A lonely old woman found a silvery worm in a yucca tree.  It looked small and helpless, so she took it home and placed it carefully in a cup.  ‘I’ll call it Nucu,’ she said to herself, ‘and I’ll look it after it as if it were my own child.’  

 

With all the tidbits the old woman fed him, the worm was soon too big for the cup. The old woman transferred him to a water pitcher.   Before long that too was a tight squeeze.  Nucu had to be moved to a wicker basket, then a trough and finally he filled a whole room.     

           

            ‘How is it that you have no son to look after you, madrecita?’ he asked the old woman one day.

 

            The old woman was not at all surprised that the worm could talk.  She had always suspected he was a special gift from the gods. Such joy he had brought into her life.

 

            ‘My husband died before we had children.  He was crushed by the sky.’

 

         

            In those days, the heavens were too close to Earth. Whenever they were heavy with rain, they bulged right down to the ground and squashed people flat.

 

            ‘I am old enough to look after you.  I'll be a son to you,’ said Nucu. That night he and the woman went to the river.  The worm slid in and scooped fish to the bank with his tail.  

 

            ‘From now on, I shall live in the river,’ he said.  ‘That way I can provide food for us both.’

 

            The old woman had gotten used to Nucu’s company but she had to admit he was too big to live in a house now.   

 

            ‘I shall come down to the river every night and tell you stories,’ she promised.  ‘I’ll sing you the lullabies my mother used to sing to me.’

 

            Fed on fish, Nucu kept on growing and growing.  By the new moon, he was as long as the river itself, from its source in the mountains to the delta by the sea.  People everywhere started complaining.

 

            ‘There is no more fish in the river.’

 

‘A monster is devouring them all.’

 

‘Madrecita,’ said Nucu one night.  ‘I fell out of the stars.  It is time I went back.  I do not wish to cause hardship for anyone. ’

 

Her son leaving?  The old woman smiled to hide her tears.  ‘Do as you think best, my Nucu.’

 

‘I shall make sure the river provides fish for you,’ said the worm. ‘Sing me a lullaby.’

 

The old woman sang.  The enormous worm started glowing with a million pin-pricks of light.  Slowly, he arched up in the sky, pushing it further and further away from Earth with his back. No more people would be crushed to death by storms.

 

Nucu’s voice carried to the old woman on the night-breeze.  ‘I have not left you, madrecita.  Look up, I am keeping watch over you.  ’

 

The old woman blinked the tears away from her eyes.  She had no right to feel bereft. Did not other mother’s children grow up and get married?  Did they not go to war or leave their country for a new one?  No, she should rejoice that her son would always be there for her. 

 

She lifted her voice and continued singing to her son twinkling right across the sky, from one end to the other.  He had become the Milky Way.