Useless Thing

I am ankle-deep in eggs. Not metaphorical eggs. Not emotional eggs. Actual fried eggs. Slippery, greasy, yolk-slicked casualties clinging to skirting boards like they’ve chosen this house as their final resting place. The smell is a defeated breakfast — sulphur, oil, regret. Somewhere under the sofa, a rogue egg hisses quietly, still warm, still judging me. Mat stands in the doorway holding a tray of Jasmine green tea. “How,” he says carefully, “have you managed this?” “I don’t know,” I say. “There seems to have been… an egg-splosion.” The egg joke doesn't land. It falls directly into the mess with a splat. He squints at the ceiling, where a splatter has achieved surprising altitude. “Were you cooking or summoning something?” “Don’t start.” I grab my coat. This requires industrial intervention. I need cloths. Bleach. Maybe holy water. Definitely gloves thick enough to survive a small eggcalypse, possibly a hazmat suit and a minor eggocism. The corner shop hums like a tired aquarium — flickering strip lights, the soft wheeze of the fridge, the scent of mixed spices and old cardboard. Raj stands behind the counter, arms folded like a nightclub bouncer guarding discounted milk and emotionally bruised bananas. Raj, according to local legend, was once a London gangster. No one knows what he did exactly — only that men allegedly crossed roads to avoid him and that someone once saw him headbutt a vending machine into submission. Now he runs a shop, has a soft white British wife who looks like she could be called Sharon, and approximately fourteen children who materialise in rotating shifts to buy Haribo, argue loudly, and abandon bicycles directly in the doorway. He still scares me slightly. In the way an egg hissing in the pan scares you — one minute it’s peacefully minding its own business, the next it’s spitting hot oil like you’ve insulted its mother. I place my cleaning haul on the counter. Sponges. Cloths. Bleach. Paper towels. A desperate-looking air freshener that promises Mountain Rain but smells suspiciously like unresolved optimism. “Big clean,” Raj observes. “You don’t want to know,” I say. He narrows his eyes. “Eggs?” I freeze. “How did you—” He taps his temple. “I know things.” He rings up the items, then pauses. A strange light enters his face — the expression of a man remembering an ancient prophecy or a really good discount. “Wait,” he says. “You also need this.” He ducks below the counter and slides open a drawer I have never seen before. It groans with centuries of neglect. Inside sits a pile of… things. Trinkets. Objects that look like they’ve survived several lifetimes and at least one mild haunting, possibly a failed Ebay career. He rummages and produces a small brass object shaped like a bell, except the clapper is missing and the surface is etched with tiny symbols that might be letters or might just be decorative lies. I stare at it. “What is that?” He shrugs. “Useless thing.” “That’s not reassuring.” “Very useless,” he confirms proudly. “Does nothing. Makes no sound. Cannot clean egg.” “Well, then I absolutely don’t need it.” He slides it towards me anyway. “Everyone needs useless thing.” I laugh nervously. “Raj, I’m covered in yolk trauma. I’m not emotionally available for cursed ornaments.” He leans closer, voice dropping. “Rumour is, I take this off a man who owed me money in Hackney.” My soul briefly exits my body and considers witness protection. “Is that true?” He smiles. “Who knows.” I glance back at the drawer. The useless objects stare at me like a support group for abandoned dreams. Mat would hate this thing. He doesn’t like clutter. He once threw away a mysterious cable that turned out to power three essential devices and possibly the microwave. “I really don’t need it,” I say again, weakly. Raj tilts his head. “Five pounds.” “For a useless thing?” “Inflation.” I sigh and pay, because I am fragile, curious, and slightly afraid of Raj. At home, the egg massacre awaits. The kitchen looks like a crime scene where breakfast fought back. Mat watches me place the strange bell on the counter. “What’s that?” “A useless thing.” “Why do we own it?” “I was bullied by a former gangster.” He nods. “Fair.” We clean. We scrape yolk off tiles. We wage war against the lingering smell. The eggs are stubborn — clingy, sentimental, refusing