Verre

This was the last dream of the morning, and it seems to demonstrate the process of waking up, as the self-awareness and memories of my dream-self gradually align closer and closer with those of waking life.

Am I a human or a fox? It is unclear at first. I find an overturned clay pot on the walkway next to a building. It is full of writhing earthworms, and I eat a number of them, enjoying the slick chewy texture. Approvingly I think, "From the foxes' perspective, stocks aren't really working out. What they want is more protein, more easily accessible."

By "stocks" I mean the stock market, which I think must have crashed, and I have the impression that the world is in some post-apocalyptic state. I am on the grounds of a museum in Northern California, one with a park-like campus. I move across the lawn and encounter an enormous earthworm sliding out from under a bush. It is already several feet long, and I guess that this is only a quarter of its length. In diameter it is as thick as my arm. At this point my body is clearly human, and my thoughts are getting closer to those of my waking mind.

It surprises me to see a worm so large. I feel like I've seen ones this big in other countries, but never here. Still, I remember seeing those big banana slugs in the Bay Area, so maybe giant earthworms are part of the same ecosystem. Probably I never saw one before because they're usually underground. Why is this one on the surface?

I tear off a few inches of meat from the front end of the worm and nibble on it. It is much coarser in texture than the regular-sized worms I was just enjoying, and I find it unpalatable. I wonder if cooking would improve it or make it even worse, softer and mealier. I throw the uneaten portion to the ground, regretting that I took more than I'm able to consume. I should have started with a smaller sample. Poor worm. I look at it, and it is still crawling along as though nothing happened. I reassure myself that it will probably be fine; the missing section might even grow back.

I start to wonder if it is safe to eat raw worm. I always thought it was, and the couple I swallowed whole in the past had no ill-effects, but this one was enormous. It was sobering to learn that raw snails can harbor fatal parasites. Given that worms just eat rot and fungi, might they contain bad bacteria? After all, now that I've seen where they live... I think about my worm compost bins. I probably should look into this before eating any more.