Dr John Lafferty, an archaeology graduate from the University of Texas and minister of the Church of the Golden Goose, had dedicated his life to uncovering as much evidence about the talking Goose and the mystical egg as possible. His fascination with the Goose and the egg started during a dig in Egypt that he'd been a part of as a student, where they had discovered hieroglyphs that depicted a great number of people kneeling before a Goose, one of whom wore the headdress of a pharaoh. Two years later, while on a dig in Mexico, he would see the Goose again in Aztec hieroglyphs and again it was depicted as an almighty being that the Aztecs were in awe of. Similar imagery was found in an ancient temple in Greece, in African cave drawings, on a 500-year-old Japanese scroll, and the outline of a Goose was discovered among the Nazca Lines in Peru.

The Goose had to be real, there was no other explanation for it appearing in the histories of civilizations across the globe across a time span of thousands of years. There were many who agreed with Dr Lafferty that the Goose was a being that actually existed and that given that there are depictions of kings and pharaohs and emperors bowing down before it that it must be a divine being.

The Church of the Golden Goose had ministries on every continent and boasted a global membership of 10 million, a paltry number compared to the billions of Christians and Muslims in the world, but what the church lacked in numbers it made up for with the passionate devotion of its members, all of whom donated generously to the church to fund archaeological digs all over the world in search of more information about the Goose and the egg that might hold the answer to ascertaining their location. Dr Lafferty was an honest man who believed with his entire being in the truth of his church's cause. Every cent that was donated to the church to fund digs went towards funding digs, and the church's efforts proved not to be a waste. They made discoveries that further validated Dr Lafferty's beliefs and with each discovery the church's numbers grew and the members grew more ardent in their faith in Dr Lafferty.

One person who didn't count herself as a member of The Church of the Golden Goose was John's wife Laura. She hated how her husband's pursuit of ever more discoveries about the Goose monopolized all of his time and attention. They'd never had children, John having decided that he couldn't afford such a distraction, and as a married couple they hadn't enjoyed intimacy for years. Laura had long since accepted that John's obsession with the Goose would remain undiminished until he died, but this didn't mean she didn't get exasperated. It exasperated her when he got irrepressibly excited over the smallest discovery that involved the Goose; it exasperated her that they weren't living a life of material comfort despite all the money the church brought in and the enormous goodwill its members had toward John that precluded the possibility of there being a backlash if they were to find out that he'd taken some money for himself; it exasperated her when she had to cook for another Goose obsessed crackpot that her husband brought home with him, and it exasperated her when her husband wouldn't stop talking about some artifact that he'd paid a small fortune for that he'd brought home with him. The latest was a vase that he'd paid $45 000 for. The vase was four feet high and was white with blue markings. The markings, John said to her, told an important story about the Goose. Laura hadn't asked and she didn't care, but the price of the vase had put her in a confrontational mood.

"How do you know it's important? It looks like any other vase, those may not even be geese in that pattern, they might be ducks, you've paid $45 000 for a vase that might have ducks painted on it and not geese!"

"First of all, any idiot can tell the difference between a duck and a Goose, geese have narrow beaks and long necks, so clearly these are geese that are painted on this vase, and do you really think that me of all people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a Goose and a duck?"

"And what about the rest of the vase? All I see painted on there is a bunch of circles."

"Those are not just circles, they are the missing pieces of a puzzle that is going to help me pinpoint exactly when the Goose is going to embark on its next pilgrimage."

"You've said that before about items that you've spent millions of dollars acquiring, while we continue to live in this small house."

"Could you not think about yourself just for once please! All of these pieces that I've acquired are pieces of a puzzle and this vase is the final piece of that puzzle. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get this into the church vault and begin the work of deciphering it."

Laura knew that there was every possibility they weren't going to see John again for days, and she was honestly fine with that. He would work for days at the church without sleeping believing that he was at last going to unlock the truth about the Goose and would return home deeply depressed having failed to do so. At such times Laura pitied her husband. All of this business about this Goose being some kind of a god was complete nonsense as far as she was concerned but it was John's whole life and he was destined to be continually crushed by his delusion that he couldn't disabuse himself of. His mental health concerned her, that and his inability to take proper care of himself because of his all consuming obsession with the Goose were her reasons for not leaving him.

On this occasion Laura was wrong about how her husband's deeper than usual immersion in all things the Goose would end. Locked up in the basement of the church, John spent tireless hours analyzing the symbols on the vase and combining the data he was able to extract from it with data that he had extracted from previous artifacts, he then input his results into an algorithm he'd developed and at the end of it all he had what he believed to be the answer that he had spent his entire life searching for. His excitement was such that when he returned home at three o'clock in the morning eight days after leaving home to analyze the vase at the church the first thing he did was to wake up Laura and share the excellent news with her.

