I love to walk…and my mind hates being idle, so every now and then during my morning constitutional I create…

Walking has always been my jam. It helps with the monotony of my daily existence as that could always stand a little bit of twisting. As impure as New York City air is, I still consider it fresh enough to help clear some of the mental cobwebs that accumulate overnight.

When not listening to music or an audiobook or radio play, I tend to mind-sift through fictional character conversations and story scene settings, oblivious to the world surrounding me, but on this particular day, something crept into my sphere of awareness.

Looking down at the pavement, I realized that I was traipsing through what looked like the aftermath of the Great Worm War of 2023. The sidewalk battlefield was nothing less than apocalyptic—a surreal D-Day rendered in invertebrate form. Earthworms, thousands of them, lay slain upon the unforgiving concrete, coating the expanse of an entire city block in a macabre tapestry.

Logically, I knew how this could have happened. I knew the little buggers came to the surface either during the heavy rains—but it’s been dry weather for the past week—or to pair off and mate only to get caught on things that are hard for them to crawl across, like sidewalks and subsequently fry on the surface from sun rays, but that normally occurs during springtime.

So, what was this, then? What ghastly event had caused this Wormageddon? Had there actually been a battle? Had warring worm clans pitched against one another over a territorial dispute? Factions in conflict over the claiming of a Lumbricus Terrestris throne? Noble families locked in a deadly dispute over an unholy Montague/Capulet union?

In my mind’s eye, the scene sprang to life with cinematic grandeur. I envisioned worm clans adorned with micro-armor, their soft bodies writhing in war dances, chanting anthems of dirt and decay. Generals—distinguished by their slightly girthier segments—led their troops into the fray. Did they fight over sacred compost hills? Was it a religious crusade concerning the true nature of soil pH levels?

I imagined wormy war cries, nearly inaudible squelches, filling the air. Siege weapons made of twigs and pebbles, catapulting minuscule mud balls. Earthworm sorcerers—yes, let’s go all in—conjuring protective barriers of moist earth. The clash of factions, the deaths of heroes, the utter annihilation—all laid bare on this pedestrian walkway.

And then my imagination took a darker turn. What if this was a message?

As I stood there, staring at their dried remains, curled into runic shapes, I wondered if they had been somehow gifted with a vision of the approaching apocalypse and had sacrificed themselves in an effort to warn us in the only language they knew. The last Germanic language spoken to them by man before the two species went their separate ways in evolution.

At that moment, I felt like Indiana Jones in the passageway to the Grail chamber, trying to decipher the worm cadavers’ possible portents of doom, only without the aid of a diary or Sean Connery whispering something about, “Only the penitent man will pass.” or like John Nash in “A Beautiful Mind” only without an ounce of his mental code-breaking ability.

And I stood there. Longer than I’m comfortable admitting. Frustrated by the limits of my linguistics. Finally, I forced myself to move on, but not before making a promise:

No more outdoor strolls without my iPod.