Before everything went insane last Friday evening I was sitting on the front porch reading, as usual, while the dogs were in the front yard. I noticed Kaden with his face in the ivy over by the forsythia. When I got over there I saw that he had vomited his dinner and was trying to reintroduce it to his digestive system. After getting him away from it I cleaned up as much as I could and saw a long earthworm squirming away from my bare foot between the ivy leaves.
I realized it had been quite a long time since I'd seen a live earthworm, and even longer since I'd seen one so long and so active.
Later that night, after our neighbor came up for a visit with her dog (as she often does on their evening walk) and Kaden got into a big fight with him, after it broke up leaving us all covered in mud and blood, after we searched for an hour or more for Kaden, who had fled the scene on (we later discovered) a broken leg, after KR and I retrieved him from the police station, after all that, in the veterinary emergency room, after the receptionists had gone home at midnight and given me the TV remote so I and the other guy in the waiting room could switch away from the weather channel (we found Fight Club, appropriately enough), after all that I saw a long black millipede walking between my feet on the tiled vet's waiting room floor and I thought again of that earthworm.
