The Fable of the Slow-worm

by Barry J. Northern

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A slow-worm had searched in vain all night for slugs, but come morning he was forced to settle under rocky shadows by the threat of the rising sun.

As the morning waxed and warmed the rocks above his head, he felt less cold, but the sun's comfort could not sooth his stomach's hollow ache.

Then he saw a slug. A long, old slug with a ridged back and orange side-stripes. The best kind. It was moving slowly, no doubt caught out by the day's sudden heat. Did he dare risk it? His belly answered yes.

After feasting, the slow-worm felt fat and happy. Not since the days of his youth had he been out in the light like this. He'd forgotten the beautiful blue of the starless sky. He'd also forgotten to be wary of the flying shriekers. A sudden downthrust of air was his only warning before a shadow descended upon him, followed by a taloned foot.

He looked up at twin towers of red wrinkled skin and beheld the curve of a grey-feathered belly. He called out. “Hey there! You're a pigeon!”

"Yeah, so what if I am, hey, hang on a minute, since when could worms talk?"

"Sir, I am not a worm. I eat worms like you do."

"You look like a worm to me."

"Pigeons don't eat my kind."

The pigeon brought his beady eye to face his prey. “Well, I'm one very hungry pigeon, mate. I reckon you might be worth a try.” The bird's weight had shifted forward and compressed the slow-worm's neck, squeezing out all protest. “You see, my dear old Pa, he said to me, 'Fletch me boy, you gotta learn to take what you can get'.” Fletch straightened up, puffing out his chest.

The weight shifted off Fletch's toes, relieving the poor slow-worm somewhat. He took a desperate gasp. "Urgh."”There ahead: a hole in the grass, a good burrowing hole. Safety was but a few inches away. "Urgh."”

What was that?” Fletch bent down to quiz the slow-worm again, but his shifting weight once again precluded a reply. “Sorry, mate, I thought you said something. As I was saying. When I was a young squab, it took me a while to learn that there were pickings to be had around these parts. Oh the things I could tell you about the tasty morsels I've had since I found these little parks among the boxy cliffs. I ain't seen a worm quite like you before though, son. I reckon you might be worth a nibble. Question is, how fast will you slither away if I let you go?

Now Fletch made the mistake of moving his foot down to the slow-worm's tail in order that he might peck at him without fully letting go. The slow-worm felt a twinge at his tail's base. It was that muscle; the muscle his mother had always told him to ignore. It clenched and he felt a back-bone shatter. Sharp pain become numb fear as his grey-scaled skin sphinctered blood's flow to a trickle from a wound where his beautiful tail had been. Instinct drove him down into the hole, where he hid until long after Fletch's protests had died on the wind.

The tail grew back, of course, although it was never quite as fine as it once had been. While it rained, slugs were easily found, but a dry spell soon begat a hungry night, and once again the hollow-bellied slow-worm spied a daytime meal crawling across the lawn. But he did not venture out to fetch it. Nor did he venture out upon seeing another following its slimy wake an hour later.


Once bitten, twice shy.


The Fable of the Slow-worm by Barry J. Northern is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. Hosted by The Internet Archive
Music by Jeff Wahl from the album, Guitarscapes, and provided by magnatune.com