"Honey! Honey! It's here!"

"What's here?" Laura asked groggily.

"The Goose, it's here."

"Where?"

"I don't know, but it's here, the next pilgrimage is about to begin."

"What are you talking about?"

"Roughly every thousand years the Goose chooses a human being to go on a pilgrimage with the blue egg, and the time for the pilgrimage is now!"

John was unshaven, his hair was a mess, his eyes were popping out of his head, his mouth was agape and he was breathing heavily. Laura had never seen him looking as crazy as he did when he was sitting over her on the bed just then.

"So where is this Goose?" She asked him, thinking that now wasn't the right time to tell him that what he was saying sounded completely bonkers.

"I don't know, but from what we've discovered the pilgrimage usually lasts no longer than six months, so we have to get to work right now finding out where it is."

"Just how are you going to find this thing?"

"I haven't figured that out yet, but for the next six months the church's every resource is going to be devoted to finding the Goose."

After sleeping for four hours John returned to the church. He compiled a newsletter informing all of the church members of the momentous news. The newsletter was posted on the church's website and within minutes they received responses from their members who were ecstatic about the news and sent in all sorts of questions that John couldn't begin to answer because his mind was solely focused on finding the Goose. The newsletter precipitated a flood of donations to fund the search for the Goose, for which John could not have been more grateful. In the newsletter the church's members were asked to lend their efforts to the search for the Goose and were provided with a list of things to look for that would help them identify the Goose, item number one being that they should be on the lookout for a Goose being accompanied by a person with whom it appeared to have a close relationship.

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John was aware of the skepticism with which his religion was regarded and the ridicule they received but none of it had ever bothered him because the discoveries that they were always making validated the truth of their beliefs. He had never done any interviews before because he hadn't needed to, the growth of the church had been more than strong enough. In his search for the Goose, however, John couldn't afford not to avail himself of any opportunities that were open to him to get the word out. Every week he received new requests for interviews and decided that he would agree to do an interview with a national broadcaster. Two weeks earlier he'd received a request for an interview from Jeff Greenblatt, an executive producer for 60 Minutes, that he decided to accept. Laura wasn't thrilled with the news when John informed her of his plans to do a national TV interview on a morning news show.

"It's just that some of your ideas and beliefs are kind of kooky," she said to John one night during dinner.

"There's nothing kooky about any of our beliefs, we have evidence, rock solid evidence that we've made available for public consumption and scrutiny, which is something that cannot be said for any other religion."

"Other religions don't worship a Goose."

"A Goose that kings and emperors and pharaohs have bowed down to, that's thousands of years old."

"According to pictures."

"Pictures that we have found in ruins all over the world dating from times when long distance ocean travel wasn't a reality yet; the only way that could happen is if the Goose was real."

"That doesn't make you sound any less crazy when you start talking about this Goose being some kind of god that could use its egg to destroy the world if it wanted."

"You think this is all crazy? How long have you thought this?"

"I've always been open with you about how I feel about all of this."

"Is this because you're a Christian?"

"My faith is very important to me and yes, it's a major part of why I have a problem with what you do."

"Do you know how many death threats we get from Christian fanatics? Because they know that our organization has the power to debunk everything that they've been pushing for thousands of years, to render them completely powerless, because we know the truth, and unlike them we have proof."

"My suggestion is that you don't say anything like that during your interview."

The Church of the Golden Goose was universally disrespected in the religious world; the faith was more lowly regarded than Scientology and Mormonism. And yet those religions weren't on the receiving end of the sort of enmity that The Church of the Golden Goose received, particularly from the Christian community. Every day televangelists denounced The Church of the Golden Goose in their sermons as a bunch of confused heretics, Christian fanatics picketed the church's parishes and harassed their members, and there was an ongoing effort by congressional conservatives to strip the church of its religious status. John recognized these actions as proof how big a threat they were seen as. John was of no doubt that his critics were embarking on their own searches for the Goose to prevent him from finding it and using its knowledge to cut them off at the knees. It was imperative that The Church of the Golden Goose's search for the Goose began swiftly and was conducted relentlessly, and there was nothing that anybody could say to him that would make him change his mind about that. He was given the option of flying to New York for the interview or them doing the interview in Waco at the church's main chapter. John decided to have them come to him. He was asked if his wife would be doing the interview with him and without asking her if she was interested John answered no.

