Little Wrigglers
My daughter is home from university for the weekend. I would like to think it is because she cannot bear to be parted from Phil and I, but I suspect, and our daughter more or less admits it, that it is because she has no food in the cupboard of her shared house. Demands for fish and chips are met. She makes her signature roast parsnips for Sunday lunch. What is the secret to her delicious parsnip recipe? Seasoning, apparently. Which ones and how many remains a secret as valuable as that used for KFC. Finally, after we've enjoyed the parsnips, she makes her outrageous demands.
Children make great claims upon you. From lack of sleep to lack of finances to no lack of worry. From birth onwards they give you their unconditional love and eventually they will want something in return. Today, the purely transactional nature of parent-daughter relations is made plain. The debt is being called in.
She wants our worms.
The composter at her shared house is lacking life. Despite being regularly fed scraps from the kitchen it is absent of vermi-compost. No wrigglers or earthworms are enjoying the potato peelings in the bohemian back yard of her house. She wants our worms to transform her inert, nutrient-deficient food waste into stuff good enough to spread on a garden they don't possess. I am not privy to any long term plans to transform the paved area at the back of her house from a bleak corner with a couple of pieces plastic furniture into a hanging garden or verdant paradise. I only know that the call for worms has gone out and I must decide to answer it.
I had assumed my fatherly affection was unconditional. That I would 'take a bullet' for my child. Wipe their nose. Change their nappy. Donate a liver. I didn't expect to quibble at worms.
I am surprised to discover I have a paternal affection for the worms in the compost bin in our back garden. I am reluctant to part with them. They are Worcester worms nurtured by local soil. Suburban worms of moderate habits. Local worms for local people. My little wrigglers. Can I be expected to send them out into an uncaring world to fend for themselves in the mean streets of university accommodation without a single pang of guilt?
I am left with a dilemma. Who do I choose? Worms or daughter? Whose needs do I prioritise? On the one hand I have an only child. The darling daughter who's tears I have dabbed, butt I have wiped and parsnips I have just eaten (I hasten to add that a gap of well over a decade has passed between the wiping and the eating). On the other I have countless worms.
When it comes down to it, on a purely transactional level, what have the worms done for me lately? I inform my daughter that she can help herself to the worms from the composter. Not too many, I hasten to add, but I am willing to part with a few for the sake of family harmony.
Having reached my magnanimous decision I then discover that my daughter has reservations. She is reluctant to dig into the composter herself. Instead she looks at me from lowered eyelashes and tells me in an exaggeratedly feminine tone that a lady doesn't collect worms.
I sigh and pick up my gardening gloves and trowel. I remove the lid of the composter and several thousand bugs fly into my face. I squeeze my eyes shut, swallow a mouthful of tiny flying horrors and flap my arms hysterically.
I peer into the compost bin at the deliquescent mound of rotting fruit and vegetables. Gingerly prodding the surface with the tip of the trowel, I uncover a writhing mass of worms. Children make great claims upon you, I think as I reach inside.
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Shameless capitalism
Paris, the fairy tale romance beautifully drawn by Simon Gane and written by me is out now from Image comics.
Simon has made two A3 prints from the book and they are gorgeous. Drop by his store and snag one for yourself.
Sunburn from Simon and me is due out November 24th. I did an interview with Matt at Down the Tubes discussing how our collaboration works.
Order from OK Comics and you will get the book with a signed exclusive bookplate.
Order from Page 45 and you will get the book with a (different) signed exclusive bookplate.
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Patreon
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