Kockroach Read Free

looks back at the picture, at the face with the light, curly hair. So that is a human female and the wormlike thing is not an abdomen. He is relieved that there are human females. And with the relief a new determination appears as if suddenly implanted in his brain.

     

    He raises again the picture to his face. Yes, there are other females in the group, and a nymph, and all the faces are different except for the one that is just like his and just like the face on the hanging human. He turns around and looks at the dead thing. He does not like that they share the same face. Something tells him this is wrong, that he needs to be unique.

    His stomach growls.

    He slides over to the hanging piece of meat and chews off its face, regurgitates it onto the floor, scoops it up and swallows it.He eats until he can eat no more. The thing hanging now is faceless, his head just a mass of red chewed meat. Good. Now there is only Kockroach.

    He sits on the floor, opens his mouth, and begins to groom himself. He can’t reach everywhere, but he cleans what he can with his tongue and teeth. What he can’t reach with his mouth he rubs frantically with his legs and arms. It takes an hour.

    Suddenly tired, he sees the sky outside his window begin to dawn. Someone must have flicked the switch. He crawls under the bed until he is again surrounded by pressure and falls back asleep.

     

    In the middle of the day Kockroach is startled awake by a banging on the door he couldn’t open.

    “Hey, Smith, you in there?”

    The voice is loud, deep. Kockroach slinks closer to the wall, stays silent and still.

    “No one’s seen your face since the girl left two, three days ago. You still in there?”

    There is more banging, the door shakes but remains closed.

    “Smith, hey. You okay? Is something the matter?”

    More shaking. Kockroach crouches beneath the bed, ready to scurry away if the door opens.

    “Look, Smithy, your week’s up tomorrow and we want you out. There’s been complaints about a smell. Can you flush the toilet or something, Jesus? People are living here, for Christ’s sake. You’re out tomorrow or we’re gonna have to come in andget you. We need a bust down the door, we’re gonna charge you for it. You got that?”

    A final bang, a final shake of the door, and then footsteps disappearing.

    Kockroach shivers with fear and falls back asleep.

     

    Kockroach knows he must leave. The predator that had been banging in the middle of the day will come back, they always come back he has learned, especially in kitchens in the middle of the night. Here, he knows, there is no good place to hide. But before he leaves he sits again on the white seat and groans loudly and feels the pleasure of the wet thing slipping out of him.

    He stares a long time at the picture with the group of humans. The males in the picture are all covered in the same way and Kockroach, missing his chitinous armor, wants to be covered too. He remembers the cloths hanging in the small cozy room.

    Using the picture as a guide, he attempts to place the cloths upon his body. He tries the long black tubes on his claws, on his ears, but finds they go best on the tips of his legs. He sticks his legs through the soft white thing with one big hole and three small holes. The center hole between his legs, he assumes, is to allow the wormlike thing between his legs to grow when he is mating. Based on the size of the hole it must grow very big indeed. The soft white thing with one stretchy hole and two smaller holes he puts on his head but finds he can’t see and takes it off. Hanging from a hook is a narrowloop with a knot which, from the picture, he can tell goes around his prothorax.

    He has an easier time with the larger pieces because he can learn from the picture exactly how they go. The brown cloth to cover his legs, the white cloth to cover his thorax and arms. He spends a long time fiddling with the buttons but finally figures them out. The brown thorax