In the morning, in the shower, worms flow from me and circle the drain but dare not take their exit. They are not the ordinary worms you might expect to find in the garden or digging in the mud, but something darker and smoother. Slightly thicker and shorter. They wriggle in strange contorted ways. I do not know where they come from, they just fall from my skin.
As the water heats up, so to does the amount and veracity of the slimy discharge. Then more creatures begin to manifest, snakes and hawks and other birds of prey. Foxes and hounds chase each other around the tub’s drain. Men on horse and women afoot, demons in cars and hogs in plane all joining the menagerie. The sound and stench of a thousand cries swirl in the watery cascade.
Some fly and some slither. Some walk while others seem to glide on an undetected breeze, but none can seem to get far before being pulled to the drain to circle and circle and circle again. On occasion a select one or two will escape the fray, break free as if they summoned a will of their own. But mostly it seems the others borrow my will and eventually lose autonomy once they increase the distance between it and me. Like some invisible cord holds it short, then breaks, and it collapses and falls to the floor to circle the drain. To circle and circle and circle again.
And those that fall but fail to exit, most are absorbed back into my feet. They meld together in creaturistic broth, then like watching a candle melt in reverse, they come back to me, changed for the journey, and I changed by the reconstituted commune. Shed from the thoughts of the day or the remnant of a dream and thrown into a chaotic flutter of commotion. Mostly they never escape but only shift and combine then combine again to see what thoughts will then transpire.
A lucky few grow wings of their own and find themselves in a world of love and hate. A world of pain and indifference. A world of great compassion and caring, A world of silence and chaos. But for those that can’t find neither an exit nor a way back, they circle the drain. They circle and circle and circle again.