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The Pentacle Worm probably eats children.
Feb. 13th, 2012 11:19 pmThe worm in question may actually be named "the Pentateuch Worm," or a made-up word that sounds like both, or a word composed of sounds that don't exist when you're awake. When the alarm went off this morning, I sat in bed for a few minutes trying to remember the exact name. But eventually I had to get up and get dressed, and you of course have no chance of ever recollecting a dream worm's name while in your work clothes and attempting to operate the toaster.
The Pentacle Worm lives underneath a small church in Paris, as it has for hundreds of years. It cannot leave - it is attached to the ground - and it is the only one of its kind. Neither of these things seem to bother it, as nothing ever seems to bother it. The worm has, over many years of being addressed by curious human beings, learned to talk. It looks like a human woman buried to the knees in the dirt floor.
It never speaks without being addressed; it only answers questions, in a calm monotone, looking straight ahead at nothing. Usually its answers are nonsense, grammatically correct but meaningless, and sometimes they are sensible but obviously wrong. The worm probably doesn't really understand communication, or need to. It's lived in apparent comfort under a church for centuries, without ever seeing another of its kind.
Yet sometimes you can ask it a question no one should be able to answer, and it will.
The church under which it lives is a tourist attraction, with a small formal garden in the back with white stone benches. It's in an old residential neighborhood with tidy houses on each side. (Does this actually happen in France? Do I just think that all foreign countries are Japan?) Tourists come in and excitedly ask it questions. There are no guards, and it would never occur to anyone to hurt the worm, or ask it anything dangerous.
There's a groundskeeper, a solitary old woman who lives nearby and comes off as a little sinister. She has helpers, a dozen or so children living at a little dormitory beneath the church. There have been a dozen or so children staying in that dormitory for centuries. Their parents volunteer them for a few years, and they leave when they turn thirteen.
Most of them are happy there - it's a pretty place, and their parents visit them often - but one little boy is afraid of the old woman. He's heard her saying things to the worm that sound unkind, though the worm does not answer. And he wonders - why does the worm always have children near it, anyway?
The worm lives for a few hundred years, but they say that there has been a worm alone in this basement for at least a thousand. Where do new Pentacle Worms come from? And how close is this one to the end of its lifespan?
I woke up before the dream deigned to answer these questions.
-
This dream appears to be a rough draft of a Petshop of Horrors chapter. That's what I was reading before bed last night, if it wasn't already obvious.
The Pentacle Worm lives underneath a small church in Paris, as it has for hundreds of years. It cannot leave - it is attached to the ground - and it is the only one of its kind. Neither of these things seem to bother it, as nothing ever seems to bother it. The worm has, over many years of being addressed by curious human beings, learned to talk. It looks like a human woman buried to the knees in the dirt floor.
It never speaks without being addressed; it only answers questions, in a calm monotone, looking straight ahead at nothing. Usually its answers are nonsense, grammatically correct but meaningless, and sometimes they are sensible but obviously wrong. The worm probably doesn't really understand communication, or need to. It's lived in apparent comfort under a church for centuries, without ever seeing another of its kind.
Yet sometimes you can ask it a question no one should be able to answer, and it will.
The church under which it lives is a tourist attraction, with a small formal garden in the back with white stone benches. It's in an old residential neighborhood with tidy houses on each side. (Does this actually happen in France? Do I just think that all foreign countries are Japan?) Tourists come in and excitedly ask it questions. There are no guards, and it would never occur to anyone to hurt the worm, or ask it anything dangerous.
There's a groundskeeper, a solitary old woman who lives nearby and comes off as a little sinister. She has helpers, a dozen or so children living at a little dormitory beneath the church. There have been a dozen or so children staying in that dormitory for centuries. Their parents volunteer them for a few years, and they leave when they turn thirteen.
Most of them are happy there - it's a pretty place, and their parents visit them often - but one little boy is afraid of the old woman. He's heard her saying things to the worm that sound unkind, though the worm does not answer. And he wonders - why does the worm always have children near it, anyway?
The worm lives for a few hundred years, but they say that there has been a worm alone in this basement for at least a thousand. Where do new Pentacle Worms come from? And how close is this one to the end of its lifespan?
I woke up before the dream deigned to answer these questions.
-
This dream appears to be a rough draft of a Petshop of Horrors chapter. That's what I was reading before bed last night, if it wasn't already obvious.
