She closed the book,
placed it on the table, and finally decided to walk through the door.
“I can’t take it any
more,” she grumbled, as the door slammed firmly behind her: heavy and air
tight, like the lid of a coffin.
The now deserted chamber
was hardly empty. Buried beneath the clutter and dust, Blattie perched upon the
edge of a stool finishing off the last of his supper. Churning his head
mechanically and crushing macadamia nut between his jaws, he pondered her
departure with a mixture of curiosity and dread. Though it was true that she
often left the apartment, there was something about this particular incident
that felt portentous.
Blattie went over the
sequence of events in his mind. First, of course, there was the piqued
expression on her face followed by a horrified shriek. Second, there was the
book: larger and flimsier than others he had seen. Third, there was the
ominous phrase “I can’t take it anymore”. These words seemed prophetic.
These words summoned doom.
Blattie attempted to
quiet his ganglia. He told himself he was overreacting and appeased himself
with gratifying memories. In fact, in most cases when she left the apartment
Blattie was delighted, since when she returned, her arms were laden with a
variety of colorful, crinkly containers. These packages would eventually be
opened with a fresh, liberating pop followed closely afterwards by an indulgent
deluge of food. He had become accustomed to the rich, sweet crumbs that gushed
bountifully from these bags and her fingers like succulent rain.
For most of his life, as
if enchanted, Blattie had trailed her through the well-worn paths of the
cramped apartment. He scurried over stacks of papers, books, clothing, and
electronics. He disguised himself among crates of toys, boxes of pens and skeins
of yarn. While she slept, the gentle rise and fall of her body felt soothing as
Blattie meandered and foraged for delicious treasures along the vast folds of
her bed sheets.
Still, he could not
suppress the visceral chill that originated from deep within his hemolymph and
radiated along the ridges of his exoskeleton. “From plenty follows danger,” he
knew the presage well, but since he had been born into prosperous times, the
significance of these words had never fully resonated until this moment. There
was an eerie connection between this event and the stories he had heard around
the colony, harrowing stories of chemical Armageddon and scarcity that made the
hair on the back of his legs stand up.
He knew, for example,
that before his hatching there was nothing around the house to eat but wet
newspaper, soap scum and, if one was fortunate, a little piece of fetid fruit.
Once, his uncle Arthro had lived for months on a sliver of dried crust and a
small cardboard box. Previously, there had been someone in the apartment who
had similarly provided his ancestors with abundant sustenance. When she left
for the last time she had uttered the same words: “I can’t take it anymore”.
Blattie flicked his
antennae contemplatively. He had to uncover the truth and warn the colony. To
confirm his suspicions, Blattie decided he needed more proof. Now confident and
without hesitation, he darted to the table and mounted the book. Peering
over the edge, he apprehensively fixed his two-thousand eyes on a slip of
yellow paper that had been torn from its pages: “Exterminator” had been marked
with a thick red circle.
Blattie’s spiracles
tightened. Just then, the lock clicked open. Blattie dashed into the corner as
a fine, deadly mist filled the room.
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