Short story about Steve Fielding the earth worm and Richard Hawkins the Hawke

Earlier on ABC's Q and A program...

RICHARD DAWKINS: Do you believe the world is less than 10,000 years old?

STEVE FIELDING: Look...

RICHARD DAWKINS: No, do you believe that?

STEVE FIELDING: Look, I think that there are a lot of questions in this area and I think people will come to their own conclusions. I don't want to force people into one way or the other.

RICHARD DAWKINS: You're not being asked to force. You're not being asked to force.

JULIE BISHOP: It's either a new earth creationist or an old earth creationist, so which is it, Steve?

RICHARD DAWKINS: So, you're a young earth creationist, who believes the world is less than 10,000 years old. You're a parliamentarian in Australia, who believes the world you live in is less than 10,000 years old?

Suddenly everything stopped, Steve Fielding's mind went blank. He drifted off and though he kept talking on Q and A, his mind was busy imagining a little story about an earth worm...


One lazy summer's afternoon a little earth worm sat in his favorite patch of dirt in a field. Steve the earth worm was doing his usual routine of rolling around in the cool dirt and munching on microbes when suddenly a large shadow fell across his little patch. "Oh no" cried the little earth worm, "whatever could this be?"

A flapping was to be heard with a large booming voice that shortly followed. "Little Earth worm" it blasted, "I'm going to eat you all up!". The voice belonged to one Richard Hawkins - a hawk who very much liked devouring little earth worms like Steve. He liked plucking them out of their preferred patch of ground and gobbling them up just like that.

"No" cried Steve wriggling around, "don't eat me up Mr Hawkins. I'm too young to be eaten! I haven't even had a chance to learn anything about the world around me beyond my little patch of dirt!" Richard Hawkins glanced down for a moment at the little earth worm with pity in his eyes.

"This poor little thing knows nothing about soaring around the big world, learning about all its wonders like I have. He will never know about how he came to be and why, but how do I know that he really knows nothing about the world around him? I better ask him some questions to make sure."

"Alright" said the hawk, "if you answer these questions I'll let you go and I will go an eat another little earth worm". Steve reluctantly nodded, after all what else was he to do?

"How old do you think this earth is that you squirm around in all day?" The worm looked perplexed, he often couldn't remember one day to the next. He was not even sure how long he'd been squirming around himself. So he decided to think logically - he could remember today, yesterday and he could just about remember the day before, so he raised his little wormy head and told the hawk - "Three, the earth is exactly three days old."

The hawk shook his head in disbelief, "you think this earth is only three days old little earth worm??" he said flapping his wings about bewildered. "Yes, it must be three because that's all I can remember" replied Steve, still a little shaky under the shadow of Mr Hawkins.

"Okay I have another question for you" said Richard, "who made this earth you're wriggling around in?"

This was an even trickier question for Steve so he had to work his little wormy brain extra hard. He thought he remembered once seeing a big creature even bigger than Mr Hawkins planting seeds in the field and making things grow. "If something was that big and was creating new plants in the fields" pondered the little earth worm, "then maybe that's who made the earth as well".

Steven explained his reasoning to the hawk who was getting depressed hearing his little earth worm theories. He thought "how could someone simply live in their own little patch of earth not curious of what lay beyond it? How could there be someone who really knew nothing of the world?" It was almost enough to make a hawk lose his appetite. But he didn't and he devoured Steve. He'd had enough of his silliness and even thought to himself as the worm was wriggling down into his tummy "there goes one less dim little earth worm to deal with."

Steve all of a sudden woke from his day dream just as Tony Jones asked him a question...

STEVE FIELDING: What was the question? Sorry, Tony, I missed it. I was thinking about...