A Gray Inchworm on a Gray Sidewalk

Photograph of sidewalkHow easily the runner could have crushed it. The inchworm’s camouflage, which conceals it from predators, makes the inchworm vulnerable to the human jogging along neighborhood sidewalks, the human who does not intend the inchworm harm. Pounding the pavement and enduring the earth’s return punches is the human’s attempt to postpone death. If the runner hadn’t seen the inchworm, if the inchworm had gotten caught between these punches, the runner probably wouldn’t have felt anything more than the usual heaviness and the usual fight to keep going. But the runner did see the inchworm. She felt lightness as she leapt.

 

Michelle Ross is the author of There’s So Much They Haven’t Told You (2017), which won the 2016 Moon City Press Short Fiction Award. www.michellenross.com.

Photo Credit: Nicolas Nova

7 Responses to “A Gray Inchworm on a Gray Sidewalk”

  1. KennyMarsach says:

    The point of this 100 word essay is about how the how experiences of pain when falling during a run. but at the end of the essay it says how the runner saw the inchworm and leaped over it with ease and continued on her run. to me what I learned from this story that if you are aware of the situation you will be able to go through it with out any problems.

  2. da says:

    The simple things in life are often the ones most overlooked

  3. tommy says:

    Heavy meaning but with a simple concept. Great story!

  4. James Charles says:

    When I was a child I was physically and verbally abused by my parents. I was locked in my room my whole childhood and during that time I wrote stories about the other kids in the street with their fancy clothes and their parents who loved them. My dad was so physically abusive that I was forced to leave and live on the streets at the age of 15. I devoted my life from that moment on writing short stories about my experience as a child and how children going through what I went through can do about it. My website is Justice for children. It is an organisation where 100% of all profit go to kids and teenagers who are being physically and verbally abused. This story is a symbolism of my life as a child. Running away from the human being my dad, and trying to not get stepped on and killed. I hope my story gets out there so that kids and teens can know what to do when they encounter a situation of abuse.

  5. Gay Dleiema says:

    this is A realy lovly storey, gay?

  6. Gay Degani says:

    Lovely. It’s the little things we need to treasure since they are so rarely noticed.

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