I am waiting for the monsoon to reach Britain. Black overcasts the day. Clouds swell with cold. I can feel my bones, but not my skin. Each day is more sour than the last. Shame scatters amongst the potholes. Gravel blows into my shins. The sea is coming inland.
I was waiting for a bus last night. On the side of the pavement a worm was wriggling. Rain was pouring. This timid sinew desperately shriveled. Curling. Twisting. Writhing. It bent. Was consumed by a puddle. It was just me and this worm waiting for fate to arrive.
I couldn’t help but be fascinated. Not fascinated, morbid. The rain saturated me, so that I didn’t notice I was crying. Over a fucking worm. This thing, which didn’t even have eyes. Which couldn’t shed a tear itself. Which revels in the dirt. And as I watched it unable to penetrate the concrete, a great sinking gripped me. Why, hadn’t reached me yet. I just wept.
The worm was utterly indifferent to my feelings. It probably didn’t know the trouble it was in. Quite convinced that with enough worming it would find some dirt. Quite unable to comprehend the fact its lifeforce was paved over. Quite content splashing in its pool. But I knew that wasn’t true. As the rain got heavier, it was like that was its tears. Like it was making the whole sky pour out with its desperation. It was squirming.
I saw a wormless world. A place poured with concrete. Stone all the way through. Where are the worms meant to go? I wanted to put my hands down, pull out the soil down there. Muddy heart. A rickety pulmination. Somewhere, the earth must be alive. Attached to me were all the tremors of this worm. People cry over fish dying, over their fish dying, or maybe even a stranger’s tears. This was more than a stranger, this was a strange thing. An experience extraterrestrial. And we are divided so far apart, so that others are no more than ants in our lives.
It was like choking on every feeling I hadn’t known. But it is inside us, You more than me. Eyes red with dirt. There’s no promise in me that can heal this. Can you understand it? It really is broken. The rains are getting icier. Sharper. A blanket across everything. And I was thinking of you, and I was thinking of everyone, waiting for the warmth to hit. All I could do was take the worm to some grass, and wish people were worms too.