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Story [Short] "Wurbeld & John J."

Bartooliinii

An Alteran Bard
Patron
Retired Staff
Pronouns
He/Him
Slimy_Froggy
Slimy_Froggy
Patron
Wurbeld & John J.

It was dark as night. No, that is a lie. It was darker than night.

Pitch black, it was. Wurbeld could have known that it was pitch black, if he had any clue what pitch was. Indeed, he would know it was darker than night if he had ever cared for the passing of the day. It was all the same to Wurbeld, as long as he could continue eating in the front and doing his other business in the back. The point being, that Wurbeld was blissfully unaware that it was as black as black gets, because Wurbeld, of all creatures, was a worm and where worms live, no light protrudes.

Wurbeld had had a very uneventful life. The most eventful part of his life must have been his birth, and for that reason he remembers the day very well. He was the tiniest of things, not bigger than a toe-nail on the smallest of all toes. How he got into being, however, was a mystery to him. One moment he wasn’t and the next; he was! Little did Wurbeld know that he was brought into this world, not by a momma-worm, but by the extravagant and extraordinary experimentations of a -how shall I put this?- demented alchemist. It is commonly known that worms do not know nor care where they originated from, so let us not elaborate on this scientific wonder any further.

Wurbeld remembered everything from the moment he was ‘born’: His first bites, his first number two, his first meeting with another worm. After that, it was all just counting up, without any new exciting experiences to add to the table. This far, he has had –by his own count- 210.839.213 bites, 123.547.190 number two’s, and has met 120.351 other worms, of which 120.351 had lived a more eventful life than himself. But, all of that was about to change. As he started taking his 210.839.214th bite, he felt a strange sensation at his eight ring (worms are divided into several rings, each of which is as unique to the worm as each of our fingers are to us).

It wasn’t the feeling he had felt before, when another worm brushed over him as they passed perpendicular to his own direction. He doubted, either it was a piece of sharp gravel that had moved position due to some force from above, or it was the sting of a bird pecking at him (something many worms had explained to Wurbeld to be a rather eventful sensation). He was torn between the two options, he thought. But in fact, he was literally torn in two, as the plough from farmer John Jingles hacked through soil and worm alike to prepare his field for the coming seeding season. The last thing Wurbeld did was curl franticly in a sensation of utter glee, unequivocally rejoiced that his life had ended in such an eventful and exceptional way.

T H E ~ E N D
[continued below]
 
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Cymic_

Better than sliced bread
Legend
Wurbeld & John J.

It was dark as night. No, that is a lie. It was darker than night.

Pitch black, it was. Wurbeld could have known that it was pitch black, if he had any clue what pitch was. Indeed, he would know it was darker than night if he had ever cared for the passing of the day. It was all the same to Wurbeld, as long as he could continue eating in the front and doing his other business in the back. The point being, that Wurbeld was blissfully unaware that it was as black as black gets, because Wurbeld, of all creatures, was a worm and where worms live, no light protrudes.

Wurbeld had had a very uneventful life. The most eventful part of his life must have been his birth, and for that reason he remembers the day very well. He was the tiniest of things, not bigger than a toe-nail on the smallest of all toes. How he got into being, however, was a mystery to him. One moment he wasn’t and the next; he was! Little did Wurbeld know that he was brought into this world, not by a momma-worm, but by the extravagant and extraordinary experimentations of a -how shall I put this?- demented alchemist. It is commonly known that worms do not know nor care where they originated from, so let us not elaborate on this scientific wonder any further.

Wurbeld remembered everything from the moment he was ‘born’: His first bites, his first number two, his first meeting with another worm. After that, it was all just counting up, without any new exciting experiences to add to the table. This far, he has had –by his own count- 210.839.213 bites, 123.547.190 number two’s, and has met 120.351 other worms, of which 120.351 had lived a more eventful life than himself. But, all of that was about to change. As he started taking his 210.839.214th bite, he felt a strange sensation at his eight ring (worms are divided into several rings, each of which is as unique to the worm as each of our fingers are to us).

It wasn’t the feeling he had felt before, when another worm brushed over him as they passed perpendicular to his own direction. He doubted, either it was a piece of sharp gravel that had moved position due to some force from above, or it was the sting of a bird pecking at him (something many worms had explained to Wurbeld to be a rather eventful sensation). He was torn between the two options, he thought. But in fact, he was literally torn in two, as the plough from farmer John Jingles hacked through soil and worm alike to prepare his field for the coming seeding season. The last thing Wurbeld did in his little life, was curl franticly in a sensation of utter glee, unequivocally rejoiced that his life had ended in such an eventful and exceptional way.

