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Jun. 5th, 2004 07:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
person4Here's a strange string of coincidences that led to me saving an annelidan life this morning; something I normally wouldn't (mentally) be able to do.
So, I was digging around in the kitchen and discovered I was out of something I wanted. Since I don't have a car available right now, and I need to pump up one of the tires on my bike, normally I'd just go to bed (nocturnal again) and fix this problem later on when I can drive to the store, expecially since last month the store I can get to without crossing the busiest street in town at it's busiest intersection closed. But, on a whim I decided to walk it anyway, since it was five-something in the morning at the time, so said road wouldn't really be busy by the time I reached it (roughly fourty-five minutes later).
I'm walking along enjoying the lovely morning; the sun was just coming up to the east in a very muted and beautiful dawn, and if I turned to look at the opposite horizon there was still a very bright slightly peach colored full moon a quarter of the way up the sky. Add to that the fact that there was a very light layer of fog around, something that I love, and I was very happy with my decision to be out and about (at least until the blisters started forming. *winces* I picked the wrong shoes to go out in when I'd be walking through damp grass).
While I was walking I heard a red-winged blackbird start calling from somewhere nearby, and started whistling back at it. And then I winced, because I used to be able to imitate one of their calls good enough to send the one that lived in the backyard of the house I grew up in into a tizzy looking for the intruder on it's territory and now I couldn't do it for crap. But thinking about the old house started me reminiscing about by childhood there, which continued for most of the rest of my way to the store.
Now, a bit of setup so you can picture the area I'm getting to in your head. The sidewalk on the right side of the street, the one I'm walking down, ends. At the same time another one starts up across the street, but since the store I'm heading to is on the side I'm on and I don't want to cross the street of that intersection twice I just move to walking on the street instead of crossing. There're about six yards of curbless street here, then a three-way intersection, after which there're two houses that face the main road, though they're really part of the small subdivision the road I just passed lead into. The entire subdivision has curbs along its roads, so when they built the houses they also put a small section of curb just along that small stretch of the road (plus a sidewalk across their yards, but I'm not getting on the sidewalk for two house-lengths just to get off again), then after them it's back to just gravel, though there's now a small ditch besides.
Back on track: just as I'm reaching the curbed area my nostalgia trip has taken me back to the seventh grade, when I found a skull on the side of the road and took it school after cleaning it out for extra science credit. Then my teacher never gave it back, even though he said he would after he identified it. When I reached the gravel again I was brooding about my skull, forgot about the ditch, and almost twisted my ankle when I put my foot down on the edge of it and the pebbles shifted out from under it. As I'm regaining my balance I look down and see, of all things, the edge of a jawbone! So, of course, I pick it up and put it in my pocket, since given the timing it seems like it must be the worlds way of saying 'Aw, are you still upset about that? Ok, have this to make up for it a little.' Then I moved on to thinking about, uh, given that there was a lot of it growing past that point this was probably where I became overly preoccupied with memories of chowing down on clover when I was a kid.
Nothing to do with this whole sting of events happens for the rest of the way to the store, or the first bit of the way back. Then, when I see the curb approching again, I start studying the ground searching for more bones. Because I'm doing this I see the pathetic worm trapped at the bottom of the curb trying it's damnedest to climb up it. It's body was already mostly that shade of red they turn when they're in the middle of drying out, but it could still move it's entire body, it wasn't yet to that stage where they're pretty much dead from the 'neck' down, with just their head futilely moving back and forth trying to find shelter. As I've repeated many time; I'm terrified of worms. I'm so phobic I can't walk on the grass for more the a couple of seconds at a time because they're under there, and can't go out after it's been raining at all.
However, I can't just leave an animal who's innocent of any crime other then being born in a form that frightens me to die a horrible death like that. If it had been anywhere else on the road I could have walked on, assuming that it would find it's way back onto the ground eventually, but there was no way it could get up that curb on it's own, and the sun was getting brighter by the second.
I couldn't touch it. Empathy can overpower my phobia to the point that I can stand looking at it and can save it, but not enough for me to come into contact with it. I looked around for sticks, but there are none. I didn't buy anything that I could pick it up with, and while I contemplated using the grocery bag as a glove I knew that being able to feel it through the thin plastic would be just as bad as actually touching it. I start searching my pockets, finding only coins that would probably work for a second until I'd need to tilt them back to get it on them better and end up rolling it onto my finger.
Then, final pocket and; the jaw! The jaw which is perfectly formed for this. I can hold onto the length of it with the teeth, then the other wider end has a thin bit sticking out that easily picks it up and holds it in place well away from me, and across from that bit it's all a wide, thin, smooth branch off that's even tilted downwards some at the end so that it slids right off probably as comfortably as sliding off a bone can be, again without ever getting close to touching me. The worm's soon in the nice damp grass, already squirming its way down to the ground level, the bone's in my pocket, and the strange almost-fearlessness that pity installed in my has worn off, leaving me a quivering, sobbing, horror-striken mess for the rest of my walk home. Which is still preferable to the quivering, sobbing, horror- and guilt-striken mess I would have been if that bone hadn't been in my pocket and I had to leave it behind to die since I was without tools other then my fingers to pick it up with.
