The Addictive Personality Of Worms

[CW – Drug use, strong language, mental health issues, animal abuse]

I feed cocaine to worms. It is an act of natural sabotage. I only do it for the good of all mankind. You might think that it’s weird or cruel. You might not understand. You might be curious as to why. I have my reasons, which are thus. Worms are delicious, if you ask birds. I’ve never tried one myself, but birds seem to delight in having them. They also seem to only really eat at breakfast time. Further to that, the earlier the bird eats, the more successful it is. There is even a phrase about this.

The phrase means that people who start things earlier are more affluent and find it easier to achieve their goals. I’m a firm believer in this philosophy. Start early, win early, relax later. Logic dictates, then, that humanity would be better off if everybody got up early in the morning. Laziness is probably the main thing that stunts humanity’s progress. Those extra few minutes in bed, if you apply it to everyone all over the world, amounts to millions of hours every day lost to pointless rest. 

It isn’t that I don’t understand the meaning and benefits of rest. I do understand. But in terms of marginal gains, waking up a few minutes earlier would change the world for the better without having any real detrimental effects. I’ve been banging my head against the wall for so long, trying to convince people that this was true. They don’t understand. They don’t get it, ever. Everyone just tells me that they like the extra minutes. They say that it feels good and is one of the most enjoyable times of the day. Fuck their enjoyment. They need to get up.

I can’t make them get up, can I? Can I? Actually, I can. I can make them. 

It all started when I was in a coffee shop. I was particularly tired, having only slept for 6 hours, in the name of productivity. Coffee helps me get going in the morning. Coffee is the lifeblood of modern productivity. Look at the West before we started drinking coffee. It was primitive. Things only started to get going once coffee was brought to London. That’s when the creative industrial movement started, and thought really began to blossom. In its day, coffee was the thing that boosted productivity, much like waking up thirty minutes earlier will do once I’m finished. 

Anyway, I was sat in the coffee shop, and the person in the queue in front of me was on the phone. I didn’t mind their loud talking or their presence between me and the counter. In fact, I stood in solidarity with them. They were up early and getting busy with life. Like me, they were a hero. It wasn’t their presence that sparked my mind. It was something they said. 

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Sure, me too. Yeah, cool. Oh my god, it’s a nightmare, isn’t it? I was up soooo early this morning. Yeah, the damned birds outside my window wouldn’t shut up. Not sure what it was, but something had sent them mental.”

That was it. They had said it. Birds had woken them up and got them out of bed. Something about those birds had made this person rise early in the morning. This chatty person on the phone was given the opportunity to be productive by those irritating birds. What if I could replicate this the world over? If I could stimulate the birds, I could stimulate the people.

I tried, at first, to give coffee to birds directly. It was difficult because birds can fly and are notoriously scared of people. I had to find another way. You’re on the same train of thought as me now, aren’t you? Yes, I had to infiltrate their food. The early bird catches the worm, yes, but the early man wanting to energise the birds gets up even earlier than the birds. I’m not sure that saying will catch on. The point is that I got up early before the birds had begun to tweet. Using night-vision goggles hurriedly purchased from the internet, I stumbled around some fields near my house and found a whole host of worms. Force-feeding a worm is not an easy task, but I managed it. Straight coffee grounds. The lucky bastards were going to be hyper as anything. Less luckily, they were going to be eaten alive by avian creatures. 

Later that morning, but still very early in the day, I sat in my room and listened out for the birds. Sure, I could hear them, but I was already awake. The lack of lights illuminated within the neighbouring houses told me my plan did not work. Everyone was still sound asleep, selfishly resting when there was labour to be enjoyed. 

Coffee was not enough. What makes you more hyperactive than coffee? You know the answer. Cocaine. Sure, it’s illegal, but what I was doing transcended the importance of obeying the law. The rule of law is insignificant in comparison to the advancement of mankind. 

I know a drug dealer for, let’s say, personal reasons. He’s a small-time guy, just deals a bit to his mate on the weekends. It’s reasonable to say that he was surprised when I took out a payday loan at 4300% interest and ordered five kilograms of the white mistress from him. He protested, saying that it was going to put pressure on his supply chain. The allure of the cash won through, and he delivered the order.

I’m not going to pretend that I was entirely comfortable with that amount of illicit substance in my front room. If it were discovered, I’d be in jail for the long term. I’m a thinker, not a fighter. Prison would not be kind to me. How would anyone know it was there, though? It’s not as if I get regular visits from roving police officers. 

My plan did not entail holding onto the powder for very long in any case. I wanted to do it so badly that the next morning was the next option. In fact, I didn’t feel the need to go to bed at all. Cocaine can do that to a person. The next morning rolled around, and I was still awake, staring fixatedly at the wall and tapping my feet incessantly. My pupils were not their usual size, and my nose was numb. If felt like a dentist had missed my mouth with the injection. 

This isn’t a story about my cocaine use. It is a story about me feeding it to birds. That’s what I did. I got up and buzzed around the fields, just as I had done with the redundant useless coffee grounds the day before. A dusting of snowy cocaine on the ground was enough, and the worms really got stuck in. I hung around for a few minutes to observe them wriggling erratically around. They were as pumped up as I was.  

Having been sat there for a while, I became acutely aware of the presence of birds. They had come for their feast, their worm breakfast. I left them to it, not wanting to scare them away and ruin my genius scheme. 

As I lay experiencing the worst cocaine comedown of my entire life, I turned my head so that it faced out the window and onto the street. My heart was filled with warmth. It was dark. The day had not yet started. However, the birds were making it start. They tweeted and bleated. They chirped and sang. They flew in all directions. The bird bedlam that was ensuing woke up the entire street. Lights illuminated up and down the street. Tried but alert faces poked their heads out the windows. Kettles began to boil in unison. 

I feed cocaine to worms, and I will be remembered as a hero.