T H E ~ E N D
i am learing a lot about Annelidia and shit right now in my zoology class. Wouldn't he just grow a new tail, and the split tail grow a new head?

i remember that a worm can be split down the middle horizontally or even vertically (hamburger or hotdog style :*) and they will regrow the other half, and the other other half becomes an asexually reproduced worm.
 

Squidziod

Kid Charlemagne
Mystic
Retired Owner
Squidziod
Squidziod
LegendMystic
I enjoy that for the first 100 words or so, the reader is unaware that the narrator is a worm. I was envisioning some nature of shop keep, and then bam! Worm time.

Good read.
 

Bartooliinii

An Alteran Bard
Patron
Retired Staff
Pronouns
He/Him
Slimy_Froggy
Slimy_Froggy
Patron
i am learing a lot about Annelidia and shit right now in my zoology class. Wouldn't he just grow a new tail, and the split tail grow a new head?

i remember that a worm can be split down the middle horizontally or even vertically (hamburger or hotdog style :*) and they will regrow the other half, and the other other half becomes an asexually reproduced worm.
That is in fact a very good way for me to start the next part of this tale!
 

Bartooliinii

An Alteran Bard
Patron
Retired Staff
Pronouns
He/Him
Slimy_Froggy
Slimy_Froggy
Patron
John J. & Gow

A fluid dripped from his nose, he sniffed and it reversed its movement double speed. Then the fluid started its way down just like it had done a few seconds before. He sniffed again and the process repeated. He had been repeating this for the entire morning. It was the moment between the end of winter and beginning of spring. These are the days when it looks like spring outside, but it is as cold as it had been for the past several winter weeks. John Jangles wasn’t the brightest person you can imagine. Nowadays he might be referred to as ‘slow’, perhaps ‘dumb’, or for the really politically incorrect; ‘retarded’. Whatever anyone would call him, one fact remained; he quite enjoyed doing repetitive simple tasks. Sniffing his nose wasn’t the only repetitive thing he had been doing today.

Preparing his field for seeding was perhaps even more repetitive, though also more sophisticated. He was quite good at plowing and was sure it was due to his long lineage of ancestors which had been working fields for as long as his family-tree was known to stretch back in time. John Jangles was a farmer and as such he wasn’t as attached to his last name as a noble landlord might be. This fact expressed itself by his close friends not knowing John by his last name. People called him Jay-Jay, John Jay, or Peasant, depending on who was addressing him. As he brought down his plough again, and the morning had turned to noon, he was addressed by his pee-name; Peasant.

John Jangles left his plough in the soil and looked up from his work, sniffing his nose. His eyes behold a partly familiar, partly unknown sight. John recognized his landlord. That man had taken most of his earnings and left him scraping for scraps each and every winter. He couldn’t complain about it however. He had personally witnessed what was left of his neighbor after he protested against the steep taxes. John recognized the landlord and the way of addressing him all too well. He didn’t recognize the other men, however. Nor did he recognize the tools they were carrying. One of them carried something that looked like a hedgehog on a stick, but made of metal. John couldn’t imagine what it could be used for, other than preparing meat to make it more tender. Another unknown man carried a fin of a fish on a stick, also made of metal. Jay-Jay wondered whether that tool was used to cut vegetables from afar: Perhaps a useful tool for people who suffered from vegetablefobia.

Little did John Jay know that these men had come to drive him from his land. The royal landscaper had decided that John’s land was to become a Renaissance garden and for some reason the king had quite liked the idea of a garden filled with statues of naked men. Back in the day of John Jangles, there were very few policies. The particular policy in which is stated that a government was obliged to first discuss matters with the farmer, then should that fail; bring in an expert, and then when this too had failed; to buy the man off his land with a large sum of money did not yet exist. No, these times were much simpler.

The landlord gave a short nod and the two men with their cooking-tools approached Mr Jangles menacingly. A single moment was all John had and he spent the moment thinking; “So this is what being a vegetable feels like.” Then the tele-vegetable-cutter and tender-maker made short work of him. John staggered, took a few steps, and then fell forward with his face on his upturned plough, splitting his mostly inactive brain in two. The God of worms, referred to by worms as Gow, smiled up* at the scene and simply muttered; “karma,” after which the great entity spent some time giving meaning to some worms’ lives by making their day more eventful.

T H E ~ E N D

* Of course, the God of worms does not reside in the sky, smiling down at his faithful. Instead, he is said to be very low beneath the soil. So deep, in fact, that no worm has ever reached deep enough to meet Him.
 

