My Friend the Worm

Chapter 1 Brain Aneurysm

I saw a teenage couple walking past me and instantly I was hit by a searing hopelessness. I felt completely worthless. Adrenaline fired inside me and nausea churned in my stomach. I shot my eyes away, my head swimming. All I could think about was how I had to kill myself.

"How's life treatin' ya, Ash?" asked my brother Aiden, chomping into a greasy burger. We were sitting at a small table in a crowded food court. People's voices and music from the mall's stores hummed all around us. Sometimes I heard an excited shout or someone's laughter pierce through the muddle of noise.

"Alright, I guess," I responded calmly, though my thoughts were racing. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a young mother corralling her hyper toddlers. Immediately an overwhelming sadness hit me like a train and I fell into a frenzy. I experienced a terrible rush of energy, which screamed for me to commit suicide.

The scent of greasy pizza and fried food—a concoction of Chinese and Mexican cuisine—was thick in the air, all of it wafting toward me at the same time. But I had no appetite. I sat there, restless, not knowing where to look, where to put my hands.

"Anything new?" asked my brother.

I swallowed, my saliva thick as cement. "Nah, same old," I replied with little emotion. But I couldn't hide the pain buried in the words. My brother took a long look at me as I stared at my partially eaten meal. I couldn't meet his eyes.

"You know, you could visit me anytime at my base in Texas. Hell, I'd pay for your ticket," began my brother. "It'd be fun. You'd get away from mom and dad. You'd meet the guys I toured with. They are the funniest motherfuckers you will ever meet."

I looked up and peered at Aiden who was grinning. He had a strong jawline and a tan, youthful face emphasized by his crew cut. At twenty-five years old, he was just two years my senior, yet I felt that there was a gulf in age between us, like the difference between a boy and man. He had the confidence of a soldier and I felt like a child beside him.

"Grunts...infantry—they are a different breed," he laughed. "They're my brothers. Like you and me, man. So whadaya say? You want to take a little vacation? We'd have a blast."

Staring into my brother's eager eyes, I felt guilty for being alive. It felt wrong to me that I existed. The thought of meeting his Army buddies made my stomach drop. Anguish whirled inside me as my past reared its grotesque head, like a corpse rising from a crumbling grave. Dirt and worms spilling out of its smirking mouth. The earth birthing an abomination that would never let me rest.

"I don't know," I finally replied. "I really don't get much vacation time at my job. Unless you've been there forever."

"Yeah—I understand," said Aiden, who lost some of the excitement in his eyes. "If things change with your job or if you ever change your mind...the deal's always good." He suddenly looked sad. But he always looked sad nowadays. The war had taken its toll on him. I felt horrible, as if I'd just kicked a dog, yet I didn't know what to tell him. What words of wisdom did I have? I didn't know anything about real problems, about things that mattered.

My brother finished his burger in a few bites and stood up, taking a long sip from his soda. He was taller than I was, by an inch maybe, yet he seemed to tower over me. "It's getting late. We should head back," he said and he grabbed his shopping bag. He'd bought a really expensive toaster and some other household appliance—last-minute wedding gifts for his pal James who was getting married tonight.

I'd known James from high school. Well, I didn't actually know him. In school, he'd been two years ahead of me, like my brother, and back then, he and Aiden had run with the popular crowd and I'd run with the—I hadn't run with any crowd. I'd been alone.