Cockroaches fucking

They always do that. When you arrive home after a long day, wanting nothing but rest. When you enter the shower, thrilled to step out a new, if fresher person. They are there. On the wall, or the floor. Driving you to insanity, proving there's no safety in the sanitary.

My palace pristine

I got out of bed last night to fetch a glass of water. As is my late night habit. I turned on the lights to the kitchenette, my eyes, still adjusting to the brightness, thought they saw a harmless house gecko. Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was a pair of small cockroaches fucking. They were motionless but I knew for sure that they were doing it.

My reflexes would have me reaching for the insecticide, but the motherfuckers were just above my jar of ground coffee and spice rack. Fuck them. Maybe I was in shock far longer than I imagined. You might think that I had forgotten about my thirst, but no, the scenario instead magnified the state of my parched throat, my sleep-deprived brain, my lonely frame standing in the periphery of a meaningless world. To bed I returned.

But awake I remained. The image was stuck in my head. Better that I don't call it fucking as it denotes a human behavior colored by pleasure.

This morning I was on a mission. Deep clean — whatever that meant — the cooking area. There's no moral here. Only an expression of my disgust for the Devil's handiwork. They don't deserve to live. And yet they were there, uninvited, at my favorite spot, procreating. I took so much offense. As I cleared the countertop, I caught a glimpse of a pest. Sprayed the bastard with poison and watched it die. Ensured its death. A few minutes later, another pest came to view, crawling drunkenly. To the trash can they both went.

Now I may not have an airtight proof that those were the same cockroaches that previously petrified me, but deep in my heart I felt like I won. I felt peace. I felt quenched.

Comfort

Convenience stores are 3AM city stars. I'm inside one in this soft hour waiting for a ride home.

I'm not used to this anymore—

Like the buses. At sixteen all you want is to move away from home. And once the party's over, sometime between dark and dawn, you will find a way back. No fear. Not even drunken drivers or unlit streets can cause panic. You think it and you're there.

Like the all-nighters. Whether at work or play. For all my life I was an owl and hated myself. Now I rise a little earlier than the sun.

—As I'm getting used to other things.

Like saying I'm in bed all day doing nothing. And that I wouldn't budge for anything unworthy of my precious, ever-dwindling resources. This self-employed life. It's not a matter of when I'm free but when I've cash. Also how much I like you.

Like saying I only work 30 hours a week and that's all I need.

Because I can't be bothered with the unexciting anymore. Subtraction's negative sign doesn't sign negativity. Try harder convincing me that happiness is impossible without sacrifices.

Loved then rejected

Trenton Lee Stewart. The Mysterious Benedict Society. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2007.

Of the four of them, Sticky was the only one to have a memory of family life. Was it worse for him, Reynie wondered, to have felt loved and then rejected? Or was it worse to have always felt alone? (p 255)

Probably in my freshman or sophomore year in college. We were walking along the campus, me and my classmate, who, if memory serves me right, was a beautiful, stylish Philosophy and Business major. She could be wearing pinstripe pants. She asked, "Let's say you wanted something so bad. And you were only given two choices: to either have it once then never again or never have it at all. Which would you choose?"

I thought the question was preposterous. Of course, obviously, I would rather have tasted and lost that which I desire than not to have tasted it at all. Besides, how would you know if something is truly good if you haven't had any experience of it?

Years later I see her wisdom.