Baby Earthworms

The rain felt predatory, falling down in packs and nipping at his skin until it started to feel hot. The sensation brought him back from his daydream and remembering where he was he wiped the backs of his hands on his trousers, tucked his socks into his boots and tightened the collar of his coat. Clipping the rusted seal around his neck rendered him a little bit breathless, but it was a breathlessness he could cope with – a seared nape he could not.

He quietly took his position, his feet close beside each other and pointing northward. Directly in front of him Adam stood with his back straight and his hair - strands matted thickly with oil - shifting slightly with the wind; his right hand twitched, resisting the urge to rub his scalp. They all knew not to scratch their heads when the rain fell – the sores weren’t worth the brief moment of relief.

Around him, the crowds had already gathered along the strip: almost everyone in the Camp of Beginnings. He could spot some of signs from the previous year, and some from even a few years before that: the crude browns and blacks looked like pools of waste painted along the scraps of tarpaulin. Memories of the the previous year came back to him, and in them he was stood in the same place as he was now, but the sun was out and the sky was the bluest he’d seen it. The weather changes but the paintings stay the same, he thought. Man’s Mistake doesn’t change. Blue sky or not, the Feeding doesn’t care.

The march started, as it always did, at two minutes past eleven. Momollin walked backwards towards the boys, one long leg lifting and landing against the ground, followed by the other. His back was straight, both arms tightly against his side and his pistol clenched in his left hand. His walk was sure – well-practiced – and the tight knots of muscle in his back were emphasised by the weak fabric of his shirt that was being pecked at by the shower. As was the custom, he started the sermon with the pistol raised above his head. “Mistake made…” he began, his words peppered with holes by the rain, the syllables picked off, assassinated at random. Some words stood out to Tom more than others: war and grief, meal and blessing. Momollin’s voice was thick, erupting from the root of his neck, his words curdling slightly in his throat before reaching the open air. There were rumours that he had a tumour big enough to see (Adam had said he’d caught a glimpse of it). That would account for his collar then, turned up as it was so that it bookended his jaw and hid his neck.

Each and every boy, stood now in formation, waited anxiously for the bullet. It came as the thick gurgle of voice spoke the sermon’s final words: “this necessary rite.” Then a sound tore through the quiet and the bullet lost itself in the cloud-blanket above. Below, on the long strip of warped tarmac the boys commenced backwards in unison. First, right foot back, then left foot to follow: ball to heel, ball to heel; their right hands lay flat against their chests, their left against their side, fingertips pointing to the ground.

Tom was in the middle of the group, the position allocated to him four years ago during the Sorting Meeting. It was the worst spot – or at least one of the worst – since he had bodies both in front of him and behind him, meaning he had a higher chance of being knocked, falling out of step or falling over. He saw the way that some of the guards looked at him, over breakfast, during farming or church, and wondered whether something had been planned. He wasn’t tall, and the other boys would definitely describe him as skinny; there wasn’t much of him.

Focusing anxiously on the back of Adam’s head in front, Tom’s steps fell into a rhythm secured by him having practiced them awkwardly in bed in the weeks leading up to the march. Under the covers in the bunk-hall after lights out, his legs and feet would wind silently backwards; most of the boys practiced too, regardless of the consequences of being caught. Two years earlier Rapha had been drained for six minutes after being caught by a tipped-off guard; no care at all was taken in the re-stitch – he showed the scars on the inside of his forearm to the other boys a couple of weeks later and someone said they looked like baby earthworms. Rapha said they had packaged it in front of him in six translucent bags and took it directly to the kitchen.

Above the bodies marching backwards along the long strip of deathly-black tarmac the rain fell in thick beams that sought to skewer. Looking to his right, he saw the pieces of tarpaulin pulled taught by pale hands – from that distance he could make out the crude pictures: images of the events leading up to the Mistake. These were the moments described by Momallin in his sermons: “when man went against all his progress,” he would often say, “when forwards became backwards.” It was the Mistake that they all had to blame for the life they lived, although none of them – or their parents or even their parents’ parents – had known any different. Sometimes one of the boys would come up with a new theory on the Mistake – how and why it happened - and would be eager to tell someone. The audiences of these theories would listen at their own discretion, since they were all acutely aware of the punishment for Speculators.

Ahead of Tom, three rows of boys were taking their steps in unison. He was in the fourth row, and behind him three more stretched back. The sound of rough, rubbered boot heels hitting the ground was sharp, like snapping bones. Momollin’s head bounced slightly from side to side, his heavy-lidded eyes protected by the rim of his cap, his jaw jutting out and clenched hard. The march was his brainchild and its benefits threefold: a way to assert himself; a way to provide for his community and, most importantly, a way to serve Him.

