Cockroaches. They be surprising.
For the longest time, I feared their ugliness. The way the hairs on their feet and their antennae moved. The way they scuttled. I don't remember when I stopped fearing them. Was it the moment when the small variety started making regular appearances in every city I visited?Perhaps.
One day, my mettle was tested.
The insects scuttled all night. Small noises, barely noticeable. Until my fingers brushed against one of them The hairs on my head stood up. It was 2-and-a-half digits big, and moving. Probably caught in my hair. This was no cricket. I didn't need the lights to confirm. I had to let my hair go. Like the archer whose target it too close to be hit, I knew I couldn't hit it. I needed elevation.
The bed gave me all the strategic advantage I needed for my mission. I surveyed the land before me, listening for what I knew were sure signs of my enemy. A regular sound, clicks, scuttling, cracking. It wasn't what I expected, but I heard it alright. A moth, near my bag. I had to make sure nothing interfered with the mission.
As I flicked the moth, the realization came too late. It was a decoy, that my enemy had used to lure me in. Once again, it had made contact with my skin and there was nothing I could do but retreat, shaken and infuriated at the same time. To think that a creature that could survive without its brain for a week managed to befuddle mine is a sure sign that its species was going to outlive mine. But will the wits of this individual outwit mine?
Hubris, I thought, searching for my enemy. That's what killed every one of them. It stepped out again, making the same noises; giving me time to step over it and to blindly grab a weapon. I waited for it attack, to make this a combat, not a butchery. Killers can't be choosers. I killed it with a slow hesitant stroke to the gut. The next one was to the head, just to be sure.
Sweeping it up was the easy part, receiving praise for killing was the hard bit. For the first time, I did not raise to the occasion.
This creature has no venom to torment my flesh. It had simple mandibles, for eating, not hurting. It had no way to escape detection. So why enter dangerous territory? Why override the antennae telling you that the human is alive, not dead?
I will never understand what went through it's head. Why it went on this suicidal mission to procure my flesh. Perhaps it is an epic, an epic that needs to be sung, not dismissed. The fiery warrior, who took on the giant demoness, not once but thrice. Who lost. Whose life is not without purpose.
The night will end, and they will all return to their holes, to await another night, ripe with adventures. But that war will be chemical. And the poison will kill every story they might ever tell.
For a day, maybe two.
