Art reached for the glasses on the cardboard box that acted as his bedside table. Then he got up and started searching for some clothes to the sound of the short but insistent bursts from his doorbell.

He finally found his pants on a chair and donned them. "Coming!"

The bell's mono-tone melody gained percussive support from someone rapping their knuckles on the door.

A glance at his wristwatch revealed that it was shortly after 8 a.m. "One moment!" Yesterday's t-shirt and sweater were in a heap on the floor, and he started to put them on.

"Mr. Sharpe." The vocals completed the Saturday wakeup performance, adding to the apparent urgency of the acoustic mayhem. It was a woman's voice.

No time for socks.

He opened the door. "Yes?"

Mrs. Knooch stood before him. "Good morning." Her wide-open eyes scrutinized Art from her wigged turtle head. Her stare made him feel uncomfortably aware that he hadn't washed yet.

"Mrs. Knooch... good morning?" He couldn't help but formulate his greeting as a question.

She nodded. "Come, you've got to see this." Without waiting for his reply, she turned away and made for the stairs leading down.

For a moment, he just stared at her receding back.

What the hell?

Then he realized that she had actually ordered him to follow. He shrugged and went after her. The cold of the tiles greeted his bare feet, and a fragrance of mothballs tickled his nose.

The woman had a head start on him, and he hurried to keep up, so they nearly collided as she suddenly came to a stop some steps above ground level.

"Look at this!" she said.

He looked and failed to recognize anything of interest. The brown cork pinboard was unchanged, the walls a palish green just like yesterday, and the two doors leading off the landing were closed.

Then he noted her arm pointing at the floor, her accusatory finger trembling slightly.

There, on the gray tiles, was an egg. Its shell was broken, sitting in a puddle of egg white. A smear of yellow yolk lent the picture some color.

"Er..." Art was racking his mind for something appropriate to say.

"I have no idea who did that..." The pitch of Mrs. Knooch's voice rose in a wail. "... or why they didn't clean it up." At the word 'they', the hand that had pinpointed the offensive egg went upwards, gesturing towards the apartments above them.

"Yeah..." The image before him made Art realize that he was hungry. But he was sure Mrs. Knooch didn't want to hear about that. "I don't know either."

She shook her head. "I don't say nothing." Her voice was now hushed, and she fixed him with a watery-blue-eyed stare, "but Mr. Pathan from the third floor... he does a lot of cooking. Foreign cooking, if you know what I mean."

Art shrugged, wondering if Knooch suffered from bouts of xenophobia. Rashid Pathan, the taxi driving Pakistani, didn't strike him as a person who would drop eggs and leave them, he seemed like a way too friendly, caring, and cheerful person.

"Maybe someone lost it, and they didn't realize it." Not wanting to dwell on her suspicions, he tried to move the conversation back to the yolky matter at hand. "Whatever. I'll clean that up. I'll have to sweep the stairs anyway."

"Ah." Mrs. Knooch nodded slowly, the corners of her mouth inching upwards.

Should he tell her that he wanted to have breakfast before tackling his mission? He decided against it. "I'll do it right away."

"Good!" She nodded more vigorously. Then she hesitated and fixed him from a tilted head. "Will you manage?"

It took him a moment to realize that she seemed to doubt his abilities to remove the mess. In fact, the idea of him cleaning up that egg seemed bizarre, but, for God's sake, he had a PhD in mathematics. He bit back a retort and nodded.

"Are you sure?" She briefly touched his forearm. "Because, you're... a man. I mean... my late husband, Rudolf, he was so useless with a broom." Her gaze went towards the windows, and a small smile added some more wrinkles to her face.

Suddenly, the turtle looked old to Art, tired, and sad even for the tiny smile. His anger was gone, and he felt tempted to put an arm around her stooped shoulders, but he was afraid that this might make her jump with fright. "I'll be fine," he said instead. "And thanks for the offer."

She turned her pale blue, watery eyes back towards him. "Excellent..." She nodded and looked him up and down. "Yes, you men today... you're different, I guess. They don't make them like my Rudolf anymore." She nodded, then she pressed her lips together. "Excellent. Have a fine day." The woman turned and started to ascend the stairs.

"Same to you." Following her slow ascent in uncomfortable silence, his eyes on her stooped back, he felt ashamed for the irritation that he had felt at her only minutes ago and hoped that she hadn't noticed.

When they reached the second floor, she gave him a curt nod and disappeared into her apartment.

Art hesitated, looking at her now closed door. He should have said something to soothe the pain he had felt emanating from her, the pain for a life and a love lost in the past.

But what words could suffice?

Back in his apartment, Art closed the door behind him. He let go of his breath slowly, trying to relax and exhale the tension he felt.

He scratched his itchy beard, feeling void, tired and drained, like an empty bucket.

Bucket. That was a good thought. He headed for the kitchen.

A bucket alone would not do.

Some minutes later, freshly socked, shod, and equipped with a dustpan, a brush, and the bucket sloshing with suds and a floating cleaning cloth, he approached the egg once more. 

He had hoped for some miraculous egg-disappearance, for a repentant egg dropper making amends. But the thing still sat there—it hadn't moved.

Art was a profound believer in specialization. Specialization was the foundation of civilization and progress. Hone your skills to one specific task, and you'll excel. His talents were in four-dimensional symmetries, and he was good at that topic. On the other end, though, he lacked housekeeping skills, so he had always hired someone to do the cleaning. Someone who was good at that. This division of labor made the world a better place, a cleaner one with a superior understanding of four-dimensional symmetries. 

It wasn't efficient for a mathematician to dabble in the arts of housekeeping, nor for a housekeeper to do higher maths.

That was one of the few things where he and his ex-wife had shared solid common ground during their four years of marriage: Hire someone to keep your home tidy and orderly.

That hadn't saved the marriage, though.

Leaving his comfort zone behind him, he set the bucket on the ground beside the egg.

He had given the procedure some thought. First, the bulk of the egg had to be removed. That's where the dustpan and brush came in. 

Placing the dustpan on the floor, he used the brush to wipe the egg onto it. This worked—kind of—resulting in a successful transfer of most of the shell and goo onto the little shovel, but it left an ugly smear on the floor.

That was when he heard footfalls from the stairs above him.

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A/N: Dedicated to Soarindash101 for advice on Pakistani names