The Worm Mirages

a short story

I’m standing by the window and watching the spring coming in on the other side of the glass. Along with it, all sorts of things invading my tired life: Overly warmly dressed (all parents are overzealous to keep their offspring warm), children playing in the sandbox (I hope someone shovelled out all the dog shit accumulated over the winter), fat pigeons, dirty, cheeky gulls and rogue cats fighting for the contents of the garbage can; an elderly postman with a thick stack of bills and idiotic ads; my neighbour, trying to wake a semi-antique car of the incomprehensible brand from its winter hibernation. So many impressions rush into my mind that I can barely resist the urge to dive into them headfirst.

They do it so quickly and carelessly that in just a minute, this whole kaleidoscope floats away somewhere to the very back of my consciousness, and all that is left are earthworms.

They crawled out earlier, in the morning, when the sun had not yet begun to warm the ground, and then buried themselves again, leaving little piles of earth on the surface. As if hundreds of volcanic micro-eruptions had suddenly happened on all the lawns only to go out at once. These piles must have been damp and loose at first, but they quickly dried up, and the wind would soon carry away their volcanic ash.

I imagine the worms climbing out of the lush, damp earth and lounging in the last drops of thick morning mist as the sun pierces this watery veil with warm spears of rays, heating the ground dotted with piles of soil and their inhabitants. Vapours and warm air slowly rise from the heated earth, and I imagine how small mirages are forming down there, small enough to match the size of the worms. The earthworms lie among the mirages, like tourists from the underworld on the edge of the desert. I don’t know if they can see these mirages (if they can see at all), but I really wish they could and that the memory of the mirages would warm them all the infinitely long stretch of underground time until the next morning.

It must be great when all you have to do to see a mirage is crawl out of the ground in the morning.

I guess I envy them.

It’s so easy for them — mirages.