First Came the Egg

It all began with an egg: bright and satiny and wondrous fair to behold.  There was something sublime in the stark purity of its rounded form.  One could easily imagine that it might in fact be The Shape: the precisely average shape, that is to say, distilled from the sum total of all the flawed, unruly shapes in the universe.  The swell of the broader end lent it heft and an aura of warmth, intimating the sacred charge which lay dormant within.

This superlative egg was spawned by a creature well nigh indistinguishable, in truth, from a chicken; however, the lack of one or two infinitesimal genetic mutations prevented it from officially qualifying.  Thus, its offspring was destined to become the First Chicken.

This offspring was a magnificent rooster, and once he had cracked the shell of the egg and won his way free, he looked around the world and perceived that it was made in his likeness.

The foxes, he saw, had painted their fur the same vivid amber as his own feather mantle, as a boast that they were akin to him in cleverness.

The snakes and the crocodiles had donned scales on their bodies in imitation of his armored legs in order to show that they, too, were fierce and dangerous and always ready for battle.

The horses strove to hold their heads as high on their long, arched necks as he did his, in order to project grace and nobility.  But much to their chagrin, they could never quite properly master the theatrical head-bob which punctuated his every step, and so they gave it up. 

The palm trees, ashamed of their scrawniness, adorned themselves with luxuriant emerald plumes modeled after his tail feathers in order to camouflage the fault.

The peacocks in turn would not be content merely to resemble him, but struggled so anxiously to actually outdo the rooster in beauty that the other animals laughed at their vanity.  Some of them donated spare eyes to affix to the peacocks’ feathers, that they might be pacified by the guarantee of an admiring gaze at all times.

And as for the luscious plumpness of his form, every animal on land, sea, and air—whether relentlessly like the cows or frantically like the hummingbirds—endeavored to consume as much nourishment as it could, in an effort to make its own breast and belly swell similarly. 

As if these innumerable imitators and their desperate antics were not proof enough, the rooster knew from the moment of his birth that he was King by the simple fact of the scarlet crown which graced his head.  It was so integral to his identity as to have been designated a physical part of him.

He knew, too, what his purpose on earth was.  He was to crow long and loud till he succeeded in rousing all the other animals from their stupor and apathy and alerting them to the glorious possibilities of each day.  He was to inspire his humble subjects to bold action.

Thus was Hubris born, strutting and gaudy to behold and more vulnerable than he knew—and from his loins proceeded all meaningful acts of creation in the universe.