to let go of their moment in the sun. One egg appears to have travelled emotionally rather than physically and is now haunting a light switch for reasons no one understands. At some point I stop scrubbing and just sit on the floor, back against the cupboard, exhausted, smelling faintly of omelette despair. “This is ridiculous,” I mutter. “It’s never going to feel clean.” Mat sits beside me. “It’s just eggs.” “It’s not just eggs.” He doesn’t argue. He never does when things get emotional. My eyes drift to the useless thing on the counter, catching the light. I pick it up without thinking. It’s warm in my hand, oddly grounding, its weight comforting in a way I didn’t expect. I turn it slowly, tracing the etched symbols with my thumb. It doesn’t fix anything. The eggs are still there. The smell still lingers. Life remains imperfect. But something about holding it steadies me. A reminder that not everything has to be functional. Not everything has to solve the mess. Some things just exist to anchor you in the middle of chaos — small, solid, quietly ridiculous. Mat watches me. “Feeling better?” “…Annoyingly, yes.” He smiles. Later, when the house finally smells less like defeat and more like vaguely optimistic soap, I place the useless thing on the windowsill. It catches the afternoon light like a tiny, mute sun — heroic in its absolute refusal to contribute anything practical whatsoever. I half expect it to jingle. Or vibrate. Or open a portal to Hackney. Nothing happens. Naturally. Mat eyes it suspiciously while rinsing a sponge that has lived a full and eggstausting life today. “If that thing starts whispering Latin, I’m moving out.” “I’ll put it in a shoebox and give it a sponge bath once a month.” I laugh. He squints. “That’s how cursed objects get stronger.” We stand there for a moment, surveying the aftermath. The floor is clean but faintly traumatised. One rebellious smear of yolk has survived under the radiator like a tiny act of civil disobedience. The air freshener continues to insist it is Mountain Rain, despite smelling more like Wet Optimism, with undertones of betrayal. I think about all the useless things I’ve kept over the years. The chipped mug that says World’s Best Mum that neither of us remembers buying and neither of us qualifies for. The drawer of mystery keys that could belong to anything or nothing or could open some magical portal. The jumper I can’t throw away because I once cried into it so thoroughly it feels emotionally responsible for me now. None of them solve anything. None of them fix the mess. But they witness it. I pick up the useless thing again. It sits in my palm like a small, loyal secret. Solid. Quiet. Entirely uninterested in productivity culture. It doesn’t optimise my life. It doesn’t sparkle. It doesn’t even ding. It just is. And somehow that steadies me more than bleach ever could. Mat nudges my shoulder. “You okay?” “Yeah,” I say. “I think I’ve bonded with a haunted paperweight.” “Proud of you.” I place it back on the sill, where it glows faintly in the thinning light — ridiculous and resolute, like a tiny nonsensical guardian. I imagine Raj back in his shop, guarding his drawer of misfit relics like a dragon hoarding deeply impractical treasure. I imagine Sharon calling him in for tea while several children argue about whose turn it is to lose a shoe, possibly at the same time. Even former gangsters, it turns out, understand the spiritual necessity of pointless things. The eggs are gone now. The catastrophe reduced to memory and a slightly suspicious bin bag. Tomorrow there will be another mess — another spill, another misunderstanding, another small emotional landslide disguised as a normal Tuesday. I won’t always have the right tools. I won’t always know how to clean it properly. Sometimes I’ll just stand in the middle of it, blinking, smelling faintly of fried regret, wondering how I got here and why it’s always eggs. But maybe I don’t need everything to be solvable. Maybe I just need something small and steady to hold onto while the chaos finishes being chaotic. Something useless. Something quietly faithful. Something that reminds me I am still here inside the mess — breathing, laughing, slightly unhinged, and absolutely alive. Even if it did cost me a fiver and may or may not have a criminal past.