A Morning Worm

Did you hear that? I thought it was a thump. It sounded like a boom.

No one’s listening. When beaks dart at the soil we can feel the pressure. Hear the thoomps. I woke on the floor. I thought the thoomps were in my head. I lost the room with the clock. I don’t have a gauge on what day part it is. The others are on barscrews sucking straws. I’ve had enough rot for three mes. I’m not ready to push through dirt, squeeze and contract. I don’t think I should crawl at all. Thoomp. They hear it too. They’re looking up from their screws. A claw scratches the grass away, up on the surface, the sound feels like a knife peeling away an eyelid.

Worms! I shout. Wiggle! They laugh. Schrom falls off his barscrew. Flortch vomits pink, tries to keep some in. Vyrm is near the phonical, about to turn the disco up again. She’ll peck right to us, I scream. They suck their straws.

I roll my body to begin the waves, my bottom most muscles squeeze first and that begins the ripple. I squeeze my midsection, release, repeat. Then I am a bent thing, my middle off the ground, still facing up. I keep the momentum of the wave, hold it up with every part of me. My head throbs from the rot in my body. I should vomit. The ripple reaches the muscles near my face. I slide further towards the bar exit.

Something wet on the back of my head. I contract and squeeze to start another wave. I twist my head down, my mouth meets a puddle. I touch my tongue to it. Rot. I take a gulp, a second one, my body quivers. I suck all of it out of the puddle as my muscles bring the wave to the middle and my body is bent off the ground again. I wiggle my way to the exit.

The disco is blaring now, the thoomps are getting closer. This one is relentless. She’ll storm the room. I say goodbye to these barscrews, to this room. Goodbye, worms. The daylight breaks through the room and their purple and blue bodies all look nude and plain in the sun. The beak tip is bright, as it pierces through the soil crumbles. This is morning. This is every morning.