It Eats at You
by Sebastian Deyoe-Snyder
She cries earthworms, the long fat kind that lie engorged on sidewalks after rain. They come in place of tears, so when she feels too much emotion, she holds her eyes open. Otherwise, they’re liable to squirm underneath her eyelids, itching worse than the wool sweaters she wears September through May to keep out the chill. They don’t work. She is always cold.
The worms are a remnant of that horrible thing she did when she was young, years ago. The grave unearthed because she had thought she would find wealth there. No, there had only been a desiccated corpse and a curse that had quickly disposed of the others who had been with her that night.
Curse. She hated calling it a curse. Curses sounded macabre, ridiculous. They should present themselves in the forms of withered old ladies and deformed animals. That, at least, would create some shock. A spark of fear maybe.
She works in customer service for an internet provider, spending her days in a beige cubicle that she shares with a lady who has peacock-coiffed hair and wears burnt cake perfume. The customers tell her that she doesn’t understand, that she’s an idiot and is she even really listening. None of this gets to her much, though sometimes her nose will leak worms if it is too stuffy inside.
At home she treads a path between the couch and the bed. She doesn’t sleep well. When she does, she will wake to find worms everywhere. She does not know where they come from. In those first days, she might have reacted to them by screaming like a pageant queen in a slasher film. Now she just does her best to shuffle out from under them without crushing them. Her sheets are covered in worm stains.
Her days go by with her waiting for something horrible to happen. She almost wants it to, for it would mean a change. It would mean a loss of control. No more gray days, no more worm bucket in the bathroom.
On her nightly train ride, she sees an ad comparing two kinds of apples. One is a vibrant red that hardly looks natural. The inside is bright, alive. The other apple is bruised and browning on the inside. The text below explains that new cutting-edge preservatives mean that the brand is perma-fresh, better than the competitor.
She is the second apple, but also the first. She is preserved but in the wrong state, captured by an extended rot. If she could look within, she doubts there would be any red. Only a maze of dirt-colored segments consuming what little of her was left.
The man next to her yelps when he notices the worms spilling out over her blouse as she loses her composure. They wriggle away across the floor, probing for the firm-yet-soft give of earth and finding nothing.
Author Bio: Sebastian Deyoe-Snyder lives in Des Moines, Iowa and enjoys writing speculative fiction that makes readers question their worlds, the weirder the better. He works in a bookstore and spends his free time running long distances or finding more records to add to his collection.
Artwork: Becoming Zombie by Jane Zich (2017), 10x8 digital fusion painting
Artist Bio: Jane Zich is a Northern California mixed media artist and writer who explores imagery from the unconscious in her creative process. Her award-winning paintings have been exhibited nationally and featured on the covers of American Psychologist, Dream Time, Fiction Fix, Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche, and Permafrost Magazine. Her writing has been published in Bellevue Literary Review, Dream Time, Jung Journal, and various art publications.
Artist Website: zichpaintings.com