And then, on the homestretch of my walk home I found a piece of, I dunno, really low-quality rose quartz or something. It's not clear, but it's pinkish-reddish and sparkly, and now that I've stopped and thought about it a bit it's actually close to that dried-worm color I was talking about earlier. Maybe the worm-gods are thanking me for saving one of their people. Maybe I should try making a wish on it. *grins*
So, I was digging around in the kitchen and discovered I was out of something I wanted. Since I don't have a car available right now, and I need to pump up one of the tires on my bike, normally I'd just go to bed (nocturnal again) and fix this problem later on when I can drive to the store, expecially since last month the store I can get to without crossing the busiest street in town at it's busiest intersection closed. But, on a whim I decided to walk it anyway, since it was five-something in the morning at the time, so said road wouldn't really be busy by the time I reached it (roughly fourty-five minutes later).
I'm walking along enjoying the lovely morning; the sun was just coming up to the east in a very muted and beautiful dawn, and if I turned to look at the opposite horizon there was still a very bright slightly peach colored full moon a quarter of the way up the sky. Add to that the fact that there was a very light layer of fog around, something that I love, and I was very happy with my decision to be out and about (at least until the blisters started forming. *winces* I picked the wrong shoes to go out in when I'd be walking through damp grass).
While I was walking I heard a red-winged blackbird start calling from somewhere nearby, and started whistling back at it. And then I winced, because I used to be able to imitate one of their calls good enough to send the one that lived in the backyard of the house I grew up in into a tizzy looking for the intruder on it's territory and now I couldn't do it for crap. But thinking about the old house started me reminiscing about by childhood there, which continued for most of the rest of my way to the store.
Now, a bit of setup so you can picture the area I'm getting to in your head. The sidewalk on the right side of the street, the one I'm walking down, ends. At the same time another one starts up across the street, but since the store I'm heading to is on the side I'm on and I don't want to cross the street of that intersection twice I just move to walking on the street instead of crossing. There're about six yards of curbless street here, then a three-way intersection, after which there're two houses that face the main road, though they're really part of the small subdivision the road I just passed lead into. The entire subdivision has curbs along its roads, so when they built the houses they also put a small section of curb just along that small stretch of the road (plus a sidewalk across their yards, but I'm not getting on the sidewalk for two house-lengths just to get off again), then after them it's back to just gravel, though there's now a small ditch besides.
Back on track: just as I'm reaching the curbed area my nostalgia trip has taken me back to the seventh grade, when I found a skull on the side of the road and took it school after cleaning it out for extra science credit. Then my teacher never gave it back, even though he said he would after he identified it. When I reached the gravel again I was brooding about my skull, forgot about the ditch, and almost twisted my ankle when I put my foot down on the edge of it and the pebbles shifted out from under it. As I'm regaining my balance I look down and see, of all things, the edge of a jawbone! So, of course, I pick it up and put it in my pocket, since given the timing it seems like it must be the worlds way of saying 'Aw, are you still upset about that? Ok, have this to make up for it a little.' Then I moved on to thinking about, uh, given that there was a lot of it growing past that point this was probably where I became overly preoccupied with memories of chowing down on clover when I was a kid.
Nothing to do with this whole sting of events happens for the rest of the way to the store, or the first bit of the way back. Then, when I see the curb approching again, I start studying the ground searching for more bones. Because I'm doing this I see the pathetic worm trapped at the bottom of the curb trying it's damnedest to climb up it. It's body was already mostly that shade of red they turn when they're in the middle of drying out, but it could still move it's entire body, it wasn't yet to that stage where they're pretty much dead from the 'neck' down, with just their head futilely moving back and forth trying to find shelter. As I've repeated many time; I'm terrified of worms. I'm so phobic I can't walk on the grass for more the a couple of seconds at a time because they're under there, and can't go out after it's been raining at all.
However, I can't just leave an animal who's innocent of any crime other then being born in a form that frightens me to die a horrible death like that. If it had been anywhere else on the road I could have walked on, assuming that it would find it's way back onto the ground eventually, but there was no way it could get up that curb on it's own, and the sun was getting brighter by the second.
I couldn't touch it. Empathy can overpower my phobia to the point that I can stand looking at it and can save it, but not enough for me to come into contact with it. I looked around for sticks, but there are none. I didn't buy anything that I could pick it up with, and while I contemplated using the grocery bag as a glove I knew that being able to feel it through the thin plastic would be just as bad as actually touching it. I start searching my pockets, finding only coins that would probably work for a second until I'd need to tilt them back to get it on them better and end up rolling it onto my finger.
Then, final pocket and; the jaw! The jaw which is perfectly formed for this. I can hold onto the length of it with the teeth, then the other wider end has a thin bit sticking out that easily picks it up and holds it in place well away from me, and across from that bit it's all a wide, thin, smooth branch off that's even tilted downwards some at the end so that it slids right off probably as comfortably as sliding off a bone can be, again without ever getting close to touching me. The worm's soon in the nice damp grass, already squirming its way down to the ground level, the bone's in my pocket, and the strange almost-fearlessness that pity installed in my has worn off, leaving me a quivering, sobbing, horror-striken mess for the rest of my walk home. Which is still preferable to the quivering, sobbing, horror- and guilt-striken mess I would have been if that bone hadn't been in my pocket and I had to leave it behind to die since I was without tools other then my fingers to pick it up with.
And then, on the homestretch of my walk home I found a piece of, I dunno, really low-quality rose quartz or something. It's not clear, but it's pinkish-reddish and sparkly, and now that I've stopped and thought about it a bit it's actually close to that dried-worm color I was talking about earlier. Maybe the worm-gods are thanking me for saving one of their people. Maybe I should try making a wish on it. *grins*