The day I met The Roach

T’was an ordinary day at 3 a few mornings ago when I heard a human scream from the cave of the Master. Immediately all the other humans were startled and disoriented. One human even got up in a panic from her seat and fled in terror, her face a nervous wreck. I wondered what was going on until I heard the stationery mentioning that the humans had spotted a roach in their midst, right smack in the Master’s cave. Apparently it was unheard of at 3 and this was the first time that they saw it.

As I was bemusedly wondering how a tiny creature could scare such a large human, Idiota explained to me that most humans were generally afraid of roaches. Funny or not, it was something that made them hyperventilate, and summoned forth caveman like instincts to grab the nearest makeshift weapon in the form of a rolled up newspaper or even a shoe and attempt to exterminate the roaches! The mere sight of creepy crawly legs and antennas of the common cockroach jetting out from dark corners and scampering across floors utterly freaked the humans out.

I was awed by this creature Roach. He managed to scare such huge humans merely with his presence. And so that night, I stayed awake, hoping that the warrior Roach would scurry my way so I could chat him up and find out more about this intriguing creature. Maybe I could take a few pointers from him on how to intimidate these humans.

It wasn’t until three days later that I felt a presence near my confinement space. I was almost drifting to sleep but I was immediately alert when I saw who it was. It was the warrior himself, shiny yet ugly, scowling yet cool, his antennas  glowing in the dim emergency light of 3.

“Heard you were looking for me, fish. What’s up?” His voice was a deep growl, he sounded unrefined.

“Err, yes yes, I’m so impressed that you have such an impact on the humans. I just wanted to  hear  about your people…” I gushed out in awe, my eyes growing wider as I noticed Roach nibbling on Owner’s sheet of papers.

“What’s there to tell, those pansies are afraid of my kind. They think we’re disgusting creatures. As IF!” He was rubbing his antenna on Owner’s mug now. I grinned bemusedly…I hope Owner washes that tomorrow before she makes her drink in it.

“Ya know fish, for every one of us you see, there are probably hundreds of us in the same place. The reason you don’t see many of us is that most of us are under something or the other…only a select few venture out at night to look for food for our families, colonies, groups…

You know, we’re the ultimate scavengers. We love walking about in poo or other disgusting solids and liquids. We spread roach dusts. We nibble on stuff, we trigger asthma attacks by leaving our dust on human stuff…we’ll chew paper, cloth, oils, bodily wastes, and any type of food or liquid product the humans leave behind. We even snack on the dead bodies of our fellow comrades. Nothing is off limits when it comes to us.

We live without rules. We have no limits. Call us evil even!

Our wives can lay up to 40 eggs at a time, laying up to 400 evil little ones in a lifetime. Their lifespan is a year long and we adult roaches can go for a month without food, and even up to an hour without oxygen. We can live off of virtually anything. Even the organic glue compound found on the back of stamps or the nourishment of dead skin flakes can sustain us for weeks.

IF THEY THINK THEY CAN KILL US, THEY’RE WRONG.

We’re difficult to kill. Not only do we run like Florence Griffith, our bodies are extremely well adapted to fend off damage. We can fly too man. And when we become drones, the humans are doubly afraid of us. Because our breathing system is made up of tubes on our bodies called trachea, we can continue to live even after our heads or limbs are chopped off – talk about walking zombies eh. My cousin Roafer, he was a headless roach for about a month till he was totally squished by a nasty human.

And the whole newspaper whacking thing, well humans think they can whack us flat but they’re wrong. Man, we can quickly scurry into wall corners and flatten our bodies to avoid yesterday’s news from descending on us.

We’re experts at staying hidden, we invade EVERYTHING. Forget about the nuclear war, even that can’t kill us. The real invasion is the roach invasion! We’re the silent plague….the resident evil..!!!!!” Roach ended his brag-a-thon with a smirk.

“So what’s a fish like you doing in a place like this?” he asked, with an obvious uninterested look on his face. My, he was really ugly and slightly creepy.

As I was about to answer the Roach, he scampered off, muttering something under his breath which sounded like later or something…and hurried away. Now what was THAT all about? He didn’t seem quite all there.

I swam back to my comfy zone and snuggled up to sleep. But I felt a chill up my spine, after all he had told me, The Roach was indeed as disgusting as the humans said he was. I wondered if he ate fish, I was sure he did.

But I must admit, that is one awesome dude!