Bulwarks and Bastions

I stare at my front door, a bulwark of wood and steel that stands between me and anything that might enter my home. It seems solid and impenetrable, yet I have been invaded by earthworms on a rainy night when escaping into my home was their only hope of not drowning and they came right through that door!

I know that sounds ludicrous, but it is true and something else that is ludicrous, I am afraid of earthworms. My sister used to chase me with them and for some reason they terrify me more than snakes. But on a rainy night last year, when the water poured from the sky like a river whose dam has been torn apart, I opened my door and in crawled the earthworms. Amazingly fast for their size, I watched in horror as they stretched out to ten and twelve inches and rushed across my carpet. I had been invaded!

I called my daughter-in-law, a small sign of how afraid I was, and she asked a simple question. “Are they going too fast for you to catch them?”

So now when I lie awake at night, unable to sleep, planning which room I would barricade myself in, what I would put up against the window to keep the twelve foot grizzly, or pack of slathering wolves at bay, I am plagued with the knowledge that I have already been invaded by earthworms and they came right through the front door.