There's a fat, white grub worm gnawing on my right ear. You know those disgusting little things that look like if you squeezed them between your fingers and popped them, all that would come out is puss? And it's got this shiny orange head with pinchers; yeah, I feel them chomping into what's left of my ear. I hate grubs. When I was, like, twelve, I'd go out in the backyard and move logs around, and there'd always be those juicy grubs squirming around in the rotting wood. One time, I got into trouble for moving this whole pile of bricks by the shed out back, because my dad needed them there in order to keep it propped up and away from the rainwater. That was when I was about eight. And my dad yelled at me. He had no patience because he was in the middle of divorcing my mother, he said. But I didn't care—I was angry. I didn't want him to know how upset I really was, so I just went out to the backyard and pulled out the grubs I saw where the bricks used to be and flattened them against the shed wall.

I bet their stains are still there.