IT STANK. Rotting broccoli leaves and tomato ends. Rancid orange peel. Sickeningly-sweet overripe banana. Harsh and bitter coffee grounds. Francis picked through the reeking garbage with the blade of a paring knife. He'd been proven right again. Like most new ideas, this one wasn't working. The worms weren't doing their job.
He dug under the remains of a week's worth of meals, down past the newly formed rich topsoil. They should have been there. Ten starter worms. Dull red-brown. Four inchers. Squiggling up through the dirt to gobble the putrid mess through one indistinguishable end and excreting something that leads to new earth through the other.
The knife blade ...