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 Mongolia that he'd been a part of as a student, where they had discovered hieroglyphs that told the story of Hong bringing the egg down to Earth for the first time. Two years later, while on a dig in Egypt, he would encounter hieroglyphs depicting the goose and the egg being kneeled down to by a pharaoh. Similar imagery and mythology was found in ancient Aztec and Mayan structures, in Greece, Crete, Japan, in African cave drawings, every ancient civilization seemed to have some connection to this mysterious goose and egg. The goose and the egg had to be real, there was no other explanation for them 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, 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. Her husband's pursuit of ever more discoveries about the goose monopolized all of his time and attention. Their two children hardly knew their father 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. This didn't mean she didn't experience exasperation. 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 a meter 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 what the difference is 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 that's painted on there is a bunch of circles."

"Those are not just circles, this is a lunar calendar, and what makes this vase so important is that it's 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 so far 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 they weren't going to see John again for days, and she was honestly fine with that. He would work for days without sleeping in his office at the church 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 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.