It seems that this virus has really wormed its way into everyones’ psyches! Since lockdown started, the nation’s collective dreamscape has been weird as shit. My friend has recurring nightmares about being hunted for sport by ecofascists in the Wyoming swamplands, for example, and my aunt keeps dreaming about kneading Chasten Buttigieg’s ass like its sourdough starter. I myself have been experiencing vivid dreams in which I go about my normal day exactly as usual, except I am an earthworm named Archibald.
I’m not sure what to make of this, except that maybe I am the next Kafka.
The dream always starts the same way.
I inch out of bed at 10am and look around for my dad before remembering that he abandoned our family fourteen years ago. Then it’s breakfast time. I crave the sustenance of the wet dark dirt beneath which my forefathers are buried. I feast upon a flowerpot; the nutrients please me. I see a bird and scream, but this is normal. I do not trust any creature that is beaked and habitually early. (This is why I dislike Pope Francis.)
When I am finished, I ask my mother if she still loves me as a worm. She says no and tries to step on me.
“I hate you, Archibald,” she screams as I slither away to safety.
I attend school online, where nobody cares that I’m a worm but everyone mocks my ophthalmologist-prescribed monocle.
As always, I contemplate cutting my own head off, but know that it would be useless; it would simply grow back again, as I’m now a self-regenerating tubular invertebrate.
After class I take a walk down the street. People point at me and call me ‘squelchy boi’ and ‘the slimed menace.’ I point little worm guns at them and they run away; then I spend the rest of the day doing activities characteristic of the annelid phylum, such as flopping in dirt and releasing mucus to facilitate sperm-exchange.
When I go to bed, I bring my anus next to my head and pretend it is my wife-worm.
