[SoliloquyofaWorminaCandyApple.mp3]
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WORM IN THE WORLD
One day Wilbur the worm crawled up an apple tree and curled up inside a blossom.
In time the blossom became an apple and ripened. A farmer picked it and sent
it off to market. The Candy Apple Man bought a barrel of apples; took them to
the fair and made bunch of bright red candy apples. He overlooked the one with
Wilbur in it.
A little boy went to the fair with his mother, who bought him a candy apple.
As they walked down the midway he bit into the hard red candy coating. It was
too sweet. He was lucky he didn't bite the side with the worm. The boy held
onto the apple for a while, then tossed it behind a tree when no one was looking.
A few days passed and the fair left town.
Wilbur feasted on the delicious apple...and munched out a big space up to the red candy coating, which became a big picture window. It was a very rosy window. Little Wilbur would just laze around and look at everything. Lazing and looking and licking his lipsÑthat's all he did.
Eventually the back half of Wilbur wriggled its way out of the hole in the candy coating and swung around in front of the rosy window. Seeing his own tail in front of the rosy window, without realizing it was himself, Wilbur thought, "This must be the most beautiful worm in the world." Excited, Wilbur started to wriggle. This made it seem that the 'worm' outside was doing a little love dance. Wilbur fell madly in love...but felt 'she' was just too beautiful for him, and never sang any of the songs he had written for her. He kept his love a secret.
Wilbur was so infatuated he stopped eating. He continued to admire the rosy worm outside without venturing beyond his cozy domain. Soon Wilbur became weak and tired. The worm outside became weak and tired too, and stopped wriggling. At last, Wilbur lost interest in 'her' and started munching again.
Soon all that remained was the red candy shell. It was then that Wilbur realized he had made a silly mistake. He crawled out into the real world embarrassed and bright red. Wilbur decided that when the right worm happened by Ñ he wouldn't sit around writing poetry.
© Stefan des Lauriers