They reached the first post – Breezeblock One – which signalled an increase in pace (“we walk faster now just as Man sped towards his grave,”) as well as having reached the first mile. The increased speed was always hard to adjust to – it never got easier, even with each year that passed. It was here that everyone’s collective heart rate shot up. Tom eyed the heads around him, and where he could catch a glimpse of their faces he saw in them the terror he knew his own face wore too, and it tugged at the features of his young face and cast over it a dark shadow.

Moments like this – the change in pace – were designed to make them slip up. Just one was necessary. Yet until that happened, the march didn’t stop, and so the boys charged on in reverse, taking their long, awkward strides backwards, all of them trapped and squeezed in between the tightening vice of two harrowing thoughts: continue marching against the pain and fatigue and stall the Feeding; or accept, like every year, the inevitable and begin the horror and pain of mourning a member of their own whilst still on foot.

The landscape around them seemed to shake as the rain fell with persistence, obscuring the distant hills that looked as if they were covered with a blanket of dying-but-not-yet-dead shrubs. A handful of pole-like structures jutted out of the earth in spots across the tragic hillsides – Sarah the Daughter said that she heard from someone (who was told by someone else) that the thick poles were actually wood and that they used to be everywhere. They would never validate it, since stepping off the tarmac was forbidden. “It Is On Man’s Solid Strip We Are Sure To Stay Safe” was written in red above the church to remind everyone of exactly that. Momollin somehow prevented even the rain from washing off that reminder.

So too did he stop any slacking; with a quick raising of his left arm he yanked the pistol into existence once more and allowed another blast of bullet to tear through the air. The sound erupted before being swallowed by the rain clouds, yet it was loud enough to catch one of them off-guard. From two rows behind Momollin one boy hopped back in surprise and almost lost his footing; each and every head in the crowd – some fifty boys – turned instantly in horror. Like the organs in an exhausted body acutely aware of each other, paranoid of any signs of failure, the boys’ eyes shot a glance at the stumbler. It was Richard, an unlikely one for the Feeding. He was light on his feet and usually had his wits about him. His near fall unnerved Tom.

Soon enough, they passed Breezeblock Two, Three then Four. This year’s march was proving to be one of the longest they had known. Some years ago, the group had approached five miles; three new boys had entered the march that year – those newly turned ten years-old – and maybe Momollin thought to punish them. Soon enough one of the newbies collapsed from fatigue and was quickly dragged away by guards, his heels trailing on the tarmac and casting off little stones into the air that bounced like fleas on fur.The sheets of tarpaulin were soon rolled up in tight bundles for the next year and the rest of the boys were safe from the elements until another Feeding was necessary.

Now another Feeding loomed, and as if they all shared an imperceptible thread of thought that had been woven through them, the boys were all hit with a sudden sense of dread as they approached the fifth waypoint. In that moment as ball fell to heel then back again, a boy, Leland, slipped up and hit the wet ground with a slap. Tom would remember seeing that Leland had broken two fingers trying to catch himself as he fell, yet he knew that didn’t matter.

The day of the march is a day overwhelmed with incessant movement. The pistol shots, the gasps and the walking, but also the fainting, dragging, kicking, screaming, undressing, tearing, cleaning and so on. The Preppers quickly work to lose no time; it is always a tangle of limbs, sweat and cursing if a Prepper is not quick enough with the hammer. But once it is done, Momollin inspects the body and if contented, leaves and goes inside. He will next be seen at the head of the table.

Six hours are required by the Preppers to fulfil their duties – it is in a state of constant apprehension that they honour the day of the march. It is taxing and exhausting work – the steam billowing from the stovetop is impossible to avoid. The young girls are by decree to remove the innards and nails, before the cadaver is skinned. Keeping a watchful eye is the small portrait of Him in the open locket – heart shaped but rusted – hanging high above the chopping boards.

Eventually the food trays are presented and Momollin – His Trusted Son - takes the first bite. If it is suitable (fit for Him) then he takes another – if not, a Prepper will pay. Around the table, other bites follow and quickly the Feeding Hall is filled with the sound of eating. Tom knows the consequence for retching, and so closes his eyes and tries to make pretend. But the slap against the wet ground still rings in his ears as he struggles to push out a string of meat from between his teeth with his tongue.