What’s so funny?

I’ve been feeling so neglected lately. These humans at 3, all lately so caught up in their own selfish pursuits. They failed to clean my confinement space, and there were times Owner forgot to feed me and then she would remember and gleefully tell her human friend what she had done. And all the while she would laugh, as if not remembering to feed her pet was the most funniest thing in the world.

I mean, how funny could that be anyway? Was it funny if her parents forgot to feed her for a day? Or she wasn’t given food for a day? That wouldn’t be so funny anymore now, would it?

I’m so annoyed right now it hurts.

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!

It could have been worse…

Lamy’s botched escape

What was that special about the blue pen named Lamy? After all it was just a blue fountain pen; old, worn out, scratched and not really what you would call an attractive piece of stationery.

So what was all the fuss about? Apparently, Lamy had gone missing from one of the humans’ workspace and many a commotion was made to recover Lamy by that particular human.

When at last it was found, it sighed a great big sigh and narrated to us the story on the mystery of it’s dissappearance and it’s subsequent recovery the same evening it was brought back to 3. I didn’t really care much, but then again I was bored, so I listened along with the crowd of stationery gathered at Owner’s desktop.

“I tried to escape..” it told us forlornly.

“I couldn’t take the abuse any longer.”

I watched as all the other stationery gasped silently at Lamy’s revelation. But I wasn’t that surprised. These humans, they were capable of almost anything.

Lamy told us about the smell of it’s owner’s workstation, how it was so pungent that at times it found it quite unbearable to write anything or glide properly on paper. It told us that at times, it’s owner would fling it on the desktop whenever the owner was stressed or angry (which was very often) and the way the owner would sexually abuse Lamy (at this point, I heard the other stationery gasping at Lamy’s statement). How could a pen be sexually abused?, I thought to myself.

Man, I must really be going crazy now, as if it isn’t enough that I fraternise with stationery that were alive and talking, but I also witnessed a confession from a pen that it was being sexually abused by a human.. *sigh*

Lamy went on to say that it’s owner had used it to rub and scratch various parts of the owner’s body, and other obscene details which I’ll graciously omit out for now, which to Lamy amounted to sexual abuse.

“I’m not built for all that. I was built to write!” Lamy sighed sadly, little droplets of ink streaming down it’s scratched body.

And that was how Lamy snapped. It told us that one day during one of it’s owner’s meetings outside of 3, it discreetly rolled off the table and rolled away silently. It’s owner never realised it was gone until much later. The decent, cheerful lady who found Lamy, placed it in her safekeeping and for a short two weeks, Lamy lived the good life as this new owner took very good care of Lamy. It was only used to write and when it wasn’t writing it was placed carefully in a velvet lined drawer, between a row of sheaffer pens, who kept it company with good conversation and fun times.

And so it was that Lamy thought it had finally entered the gardens of paradise when one day, it all ended abruptly. It came as a shock to Lamy as it thought that it’s old owner would not bother looking for it. After all, it wasn’t exactly a gold plated sheaffer or a priceless piece of stationery. it wasn’t even an antique or a collector’s item or even a limited edition design! It just couldn’t understand why it’s old owner would go to great lengths to get it back to 3. It was only a common pen that could easily be replaced. And how the owner managed to locate and recover it back was beyond Lamy’s reasoning.

“And now I’m back here.” Lamy gave us a devastated look as it made it’s way back to it’s owner’s desk top.

There was a silence as Lamy left, as all the other stationery sat pondering Lamy’s fate and their own for the rest of the night. Each pondering Lamy’s fate, each thinking about what fate would befall them in the future.

I swam back to the cosy bottom part of my confinement space and tried to get some sleep. Who cared about that pathetic pen anyways.

At least it’s owner wanted it.