Worms - Part Six
Theo dreamt of worms.
He lay flat on his back, naked, in a meadow that looked vaguely familiar as if it came from his childhood. The hills breathed upwards around him, churning into the sky where clouds circled like hawks and stars ringed the sun and the moon. It was both night and day, two shades of sky overlaid on each other. The meadow was both bright and shadowy. It flicked back and forth as if alternating between film frames. His consciousness was above his body, looking down at his flesh. His body was fit and toned, unblemished save for the large birthmark on his left abdomen. His muscles rippled beneath the skin just like they used to. He smiled and breathed in the thick meadow air.
A white worm sprouted out of Theo’s birthmark. It’s sniveling face writhed in anger and greed as it turned and burrowed back into his side. Theo couldn’t move, was frozen to the ground as more worms sprouted from his body, devouring his left side, spewing black oil from their tails that lubricated their dance in and out of his flesh. They ate, growing bigger and dividing exponentially, eating away Theo’s body as he watched from above. The sun flashed bright against the oily seething mass that was Theo just moments ago, the moon illuminating their wriggling white bodies.
They collapsed into an unrecognizable ball of white tendrils and plowed through the grass and soil. The meadow fell into the chaos, trees, hills, clouds, sky. The sun and moon crumbled into it as the universe became worm and oil.
Theo awoke in pain. He realized he had writhed in his sleep to the point of throwing off his blankets and falling off of the side of the bed. His burned side throbbed. His alarm was going off. 7 am.
He managed to pull himself off the ground and tapped his phone off. He started his electric kettle and washed his face off in the little bathroom, looking at the tight plaid pattern thumbtacked to the wall in front of his sink. There were no mirrors in the entire apartment. The bathroom mirror did not readily come off the wall, so Theo had bought some fabric that complimented the wallpaper and tacked it up over the mirror. He hated seeing himself. He had been so beautiful before… and now his skin crawled with the scars of the melted skin. The details of the dream were slipping from his mind but he still shuddered as he pulled on his work clothes, thinking of the feeling of helplessness that had overwhelmed him.
After work, Theo took a bus to his mother’s house. She was having friends over and had invited Theo. Although the prospect of having to interact socially with anyone was not appealing, the prospect of a meal other than what he could get at work, which would invariably be tacos, was great. His mother was an excellent cook.
She greeted Theo with a smile and a hug, ushering him into the living room where about seven of their local family and friends were laughing and drinking. As Theo walked into the room, he looked around at their faces. He knew most of their names, a few he had forgotten. He had not realized his mother had invited so many. His breath started to catch in his throat and he realized that people’s eyes were following him, his left side. They had not seen him since the fire.
The eyes bored into his side and he felt as if each glance seared his flesh over again. He sat on the couch, pulled up his hood, and poured himself a large whiskey which he promptly downed.
How could she have just sprung these people on him? He had to leave, had to get away. He was breathing hard, looking around wildly for an exit, when Bella appeared in front of him, her hand on his arm.
“Hey Theo. Are you okay?” Her voice sounded muffled in his ears, and it was a few seconds before he understood.
He nodded slowly. Bella gave a look, led him out of the living room.
“Can we… go on a walk or something?” Theo mumbled to his sister.
“Yeah of course, let me grab my coat.”
Theo waited in the hallway as Bella pulled on her puffy jacket and tied her shoes. Theo tried his best to ignore the looks that shot through from the living room.
Outside was chilly, and Theo was grateful. His skin prickled with goosebumps and the world seemed to condense, solidify a little bit more. The cold confined him to his body.
They walked around the block in silence for the first few minutes, then Theo opened his mouth.
“Since the fire, I feel so strange. Like my whole trajectory in life has shifted, but I haven’t figured out what that really means yet.”
Bella considered this. “It was a pretty traumatizing thing that happened to us. I was luckier than you, obviously, but it’s hard not to feel like… everything is different now.”
“Yeah.” Theo sighed.
“I wrote one of my college application essays about it,” Bella admitted, “I hear they eat up trauma porn.”
“That makes sense, I guess.” He hadn’t realized she was planning on going to college, despite her obvious propensity for academia.
“We don’t actually have any control over what we do or think, in a way.” Bella kicked a rock into the street. “The fire happened to us, and now we do things and have thought patterns that we never would have before. Before the fire I wanted to go to school to study philosophy. Now, I couldn’t care less about that, to be honest. I’m going to study ecology and forestry. I’m going to do something about what happened to us. And I don’t really have a choice, do I?”
Theo looked down at Bella. She suddenly didn’t seem like a child anymore. It made him sad, for a moment, to think that the fire had stolen her childhood, plunged her into the deep end before she was done playing. Only seventeen.
It had stolen so much from Theo, too.
“You always have a choice,” Theo said, even though it felt like a lie. It was the thing he was supposed to say, but could never really believe. “You can do whatever you want to do. And you will be a great ecologist if you choose to do it.”
Stupid. How to be honest? How to put it into words? Where was the choice? He couldn’t even find it in his own life, but he was preaching it to this youth like gospel. A wave of nausea spasmed out from his left side, but he managed to keep Bella from noticing.
“I guess.” Bella said, and they walked the rest of the way home in silence.