AS THE WORM TURNS
Florida weather is a fickle taskmistress.
One day it is as hot and sweltering as a Turkish bath house. Humidity so
unspeakably high that you feel as if you are wading through liquid plasma,
a thin layer of protective sweat sprouting out of your forhead like the
morning dew.
The next its rainy, drizzly, with a wickedly sharp wind.
Today was neither. The sun had poked up its reluctant head like the
tentative glance of a guilty lover after a night of infidelities, to see if
their loved one was still asleep.
I have long lost my love for you, you evil orb. Come and go as you wish.
Since it was so downright pleasant, I thought I would take a little walk.
There was a light breeze whipping through the trees, and it actually felt a
little bit like fall for the first time. Which never fails to excitE.
The summer never fails to depress me. Its too bright. Too hot. Nature
as the obnoxiously chipper co worker whose very existence seems to be
blessed solely to rebuke your own life by sharp contrast.
Winter is the exact opposite. Understated, muted.
The great beyond humbled, cuckolded at long last, eating a ripe slice of
crow, a big blob of birdshIt on the almighty's once spotlessly starched
collar.
Carefully stepping over random cracks in the sidewalks, my mental revelries
are cut short by a curiously long trail of translucent goop snaking along
the sidewalk. Obviously the trail of some slimy creature of some sort.
I follow the path until my eyes land upon the longest earthworm I have ever
seen, who had stranded itself on the concrete.
This phenomenon has always intrigued me. Whales beach themselves, sure,
but they are mammals, and intelligent ones at that. Smarts inevitably lead
to contemplation, which can often lead down the slippery slope of
depression, of paths not taken, or navel gazing introverted nightmares of
doubt and dispair.
Why shouldn't they too take their own lives? Why do we think we are so
grand that only we can entertain the option of ending our own existence?
But invertebrates?
They are blessed with the purity of unadulterated instinct. Unable to
contemplate morality, their every action is sanctified, innocent.
Unpolluted by such obstacles as purpose or meaning.
Why would such a creature dig itself out of its comfortable habitat and
fling itself onto an inhospitable terrain?
But it happens. Little dehydrated coils of wormflesh, sprinkled with
hungry ants litter every sidewalk.
Its just not right. It makes me lose faith in the simpler things, which
spirals out into large cocentric doubts about the grand schemes of things. Sure, not a sparrow falls that the good lord doesnt see.
But why doesnt the celestial peeping tom not catch the little fucker before
it plummets to its doom?
The sadistic prick.
Its the least i can do to help out.
To balance out cosmic inequities.
First I have to see if its alive. The tail end seems mashed flat, already
seeping into the rough grooves of the concrete in a gelatinous heap. The
texture slowly rises up along its length, like the slow slope of a mountain
range on a topographical map until I see some small movements near the tip.
And then I notice its head.
Most earthworms are seemingly uniform on both ends. Perfectly rounded,
symetrical. Natures boneless palindrome.
But not this creature. One end was normal everyday earthworm.
The other end was wedge shaped, like an off brown crescent moon.
A hammerhead worm.
This startles me.
I begin to feel a little uneasy, like that crucial moment in every horror
film where the protagonists suddenly realize the standards and practices of
everyday life have crossed over into the surreal and terrible.
What is this thing? It has a freakin shovel head.
Utilitarian and practical, to be sure, for some sort of earth wallowing
thing. Certainly not the norm, however.
How long have these things been like this? Here I have been wandering
about my own business, all my life, while strange and hitherto unknown
monsters have been burrowing about under my innocent feet.
Sure, there are strange subterranean monsters like the star faced mole, amphisbaenia and the like, but a shovel faced hammerhead worm?
Why haven't I seen pictures of these things? Unearthed them accidentally
while gardening?
Applied one, slack jawed, eyes bulging in disbelief onto a fishing hook?
Seen one in a magazine article or National Geographic styled program?
Or was this some sort of mutation, that the earth spit out like a wad of
bone meal from a McDonalds value meal?
Was I now about to do the ecosystem some disservice by sticking it back
into the ground?
Ants were already busying themselves around its inoperable hindquarters.
Should I not let them follow their way up its body to finish off its Barnum
and Bailey freakshow head?
