The Death of a Thousand Worms

Well, Lettucegate cut me up. But since then, a genuine tragedy has left me really bereft. And I've a heavy guilt over the thousands of little lives so senselessly lost.


 A near-mass suicide occurred in my garden after the 2-day 40 degree heatbash. As the days wore on, handfuls of innocent tiger worms scrambled southward in the worm farm in an attempt to escape the rising temperature blasting against the black plastic of their little 3 storey apartment. The only place cooler? The basement pool. That's right, readers. My lovely little hermaphroditic invertebrates had nowhere else to go but to the deep wells of their own liquified poo. 


While I lay about inside, cursing the lethal combination of new year's eve and German ciders, my favourite vermiculturalists were out there struggling for their lives! 


A few days later, after a short storm, I went to collect the worm wee overflow from the bucket, ignorant of the carnage in the bottom. As I tipped the water out onto the thirsty plants a few thousand blind recyclers slid out too. All I could manage at first was to stand there, pointlessly trying to sheild them from the sun and hoping for some signs of life. There were a tiny few, wriggling slowly and looking for a downward retreat, but most lay still. Very, very still. 


Of those left alive, I hadn't the heart to return to the recent final resting place of their many friends and loved ones. So I crouched down, dutifully digging the few survivors some new doorways into the soil of the flower bed. I hoped they didn't think it callous of me to use the same patch as a makeshift buriel spot for those "passed on"... I ignored the rumours I'd heard that tiger worms don't actually dig soil (pun intended) much and hoped they might enjoy whatever goods lay underfoot in their newfound freedom. 


Charles Darwin was scientifically besotted with the worm (a much more reliable romance than the traditional besot). In 1881 he pretty much declared them the coolest of all the animals, (which is fairly impressive for a brainless soft-bodied organism):

It may be doubted whether there are many other animals 

which have played so important a part in the history of the world..

http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/framesetitemID=F1357&viewtype=text&pageseq=1 


And I couldn't agree more. Charlie would probably roll in his grave if he knew of the deaths I'd callously caused here. I'm sorry Charles. And I'm very sorry my little wormy comrades. 


RIS (Rest in Soil).