Despite This We Stay for March 22, 2012

The secret language of worms
by Carol Dunn
HUERFANO — All these years I never paid much attention to the worm tracks under the bark of trees killed by insects. Millions of trees across Colorado have fallen victim to the pine beetle, and I bet no one has thought those squiggly tracks are anything more than the frantic trails of lunatic bugs trapped under the bark and trying to find their way out. But maybe, just maybe, we should have been paying attention.
Just a few days ago, I found what will go down in history as the first worm hieroglyphics (aka wormoglyphs) discovered in Huerfano County.
Folks, the worms have been trying to tell us something. [And before someone writes in to my editor to complain that they are not worms but larvae – whatEVER. They look like worms, and I’m writing the article, so I’m calling them worms.] As you can see from the picture, these are not random squiggles by a creepy, brainless organism. This is a “dead tree scroll” if I ever saw one. Well, ok, I never saw one. But this is one for sure. And since I’ve never heard of a dead tree scroll emerging from any other county in Colorado, we’ll have to surmise that Huerfano has been chosen to carry the message to the rest of humanity.
There is a hidden message here, and I would like to decipher it to see just what message these worms have for Huerfano-kind and the world. Since I worked for an engineer once and had to translate his scrawl into human language, I feel I’m well qualified to decipher worm language.
To the far right and reading downward, which everyone knows is how you read wormoglyphs, we find an alligator, a monkey running away from a giant banana, and a rocky seashore. Moving left we find a person getting knocked out of his shoes, worm motorcycles, worm cars, worm ice skates, and an abacus. Then there are a bunch of little marks that look confusing, which means confusion. To the left of this is a pair of sunglasses, a pair of coveralls, the Wahatoyas, and a skinny hippopotamus. Beside the hippo is a train, and above the train are a mongoose and a roadrunner. Left of the mongoose are a few of the islands of the Bahamas. Farther to the left is a snowman, then a duck head, a can of whipped cream, then a sleeping polar bear. Above the polar bear is a swimming dog wearing sunglasses, and below the polar bear is a down arrow.
This translates to: “We come in piece.” [What? – you expected worms to know how to spell?] “It’s dark in here. Leave us alone. We are hungry. The end.”