No, that wouldnt be right. Why should I judge this poor fellow because of
the shape of his head? He can't help it.
By his trail he has gone through a rather long journey, and was only a few
inches from his destination. He risked it all, and it would be a shame to
see him fail because his own body failed him. A little gorilla glue to
Icarus' wings wouldn't have hurt anyone.
Save mythology.
So a rescue mission must be undertaken. With the tip of my shoe I slowly began to nudge him.....only to have his body slip apart like so much chewed gum.
Oh my. I am glad I hadnt eaten breakfast.
And lunch wasnt looking to good either.
Ok. Worms have about eight hearts. Or was that cows, with their
stomachs?
I should have paid more attention when I had to dissect one in school.
But Cherie Thompson had to be wearing a skirt that day, and the only thing
I was studying was the creamy, flawless milky whiteness of her thighs, and
the smooth tapering of her ankles. It was truly a sight. As if sculpted
marble met molasses.
I fantasized about the power to stop time, save me and her, and to
consolidate the mass of our physical bodies outside the flow of feverish
space time, we had to cling to each other, like two cats with their tails
tied together flung over a laundry line. The back of my head would be
cloaked by the front of her catholic school skirt, like the flap that
covered the viewfinder of an old camera on school picture day.
I wanted her liquid essence on my mouth as thoroughly as fruit preserves
would the face of the fat boy at a pie eating contest....
There I stood, foot aloft, covered in worm slime, while pitching more tent
than a boy scout jamboree.
Tumescence notwithstanding, I had a job to do.
I quickly grabbed a nearby twig and slowly began to lift what was left of
the worm's upper quarters from the pavement, as delicately as I would have
cleft the aforementioned Miss Thompson's moist sex with the tip of my
tongue.
Dangling weakly from the twig, I set him down in a particularly earthy
patch directly on the side of the concrete. His body hung motionless on a
blade of grass, and then his crescent head began to twitch, and he fell to
the soft dirt below.
You will be ok now, little guy. The length of you still smeared
distracted the ants where you left it.
I began walking back to work with warmth in my heart, lead in my pants, and
a thin line of slime on my shoe.
Which at the end of the day, what more could one ask for?
One day it is as hot and sweltering as a Turkish bath house. Humidity so
unspeakably high that you feel as if you are wading through liquid plasma,
a thin layer of protective sweat sprouting out of your forhead like the
morning dew.
The next its rainy, drizzly, with a wickedly sharp wind.
Today was neither. The sun had poked up its reluctant head like the
tentative glance of a guilty lover after a night of infidelities, to see if
their loved one was still asleep.
I have long lost my love for you, you evil orb. Come and go as you wish.
Since it was so downright pleasant, I thought I would take a little walk.
There was a light breeze whipping through the trees, and it actually felt a
little bit like fall for the first time. Which never fails to excitE.
The summer never fails to depress me. Its too bright. Too hot. Nature
as the obnoxiously chipper co worker whose very existence seems to be
blessed solely to rebuke your own life by sharp contrast.
Winter is the exact opposite. Understated, muted.
The great beyond humbled, cuckolded at long last, eating a ripe slice of
crow, a big blob of birdshIt on the almighty's once spotlessly starched
collar.
Carefully stepping over random cracks in the sidewalks, my mental revelries
are cut short by a curiously long trail of translucent goop snaking along
the sidewalk. Obviously the trail of some slimy creature of some sort.
I follow the path until my eyes land upon the longest earthworm I have ever
seen, who had stranded itself on the concrete.
This phenomenon has always intrigued me. Whales beach themselves, sure,
but they are mammals, and intelligent ones at that. Smarts inevitably lead
to contemplation, which can often lead down the slippery slope of
depression, of paths not taken, or navel gazing introverted nightmares of
doubt and dispair.
Why shouldn't they too take their own lives? Why do we think we are so
grand that only we can entertain the option of ending our own existence?
But invertebrates?
They are blessed with the purity of unadulterated instinct. Unable to
contemplate morality, their every action is sanctified, innocent.
Unpolluted by such obstacles as purpose or meaning.
Why would such a creature dig itself out of its comfortable habitat and
fling itself onto an inhospitable terrain?
But it happens. Little dehydrated coils of wormflesh, sprinkled with
hungry ants litter every sidewalk.
