The Egg by Andy Weir - Artwork by Midjourney

The story is about the main character, who is referred to as "you" (in the second person), and God, who is "me" (in the first person). You, a 48-year-old man who dies in a car crash, meets God, the narrator, who says that you have been reincarnated many times before, and that you are next to be reincarnated as a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD. God then explains that you are, in fact, constantly reincarnated across time, and that all human beings who have ever lived and will ever live are incarnations of you. You remark about being Abraham Lincoln, Adolf Hitler, and Jesus. God adds that you were also once John Wilkes Booth, every Holocaust victim and every person who followed Jesus.

God explains that in fact there are other godlike beings elsewhere, and that you too will one day become a god. The entire universe was created as an egg for the main character (all of humanity), and once you have lived every human life ever, you will be born as a god. The reason God created the universe was for the main character, you, to understand this point: "Every time you victimized someone...you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you."