It rained all night here in Omaha. So naturally I went for a long walk this morning, around 3 am. My feet got very wet on the Big Papio Trail, which rather mysteriously dead ends in a small meadow near the intersection of Maple and 120th, necessitating an extensive detour through squishy ankle-deep grass and mudholes.
The odd thing was the worms. They were out on the trail in regiments, veritable invasions of annelids. After I while, I stopped trying to avoid stepping on them, because that wouldn’t have been humanly possible unless my feet were about the size of the base of a bowling pin. Most of them seemed to be torpid, or already drowned, but some were having enthusiastic worm sex. I guess nothing says “orgy” like rising flood waters in your tunnel home. A few were huge, eight, nine inches or more, and big around as my pinkie. They weren’t screwing, but rather, moving with a purpose across the glistening concrete and the scattered bodies of their smaller similars.
Almost two hours after I set out I was back to the hotel with my thoughts in hand. There I showered, and worked on Tourbillon for an hour, but I have not been able to get the image of walking the worm carpet out of my mind. Slippery when wet, rolling slick, pink-to-gray in the scattered shadows of distant streetlights, they live in the Midwestern soil only to come out in orgiastic drownings.
Originally published at jlake.com. You can comment here or there.