May 28, 2010
Equator Murgatroyd was raised by worms. According to Equator, a race of giant nightcrawlers lived in an underground city called Squizzik, and these nightcrawlers had taken her in and raised her as their own when her Mommy and Daddy left her at the county fair by accident. The ruler of these giant worms, Jogobobo, actually married Equator and installed her as his queen. She presided for decades over the outrageous ceremonies, the daring hunts, the escapes from marauding giant birds.
It was a world far removed from the ordinariness of existence on the surface of the Earth, with all its laundry detergent, boxed wine, and inferior dance moves. Someday, according to Jogobobo, Equator would lead the nightcrawler kingdom in rising up against the surface dwellers, toppling their cities, and turning it all into mulch. Unfortunately, before they got the chance, a terrible disaster destroyed all of Squizzik, leaving Equator to escape to the surface world and search the rest of her life for a way to fulfill the prophecies of her beloved wormy people.
At least, that was what Equator said had happened. The reality of her life was much less prosaic. She had been raised by Midwesterners, not nightcrawlers. She’d been a lonely outsider since Day One, afflicted with terrible acne and horrific fashion sense. Her only friends? The nightcrawlers in her father’s bait shop. They’d meant everything to her…which had made it all the harder to bear when a lunatic firebug torched the place. Nothing much had mattered a lick to Equator from that moment on.
In a last, desperate move, she paid a local witch to cast a spell that would recreate the kingdom of nightcrawlers from her fantasies. At last, she could submerge herself in the perfect world she’d always imagined, the dream kingdom in which she was always welcome and embraced though she was an outsider. The handsome, wise, and friendly nightcrawlers wouldn’t hesitate to bring her in and make her feel at home.
So the witch wove her spell, and everything changed. Equator ran outside, and sure enough, giant nightcrawlers wriggled up out of the ground and squirmed toward her. She danced gleefully in her pink pinafore, clapping her hands with delight, then ran and embraced the first and most enormous of all the worms as it reared up out of the earth.
At which point, the nightcrawler wrapped itself around her in a loving hug. Not a loving hug so much as a killer one, actually. As Equator died, her eyes were wide with shock and sadness. But the worm kept squeezing, and digestive juices oozed out of its slimy flesh to eat away at her. Equator screamed at the top of her lungs as she remembered a vital fact: all people end up as worm food eventually. Her dream of the benevolent nightcrawlers was never more than an impossible fantasy. As fast as she could, she started dreaming of a kingdom of giant, benevolent butterflies, but by then, it was already too late.
