Nymphoid Blattodea by Eva Hays

There’s a cockroach in my apartment. It scuttled beneath the washing machine before I left for work this morning and in the time I’ve gone, it’s grown three times the size. It’s spawned miraculously, and now there are hundreds of cockroaches, spilling from my cabinets every time I open them. It’s laid eggs in the drain, under my pillow, in my toothbrush. Its entire extended family lives within my walls. It paws at the drapes and climbs the furniture like a new kitten. At night, it plays with my hair and whispers bedtime stories in my ear. It swims laps in my toilet.

            I tarry at cafes on my way home from work, delaying the time that we must coexist in the same space. I don’t want to see family generations leave footprints on my floorboards. But every time I close my eyes, I picture her, leering out from the space beneath my washing machine and flipping me the finger. I dream of hard brown insectoid bodies, wavering, probing antenna like carbon fishing rods, like fencing foils.

            She taps me awake in the morning with her elongated tarsus, asking permission to eat the dead skin off my face. I remind her, no, that it’s not polite to bite other people. I remind her that she could carry diseases, and she flutters her wings in annoyance before turning away and making her daily nest in the dust bunnies beneath my bed. She’s a moody adolescent these days, and I find myself needing to be at home to watch over her, otherwise she will paw through the recycling, leaving it scattered on the floor. Otherwise, she will chew with her mouth open, trailing breadcrumbs behind her brooding path like a buggy Gretel.

            I have become codependent on the cockroach in my apartment.

            I think of her every second we are apart. When we are together, my eyes constantly drift to her dark, scuttling form. I search for my reflection in her bulging eyes and wonder if she dotes on me the way I dote on her. If my apartment has become her home, too. I find myself bookmarking dinner recipes she might like.

          We drink away our past lives together.

            “Remember when,” I ask her, laughter and beer bubbling on my lips, “I used to be afraid of you? I used to block the cracks with towels and pray you wouldn’t get in.”

            She chuckles, leaning an antenna against the top of my head in affection. “We have made you, everything you are,” she chitters. “Who do you think holds up this house? It is my brethren in the walls, hibernating, plotting.”

            Mother tells me stories about millions of decades ago. I memorize them, echoing her words long after she’s tucked me in at night. I don’t want to forget the stories of our ancestors. Once, we were scorned: swept off balconies and smashed beneath rubber soles. Smothered with toxic chemicals until we twitched and died. What those humans never understood is that we are eternal. Squashing us is nothing more than delaying the future. What has already been written.

            This apartment belonged to one of them, once. A human. I don’t remember what she looked like, but mother tells me she saw our truth and surrendered. She emptied the clothes from her bureau so mother could lay eggs in its drawers, let the humid air seep out through cracked windows to give more room for the neighbors, shimmying their way in.

            I wander around the apartment, reverently, touching artifacts that once belonged to her. A broom. A half-burned candle. One musty sock, left behind the dryer, and a scrap of a gelato receipt. I try to conjure the sort of person who would own these things, but my mind comes up blank. I can’t fathom humans and their material possessions.

            As the sun rises, mother and I hold hands. Orange light shoots through the cloud in beams, and for a brief moment, an image comes to mind. A building, round and tall and white. Pointed at the top. Water lapping at its base and one singular beam of light, circling. Around and around the light goes, with no apparent destination. It casts upon sharp rocks and eddying waves, but it always keeps moving in its endless vigilance. Before I can capture the image to my memory, it slips away again, lost in the fleeting tide of my emotions.

            But I disregard it as I peer into mother’s eyes, her shiny body, reflected orange in the dawn light. She twitches her wings, antenna waving above her head, circling around in a halo like pattern. She is the angel of the future.

            And finally, as day breaks, our eons of biding time are over. I hear a scratching in the walls. My brethren awaken.