Its just not right. It makes me lose faith in the simpler things, which
spirals out into large cocentric doubts about the grand schemes of things. Sure, not a sparrow falls that the good lord doesnt see.
But why doesnt the celestial peeping tom not catch the little fucker before
it plummets to its doom?
The sadistic prick.
Its the least i can do to help out.
To balance out cosmic inequities.
First I have to see if its alive. The tail end seems mashed flat, already
seeping into the rough grooves of the concrete in a gelatinous heap. The
texture slowly rises up along its length, like the slow slope of a mountain
range on a topographical map until I see some small movements near the tip.
And then I notice its head.
Most earthworms are seemingly uniform on both ends. Perfectly rounded,
symetrical. Natures boneless palindrome.
But not this creature. One end was normal everyday earthworm.
The other end was wedge shaped, like an off brown crescent moon.
A hammerhead worm.
This startles me.
I begin to feel a little uneasy, like that crucial moment in every horror
film where the protagonists suddenly realize the standards and practices of
everyday life have crossed over into the surreal and terrible.
What is this thing? It has a freakin shovel head.
Utilitarian and practical, to be sure, for some sort of earth wallowing
thing. Certainly not the norm, however.
How long have these things been like this? Here I have been wandering
about my own business, all my life, while strange and hitherto unknown
monsters have been burrowing about under my innocent feet.
Sure, there are strange subterranean monsters like the star faced mole, amphisbaenia and the like, but a shovel faced hammerhead worm?
Why haven't I seen pictures of these things? Unearthed them accidentally
while gardening?
Applied one, slack jawed, eyes bulging in disbelief onto a fishing hook?
Seen one in a magazine article or National Geographic styled program?
Or was this some sort of mutation, that the earth spit out like a wad of
bone meal from a McDonalds value meal?
Was I now about to do the ecosystem some disservice by sticking it back
into the ground?
Ants were already busying themselves around its inoperable hindquarters.
Should I not let them follow their way up its body to finish off its Barnum
and Bailey freakshow head?
No, that wouldnt be right. Why should I judge this poor fellow because of
the shape of his head? He can't help it.
By his trail he has gone through a rather long journey, and was only a few
inches from his destination. He risked it all, and it would be a shame to
see him fail because his own body failed him. A little gorilla glue to
Icarus' wings wouldn't have hurt anyone.
Save mythology.
So a rescue mission must be undertaken. With the tip of my shoe I slowly began to nudge him.....only to have his body slip apart like so much chewed gum.
Oh my. I am glad I hadnt eaten breakfast.
And lunch wasnt looking to good either.
Ok. Worms have about eight hearts. Or was that cows, with their
stomachs?
I should have paid more attention when I had to dissect one in school.
But Cherie Thompson had to be wearing a skirt that day, and the only thing
I was studying was the creamy, flawless milky whiteness of her thighs, and
the smooth tapering of her ankles. It was truly a sight. As if sculpted
marble met molasses.
I fantasized about the power to stop time, save me and her, and to
consolidate the mass of our physical bodies outside the flow of feverish
space time, we had to cling to each other, like two cats with their tails
tied together flung over a laundry line. The back of my head would be
cloaked by the front of her catholic school skirt, like the flap that
covered the viewfinder of an old camera on school picture day.
I wanted her liquid essence on my mouth as thoroughly as fruit preserves
would the face of the fat boy at a pie eating contest....
There I stood, foot aloft, covered in worm slime, while pitching more tent
than a boy scout jamboree.
Tumescence notwithstanding, I had a job to do.
I quickly grabbed a nearby twig and slowly began to lift what was left of
the worm's upper quarters from the pavement, as delicately as I would have
cleft the aforementioned Miss Thompson's moist sex with the tip of my
tongue.
Dangling weakly from the twig, I set him down in a particularly earthy
patch directly on the side of the concrete. His body hung motionless on a
blade of grass, and then his crescent head began to twitch, and he fell to
the soft dirt below.
You will be ok now, little guy. The length of you still smeared
distracted the ants where you left it.
I began walking back to work with warmth in my heart, lead in my pants, and
a thin line of slime on my shoe.
Which at the end of the day, what more could one ask for?