amount of money in the world that could accurately measure its worth."

"Everything has a price."

"This egg doesn't; empires have gone to war over this egg, rulers have sent millions of their people to their deaths in pursuit of this egg."

"This egg is that powerful?"

"They thought it was."

"You mean they didn't know?"

"They knew as much as you do."

"Why did they want it so badly if they knew nothing about it?"

"They believed certain things about it that weren't entirely accurate."

"Things like what?"

"Like if they were to capture what hatched from the egg they could use it to control the world."

"Could they?"

"No, what hatches from the egg can't be captured, it's too powerful."

"If it's as powerful as you say it is then why does it need you to protect it?"

"It's not my job to protect the egg from the world, my job is to protect the world from the egg. If the circumstances under which it hatches are less than ideal there's no telling what hell will be unleashed, it's up to you and me to make sure that doesn't happen."

Listening to the Goose, Robert feared that performing the pilgrimage was more than he was capable of, and that there was a level of danger involved that he was better off avoiding. He gave serious consideration to telling the Goose that he wanted nothing further to do with all of this but said nothing, he was too curious about the things that he could learn from the Goose. The Goose stayed with Robert at his house while they waited for the oracle. Peter saw the Goose in Robert's house and he saw Robert talking to the Goose as if he was talking to a person and he decided that Robert had gotten too strange and that it was probably for the best if he didn't visit him anymore, news which his wife was glad to hear.

The oracle arrived at Robert's house three days later in the middle of a rainstorm.

"She's here," the Goose said to Robert while they were in the middle of watching a movie.

Robert followed the Goose to one of the windows that looked out on the street and saw a figure wearing a large raincoat standing in the middle of the road out in the rain.

"Are you sure that's the oracle?" Robert asked.

"That's her, I'd know this presence anywhere."

The oracle stood out in the pouring rain for a good while before she started walking toward the front door of Robert's house. To Robert, the oracle looked more like a hobo than the mystical creature he was expecting. The oracle knocked on the door and waited to be let inside. Robert opened the door for the oracle and gestured for her to enter. The oracle walked into the house and removed her coat. Underneath her coat she had disheveled hair, warts on her face and was wearing tattered clothes and shoes. Robert trusted the Goose, but he was having a hard time believing that this woman was who the Goose said she was.

"Is this him?" She asked the Goose.

"This is him," the Goose answered.

"Where's the egg?" She asked.

"It's upstairs; don't worry, it's safe," the Goose answered.

"Are you confident in your choice of this man as the Waker?"

"I am; why, do you have doubts about him?"

"I'm not sensing anything special about him, but then that's been the case with most of the Wakers that you've chosen."

"And this one will do fine just like all the others."

"Are you going to begin the pilgrimage immediately?"

"Not immediately, but definitely as soon as possible."

Satisfied with what she had heard from the Goose, The oracle walked to the front door removed her coat from the coat rack, put it on, and left. After her conversation with the Goose, Robert was convinced that the oracle was in fact who the Goose had said she was. During their conversation the oracle had spoken with knowledge and authority and the Goose had clearly been intimidated by her.

"What is this pilgrimage that you two were talking about?" Robert asked the Goose.

"The egg requires certain forms of nourishment in order for it to hatch healthily, the pilgrimage is how it obtains that nourishment."

"What kind of nourishment?"

"Life energy; the egg absorbs the energy of this world and that's what allows it to hatch."

"Is this pilgrimage going to take us to the place where the egg is going to absorb this energy?"

"The egg requires various different forms of energy, so we'll be going to lots of different places."

Despite the disturbing strangeness of everything associated with the Goose and his uncertainty about whether he was capable of fulfilling the Goose's expectations, Robert was looking forward to beginning the pilgrimage, which sounded like an adventure of the sort his introversion had precluded him from ever experiencing.