Bartooliinii

An Alteran Bard
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Retired Staff
Pronouns
He/Him
Slimy_Froggy
Slimy_Froggy
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The Belief-system of Worms

There hadn’t been a single day in the whole of Wurbilde’s life that had been as eventful as today was turning out to be. This made her very happy, as a worm’s life is measured by its eventfulness and uneventful lives were regarded as ill spent. You see, worms believe in reincarnation. In the sense that being a worm is the lowest tier on the reincarnation ladder, so they had much to belief for. The more exciting a worm’s life is, the bigger the chance to reincarnate as something other than, well, a worm. To those unfortunate bastards leading an uneventful life, the probability to reincarnate as a worm is beyond probability, it is a certainty. It is the task of the God of Worms, Gow, to see to it that all souls of those lives spent in eventful mannerism are reincarnated into lives of appropriate animals and passed onto their respective Gods.

For some reason Gow, the Writhiest of all Gods, must be paying special attention to Wurbilde today, she thought. Not only did she wake up before her alarm*, but she now believed she had experienced something not short of a miracle! Whilst tunneling through the dirt, something brushed her on her thirteenth ring. It was most definitely a worm and in particular; a worm she hadn’t met before. Since new worms often bring new eventful experiences, the meeting of unfamiliar worms is regarded as a sign of good luck. She could not have been more wrong.

The connection was short-lived, but full of meaning. The worm that had touched her in passing had given off signs of great elation. It was the kind of happiness she hadn’t experienced in any other worm before. Truly, this worm must be one of a kind, a special worm, one that was sure to become at least a rat in the next life. Perhaps some of that specialness would rub off on her, she thought. Then, while the worm touched her thirteenth ring again, a different-yet-exactly-the-same worm touched her thirty-sixth ring. This was impossible… It could not have been a different-yet-exactly-the-same worm, but the vibrations said it was so. This realization caused Wurbilde’s mind to make a full 360 degrees flip, leaving everything in it in disarray.

Wurbeld felt immense sensations. One of which was the distinct feeling that he was being a different-yet-exactly-the-same-worm twice. They couldn’t describe it: They felt intoxicated by happiness for their sudden change into a very eventful life, but Wurbeld were also feeling incredibly scared. Everything they thought they knew about this life and the next was put into doubt and uncertainty. Wurbeld were feeling dismay, because they were no longer one. Wurbeld were one once. Yet, John Jangles had cut him in twine unknowingly and with it, he had changed Wurbeld’s life forever.

How could ONE worm, with ONE soul and ONE name, become TWO worms and grow a mouth on the rear end and a back on the front end? All worms were sure of reincarnation to start a new life after their death, but Wurbeld had unsuspectingly cheated death somehow and now ‘he’ was ‘they’. The plough of John Jangles had split his body in two, yet his soul remained one. Of course, this was blasphemy of the highest degree! Whatever had caused it, it felt like a curse. Wurbeld weren’t sure what would happen anymore should one part of them die and another live on.

Wurbeld continued their path through the earth, writhing with excitement and feeling at the same time the deepest dismay out of fear for what might become of them. Wurbeld transferred their fears onto every worm they touched. Now these other worms started to doubt the merit of believing in reincarnation as well. Reincarnation, whilst being a creature which can be split in two and live on perfectly well with both halves fully operational. It suddenly seemed a very daft idea. Soon, the entire belief-system of worms came crashing down, before the terrified eyes of Gow, writhiest of Gods…

* Contrary to popular belief due to their lack of eyes, worms do sleep. Even more so, they like to sleep exactly 6 hours. Any bit more and a worm believes to have wasted valuable time in which they could have had an eventful moment.
 

Bartooliinii

An Alteran Bard
Patron
Retired Staff
Pronouns
He/Him
Slimy_Froggy
Slimy_Froggy
Patron
(Yes I've used a chunk from my new character's book, but I thought it fitted so well with the worm theme xD)

Lazarus Snowbeard & the truth about sand

One such worm that got touched by the madness that flowed from Wurbeld’s double identity was Lazarus Snowbeard. It was not that he had a beard at all, but when you’re a worm you don’t have much other than a wriggly little body with some rings, a front end and a back end. So naming yourself after something you didn’t have occurred quite a lot in worm society. Now, Lazarus wasn’t your average worm. For starters, he didn’t have a name that started with the letter double-you. The fact that double-u was pronounced double-you and that there was now a double worm going around town intrigued Lazarus Snowbeard an awful lot. Especially since Lazarus was in fact a philosopher. As Wurbeld had touched him, Lazarus had lost half his faith in the holy Gow and he had started to philosophize franticly. He made his way through the dirt and then stopped to think about these tiny grains of sand…

The truth about sand is much more than meets the eye, even when you have none. In fact, it is the very perception of sand that may put an untrained mind on the wrong path to finding the truth behind the tiny grains; for they are particles of something much bigger. Unseen by many and lost in time is the way sand comes into being. Is sand not a tiny part of a pebble? Is gravel in turn not a small bit of rock? And is a rock not that which falls off a cliff? And is a cliff not attached to a mountain? When we stroll -or in Lazarus’ case; writhe, wriggle, and push- through deserts, it is easy for us to forget the truth of sand. Which is that sand equals a mountain. What is a dune, but sand longing for its ancestral form? Sand is the tooth of time made visible.

