Footprints in the Worm Garden - Revisited
A Post-Apocalyptic Coming of Age Tale
In the mid-2010s, a few friends trusted me to regularly care for their pets while they were away and at work. I had recently fallen on hard times and this was a bit of charity on their part for which I was very grateful. For my generation and culture, trusting someone with your pet is like trusting them with your child. It was a huge responsibility, and I took it very seriously.
During this period, weed dispensaries began popping up on nearly every corner of my town. So, each day, after responsibly caring for my friends' fur babies, I would reward myself by getting irresponsibly high on decriminalized weed.
Before the munchies kicked in or I passed out, I’d meditate on and journal about the day's events, most of which involved pet interactions. Through this introspection, I realized I felt like I was being transformed, adapting to the life rhythms of other lifeforms. For a couple of hours every weekday, I had not one, but several buttholes to worry about.
Those are the approximate conditions that seeded the idea for "Petting the Peeve" (aka Footprints in the Worm Garden). I wanted to do a story that would convey my feeling of being transformed by accepting responsibility.
With a clear theme in mind, I chose to set my fictional pet care story in post-apocalyptic Australia. The characters were descendants of mutant kangaroos that go to church, sing, play sports, and eat psychedelic mushrooms while living their lives entirely in underground caves. The reasons for all of that are lost in a huge THC vape cloud. And most of these details were trimmed during editing and revision drafts when I wasn't as high, but I successfully conveyed my core idea.
It's been over four years since I released it to my Patreon Patrons, and it has been very well received. Despite being my weirdest work, it is also my most accessible, likely due to its coming-of-age themes and young adult target audience.
Collected here for your reading pleasure is the Serialized Footprints in the Worm Garden:
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And the real point of this post, my continuing my experiments with using AI Audio tools in my production pipeline. (For more on that, check out my in-depth blog post, AI Vs. Art) But for now, enjoy the Going Narrative Podcast presentation of Footprints in the Worm Garden (2K24 Edition):
Feel free to compare the above AI-enhanced podcast to the original audiobook, and tell me what you think in the comments: