Tomato Goliath Hornworm

I awoke in the early morning to frozen feet. The discomfort of such a thing is unparalleled in the world. If one comes to acquire frozen feet–whether that be in the bed, kitchen, or living room it doesn’t matter–they are soon to realize the magnitude of the discomfort. I looked down towards my feet only to see that my blanket had been thrown from my bed onto the floor beside me. 

I turned to look at my wife, but she was not in her usual place next to me. With a sigh of discomfort I sat upright and took in the room, filled with morning sunlight. 

In front of the bed stood a large armoire made of dark mahogany. Our few clothes we chose to bring lay in it neatly. A nightstand stood guard on either side of the bed. My things lay strewn atop the one on my side, while my wife’s things were set neatly on her own. Pictures of dead cowboys and galloping horses hung on all the walls. A cowhide was strung across the wall above the bed. 

My upper body became cold from sitting upright with no shirt on so I swung my legs out of bed and got my pajamas on. I sleep solely in my undergarments, much more comfortable that way. 

Once I had gotten my slippers on I ventured out of the room into the rest of the house to find my wife. She was always a morning bird and I, a late owl. The house was small and quaint. Nothing too grandiose, just simple stuff. 

I made my way to the small kitchen to make some coffee and find her. When I entered into the kitchen I looked for her, but she was nowhere to be seen, so I went about making my coffee. I had to search for where the cups were. I first looked in the drawers on either side of the stove but couldn’t find the coffee mugs. I then looked up in the cupboards above the sink and stove top but had no luck. Finally I found them in the cupboard above the fridge, quite an odd place to store one’s mugs I thought. I retrieved one with a star on it. 

The star looked like it was drawn by a child. The lines that made up the outline of the star were winding and crooked. Some points of the star were larger than others, which gave it a peculiar look, almost eerie. As if the artist of the star was not a child, but a man. A man or woman. Someone who was hurt badly. Someone who had been cut and bruised and battered to the point where they could no longer go on and the only thing they decided was an option for them was to draw a star and put it on the side of a coffee cup. I liked the star and the story I had made for its creation. 

I started towards the coffee maker only to realize that fresh coffee sat in the pot already, still steaming. Unsurprised, I poured the black liquid into my cup. The creamer was sitting beside it. I poured some of the white liquid into the black liquid to make it taste better. 

Taking my first sip, I looked up and out the window situated above the sink and into the garden of the backyard. Through the dirt smudged glass I saw my wife, bent down in the tomato plants. Curious what she was up to, I took myself and my coffee out the back door to the garden. 

Once I stepped a few feet outside the door I called to her, “Honey? What are you doing?”

“Good morning to you too,” she replied.

“Oh yes, good morning honey. Now. What are you doing?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Hmm, no. Not really.”

I drank deeply from my mug and began to walk in her direction. As I got closer I realized she had something in her hands. 

“What’s that you’ve got in your hands?” I questioned.

“Come and take a look for yourself.”

I walked to her and peered over her into her hands. A tiny strip of green lay in them. At first I thought it was just a leaf but a second later the figure began to move.

“What is it?”

My wife tilted her head up until her face was staring straight up at me from below and answered, “It’s a Tomato Goliath Hornworm.”

“A what?”

“It’s a little fella that spends his days eating away in these tomato plants here, and judging by the size of him, he’s been eating away for quite some time.”

“Really? He seems rather small to me.”

“Oh yes! They used to have these in abundance where I grew up but never would they be this big. This little guy is as long as my middle finger. The largest one I found as a girl was the size of my thumb.”

“Oh. Well, that’s pretty impressive I guess. It doesn’t seem like a good thing though. That he’s eating away at the tomato plants and all.”

“Yes, you’re right. Whenever my dad found them he’d take them into our shed and cut off their heads with his gardening shears.”

“Why would he do such a thing? Why not throw it away in the bin?”

“Well, because he believed it to be less cruel to take the worm’s life in one swift motion than throwing it in the bin and letting it slowly starve to death.”

Not convinced cutting off its head was any better than throwing it in the bin, I muttered under my breath, “Seems like something he’d do.”

Quickly she retorted, “What was that, did I hear you say something?”

“Oh nothing darling. Here give me that horny worm. I’ll take care of it, I don’t want you responsible for it’s death. Nothing of the sort should be on your conscience.”

Without her giving a reply, I swiped the Hornworm from her hands. I took it inside to dispose of it. I entered the kitchen and set the worm on the counter. I went rummaging around in the knife draw to find something to kill the worm with. I thought to myself: any one of these knives will do. Any single one. I couldn’t pick one though. After five minutes of waiting my wife came in asking if the deed had been done. No, I replied. I told her to leave. She left. I finally found a proper knife. I came back to the worm on the kitchen counter. It had crawled several inches towards the edge of the countertop in a futile attempt to escape its impending doom. I felt sorry for the creature. It wasn’t its fault that God had designed it to gain sustenance through the consumption of the tomato plants. It had no idea it was at fault. No clue why it was dying. It had no comprehension of why I now stood over it, ready to take its life. I raised the knife with the intention of cutting off what I believed to be its head, but I brought the knife down an inch or two next to the worm. I couldn’t bring myself to kill it. 

I looked up and out of the same kitchen window I had seen my wife through before, except this time she was staring right at me. She began to head inside. She came through the door and stood beside me. Taking the knife from my hand, and setting it on the counter, she hugged me. I looked into her eyes and knew she understood. I broke away from her and walked outside to where she was standing before. Looking back through the window I could now see my wife where I had been standing moments ago. She was stood over the Tomato Goliath Hornworm. I wanted to look away. I couldn’t. The knife went up and the knife came down and I cried.