John's discomfort in the moments before the interview was palpable. He was sitting in a chair up on the altar while the crew members were working all around him getting set up, while sitting across from him Gayle Vigland, the 60 Minutes correspondent who was going to be doing the interview, was busy making revisions to her notes. Being the centre of attention didn't agree with John.

"Relax, you're going to do fine," Gayle looked up from her notes and said to him, sensing his nervousness.

The interview was increasingly feeling like a terrible idea. John's palms were sweating and his heart was pounding. He remained in a state of extreme anxiety until the crew members ceased working and Gayle removed her glasses and handed them and her pen over to her assistant. Once the interview began however, John turned ice cold and was ready for whatever questions Gayle might throw at him.

"So, Professor Lafferty, you've never agreed to sit down for an interview before; why now?"

"I've agreed to do this interview because the Goose has reappeared and may very well have already embarked on the pilgrimage, it is imperative that we find the Goose so that we can assist it in whatever way possible, because if the pilgrimage is not completed successfully it could mean the end for us all."

"Just what is this Goose?"

"The Goose appears to be some sort of deity that has been tasked with the responsibility of finding a human to undertake the pilgrimage and keep the blue egg safe until the conclusion of the pilgrimage."

"And what is this egg?"

"That we don't know, all we know is that for thousands of years the Goose has lived its life in the service of this egg."

"What was it that caused you to develop this fascination with this Goose?"

"As an archaeologist I have been on a number of digs and all over the world I have found references to this Goose in different histories of civilizations spanning thousands of years."

"And what about what you discovered has led you to believe that this Goose possesses some kind of divine power."

"The Goose and the egg were feared, they were feared by individuals that had no reason to fear anybody, I'm talking about kings and emperors, people that could send any number of people to their deaths with just a click of their fingers."

"Why did they fear the Goose and the egg?"

"I don't have an exact answer to that question, but what seems to be the case is that they came into contact with the Goose and recognized the enormous power it possesses."

"I'm sure you're aware of some of the things that are said about your church, what do you say to people who say that what you are offering people is utter nonsense."

"'I have proof.' That's what I say to them. Everything that we believe is based on discoveries that are freely available for people to look at and make up their own minds about."

"And yet they still ridicule you."

"They ridicule us because they are afraid of us, because we have provided and continue to search for and unearth real answers, which is not what they are in the business of."

"But professor, you have to admit that the idea that the fate of the world lies in the hands, or I guess, the wings of a Goose, is a little hard to believe."

"Look, this isn't some story that I've pulled out of thin air, remember that first and foremost I am an archaeologist, a scientist, I'm not interested in anything that cannot be substantiated and the evidence that we have uncovered is overwhelming, when I talk to our members I don't give sermons, I give lectures, I'm not offering anybody salvation, all I am offering them is the unvarnished truth about what we've discovered, and in the event that that truth is harsh and discomforting we make no effort to conceal or soften it."

"If you are so adamant about being a scientist first then why have you created a religion, religion being in conflict with science?"

"Because the only explanation for this Goose being as feared as it was is that it possesses some kind of power that can only be described as divine."

"In addition to the religious community there are large numbers of members of the scientific community that take issue with you and what you are espousing."

"Every artifact that we have uncovered has been carbon dated and shown to be from the historical period that we believe it to be from, and the stories that reference the Goose have been checked by historical and cultural experts that have attested to their authenticity, so any criticism that is directed at us regarding the scientific foundation of our claims is in fact itself without foundation."

"How strong is your belief?"

"My belief is unwavering, which is why we are offering a reward of $10 million to anybody who provides us with information that leads us to the Goose."

"What is it that you're hoping to get from this Goose?"

"Answers."

"Answers to what?"

"To everything."

"And you're sure you'll get them?"

"I know I'll get them."

"Dr Lafferty, thank you for your time."

"Thank you."

John Lafferty went to sleep that night and had a strange dream. Before him in his dream appeared a dark amorphous figure with bright yellow eyes. The figure had a message for him: that he was to treasure what was soon to be gifted to him, soon after which the figure that was speaking to him would present itself before him. John woke up from his dream with sharp stomach pains and dashed into the bathroom. He sat down on the toilet and excreted something large and painful that made a loud crack when it hit the bowl. John got off the toilet and looked in it to find a large black egg that he removed from the toilet and dried off with a towel. He held it up to the light and the egg shone with a red glow. Having been woken up by the loud sound the egg had made when it hit the toilet, Laura got out of bed and went into the bathroom. She saw her husband holding the egg. He explained to her where the egg had come from and she couldn't believe it. For years she had thought he was crazy and it turned out he had been right all along.