HOW THE EARTHWORM SEES THE WORLD
Help! High! High up! Me! Not good! On ground me belong! Held, something holding me, my wet moist body, beautiful body looking for earth on this hard surface, before: I can’t plow my way into, hot, oh oh, hard, can’t dig in, hot, more hot, oh oh, can’t dig into dark sweet earth, can’t eat my way into wonderful surrounding feeling, so good, before: scraping body on hard, bad surface, hot is rising, dry, hurt me dry!, hot, where to dig in? won’t let me in, where to go? Then grab – body feeling no! no! Something bad about that! No! No! Grab me, high up, I go high up, trouble, twist, turn, whole body jump, turn, twist, wiggle, must escape, out of holding feeling, must squirm all over, drop me out of bad trouble, let me go! Twist! Turn! Slimy me, slip away from, must slip away from thing taking me up in air, bad thing! Slimy me, dry me now, me dry, so worn out from hard surface that wouldn’t let me in, too tired to keep fighting in the air, help! Help! Not slimy enough, holding thing’s got me! No! No! Wait, going down! Earth! Feel earth! I escaped! I got away! Great me, great me, I got away from highness, from lifting-me-up thing, earth, cool, dig in, fast! push in head, dirt welcome, here we go, in, in, deeper, deeper, fast, oh beautiful! Oh beautiful! So beautiful! Pain behind me! I made it! I got away! Safe me! Escape from terrible lifting-me-up-thing, earth so sweet all around me now, dark and all around me, cool, escape me, great, great me!
"Why do you save them?" someone asked me, observing me lift the struggling earthworm up from the sun-baked pavement which he had strayed onto, and place him back onto the earth beside it.
"I don’t know," I answered. "I just do."
"Well, if he could speak, I’m sure he’d thank you," I was told.
"He sure ought to," I agreed.
"Say," the stranger asked, as the bells of the neighboring place of worship began to ring. "Are you going to Church?"
"No," I told him. "I don’t believe in God."
He looked surprised, so I explained: "I used to pray to Him all the time, but then I finally just got fed up, and stopped. After all my prayers, He never did nothing for me."
The stranger, not knowing went to say, went on to Church by himself
.