If the mountains are as old as time itself, then so is sand. Imagine the human life; Born as a baby, grown into a toddler, continued as a child. The child becomes an adolescent and in turn becomes an adult, to decline into old age and then; to die and get eaten by worms. That is what time does to their substance, but it does not do the same to all substances known in this world. Let's come closer to the truth of sand and lay it out across the vast realm of time. Let us start in the beginning then: To regard the life of stone and compare it to the human life.

Mountains do not die; the end of their life-cycle is to become sand. The end of a human’s life-cycle is to become one with the earth once more, and be the source of new life (and food for worms). If mountains stay mountains, yet divided in particles, then what is life but grains of sand of a much larger whole? To what are we the particles that once made up a much grander whole? What is this grander whole and what is the force that has driven it to degrade into single particles of life, to which we so desperately cling and which we hope to have some form of subliminal meaning? Think of our lives as grains of sand and they lose much of their meaning. But look beyond that and hypothesize; what was this bigger thing that we were all a part of? We were once whole, all of us together, to create a mountain of… Life?

This last thought intrigued Lazarus Snowbeard. If this hypothesis held true, then Wurbeld splitting into two lives was nothing to be worried about. On the contrary; it was as natural as a piece of gravel turning into several pieces of sand in the river of time. Lazarus did not underestimate the significance of this philosophy however. If it held true, reincarnation was out of the window and with it; Gow Himself. He wouldn’t dare spread this heretical message around; Lazarus wasn’t that stupid. Although it would solve a lot of worms’ worries, it would usher in a whole new age of holy worm-wars.

Lazarus abruptly changed the direction he was digging in and headed down, away from the surface. He was resolute in his conviction; he would go down to Gow and talk to him about it.
 

Bartooliinii

An Alteran Bard
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Retired Staff
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He/Him
Slimy_Froggy
Slimy_Froggy
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God of Worms

Lazarus Snowbeard, the worm, had made the break-through of the century in philosophy. He knew it. The problem was, he wouldn't be able to tell anyone else until he had consulted Gow, God of worms, and ensured the validity of his mental construct. All of this abstract thought can make a man go crazy, let alone a wriggling little worm trying to lead an eventful life. It is therefore that Lazarus -thought- he was digging down to Gow, when in fact he was digging straight up to the surface. Which, as it will turn out to be, was still in the direction of Gow.

Up and up he went, through the sands of time and decaying leaves, when he suddenly found himself wriggling through soft halms of spring grass. Divine intervention? Thought Lazarus, his ringed body flopping blindly around in the jungle of grass. He wriggled along, contracting and detracting his body, until he crawled over a hard surface and a strange sensation rushed through his entire being, both physical and mental.

Perhaps it was indeed divine intervention. Because tell me why it is that worms have a tendency to crawl over baking hot asphalt on a simmering hot summer's day? Why do we find dried up miserable worms on the sidewalk, several meters away from the closest patch of grass? What moves a worm to leave its subterranean world of moist cool earth to make its way into a bright hot world that it can't even perceive for its lack of eyes?

In Lazarus case, the reason was a mind boggling philosophical idea and a desire to discuss just that with his one and only God. The sun burnt in him like... Like nothing he had ever felt before. His body tingled and all thoughts of returning home left its little worm brain. This was Gow. This was His holy presence come down upon Lazarus. On and on the little beardless worm crawled.

I saw him crawl the sidewalk and walked right passed. A few moments later I stopped. Who was I, to walk passed that worm and live my life while I had the power to safe his? But then again, who was I to change that worm's life when he so determinedly had chosen to take to the blistering streets? I turned to go and pick the worm up. I was too late. It lay motionless, shriveled up and dried like a twisted little stick.

Lazarus woke up. He didn't quite open his eyes or yawned or stretched his arms as one would usually recognize someone who wakes up. But something about him radiated him waking up. Gow was there with him. They had a polite conversation and talked about the weather. Then a darkness fell and the world grew soft and hazy. Lazarus' ideas were never acknowledged by the worm community. Mostly because he never got the chance to spread them. The worms, and some other creatures, continued down the old path and their faith in reincarnation was soon restored as the story of the two Wurbelds became an old wives tale. The old wives tale became a myth, myth became a legend, and the legend got lost in the sands of time...


The End
 
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