Probably my brothers are insane that they keep on harassing those red blooded halfcrawlers (they have four legs and still they crawl on two) by running in front of their gaze, I hate this that my brothers are so selfish and domestically dependent upon those red juiced ruts that they keep on living on their production. As a reminder I keep on telling them that perhaps we crawl on all 6 and we are to be the ruling creation of the roach-kind… but still my brothers go to them sniffing for the rations; nut heads they all are, they all keep on wagging their tails behind those halfcrawlers like ladybirds; Phooey!
Though I accept that we are settled in the sewer of those halfcrawlers, but we aint that dependent that we keep on eating their crap like vermin, I mean we’re of good kind… we are creatures… living creatures… and my own kind keeps on neglecting my insults and taunts about their stealing food. Lash, one of my brothers once retorted on my insult, “you mean we also start harvesting like those slaves, come on chuck, we’re the rulers, those halfcrawlers are our slaves and they’d keep on making good rations for us…”. And before his sentence could finish, I vanished from there. I used to crawl out in the middle of my loss in argument; actually I always hated lagging in any argument, and the least thing I could do to avoid my loss was to leave the discussion uninterrupted. My ol’ mate was right that it is extremely hard to crawl against the gush…
Our ladies have developed wings, and most of them are hatching eggs all the time, so we are mostly forced to protect them and even prevent them from flying away, because they have the rebellious nature of being curious on seeing every new issue (I’m sure those halfcrawlers also have their ladies like ours). Mine lady is most annoyed with me. She always advises me to crawl in the stream, with our own kind: that we are the rulers of the halfcrawlers and we have our network of interconnected palaces in their sewers, having our rations without even issuing our orders to them… and on my refusal she always gets furious and flutters at me, (I like her for that fluttering angrily at me) that at least I should not live like a lethargic hag, nibbling every piece of what they brew for us in their sewers…
Well all this crap wasn’t worth a single postage-stamp-glue, so I became less active in my resolution, and I started waiting for a moment to strike while the metal became hot…
One day while we were preparing for dirt hunt in the pantry, Kyle came rushing and tumbling in our chamber, in a pathetic condition, he had his head sliced off neatly and he was hitting here and there on the cast iron walls. First of all I couldn’t bear the trauma on such a horrible sight, second all of the apothecaries were gone out in search of saprophytes for curing purposes. We’re already so abundant in number and divide so rapidly that we are trained to jump on our back while the death becomes unavoidable so that we die and feel the pain for less time… but it doesn’t mean that my brother dies in vain. He was still bumping on the cast iron walls of my chamber. My lady came rushing in on hearing the nuisance; and as soon as she saw him she started screaming and fluttering her wings; and in a moment she became a part of the whole nuisance. Still standing there I could think of nothing… what I could do, I could only add some effort to the confusion created by both of my relations; my brother and my lady… and I did it; I started rushing toward him while screaming, “Kyle, my brother, what they did to you! I told you…” I almost strangled him, “not to go to those halfcrawlers… and you lost your head there… Kyle! Answer me, at least say something…” and after a moment or two I realized that he had no head, and to speak, the least requirement is the presence of head on your body. Dumbfounded, I calmed him down… but he was really in agony… and it took too long to calm him down. Then I sent my lady to call any of the apothecaries to diagnose my (half) brother…
I don’t know how we passed the time in waiting for them. And when they arrived, their response was not better than ours; appalled, eyes wide open, mouths thrown apart and feelers pulled apart; they all were gazing at the disfigured remnants of my poor brother who had at last calmed himself over his nerves. And here it started the natter…
“…we used to hear about headless roaches from our old ones, and now one is in fronta our eyes… err err I can’t believe this…someone clinch my feelers, it’s an unbelievable sight... look how smoothly his head is chopped off… what would he do now…” sort of exclamations started rising up in our chamber and in a moment, the whole clan gathered in our chamber; all were eager to catch just a glimpse of my brother; and even knowing that headless roach couldn’t speak, they kept on inquiring him about how did this happen; who did this, why this happened, how does it feels to be without head… all sorts of nasty questions that came up in their heads, they threw upon Kyle, and he sat there doing nothing. And thanks to my lady that she started shooing all the clan off the chamber, and within no time we were left with the chieftain of apothecaries, Lingoo! He’s a nice roach, wise and sometimes even witty. But as soon as he starts his conversation, he becomes the most annoying roach in the whole clan. And he did start his conversation with me;
“Hee theeya, hodee do do… do’s brether recepted a new unique injury… me is half happy and half sad that ee got left alive but ee lost ee’s edd…”
“…respectively!” I completed his sentence annoyingly.
“ee’s brether hath no remedy, ee would live as long as the ration remains inside ee’s gut… and if do don’t swipe my feelers, he’d die after that…”
“You mean he’d last for a month only???” I retorted in a genuine anguish, because I knew that a roach could survive only up to a month without eating.
“yees yees, me suggests do to keep eem in do’s chamber and take care of eem!”
“ok ok I understand! Now off with you, enough of your gab!” I summed all up in a jiffy and he was buzzed-off the next moment.
I collapsed there, with a sort of confusion upon my nerves that whether it was a dream or a reality; we used to listen stories from our mothers that our heroes kept on standing against the lizard monsters while the latter snatched of their heads, fought with them headless and returned victorious… yes it was a common story of our roach-lore and at that time I literally enjoyed while imagining the historical scene of duels of those headless warriors with the lizards, but when I came to senses, I was really looking at my brother as if he had returned after killing a lizard.
…..Aaaarghhh …..He still had his head off, he had only three quarters of a month left to live with us and then he’d be handed over to the digesters...They would eat him up so that a new generation of my brother could be created. Digesters are the small parasites who keep on eating our dead ones… and our funerals are usual ceremonies followed by the leaving of dead in any dark and damp place where it could be digested by them… we call it as ‘handing over to the digesters.’
Helpless I came out of chamber and started crawling down the drain towards (I guess) the pantry with nothing in mind but my brother. Probably there could be a way of recovering my brother’s condition if I found his head. I entered the pantry, it was a huge chamber; every type of root was placed or hung in there. It smelled like soil. I crawled idly and reached the kitchen but there was no trace of any head there…
Oh Ants! Those vermin, they’re all the time searching for anything consumable to stock! I caught sight of a whole army of ants leaving the kitchen
We hate ants, they gobble up everything, and sometimes they eat us even. Though their size is even smaller than our waste but twoscore of them could easily tackle a full grown roach… and our weakness is ‘falling on our back’; it is same as dying… once our back touches the ground, our efforts of recovering and running away are worthless… but not as worthless as being without head… head? HEAD!!! A reflex action itself stimulated my nerves on the word ‘head’… yes I had seen head somewhere while thinking about it and it were them; they were taking my brother’s head to their nest…
“Whoa! Stop stop you damn mites, you idiots!”
I shouted at them and they didn’t bother at my shouting and continued their march towards their nest.
I had no other way than to follow those escaping mites, no time to call reinforcements and I had to keep them in sight. So I started rushing behind them madly, disturbing and breaking their long never ending queue. The ants going at the rear dispersed and started chasing me and I had only two words in my mind; Kyle’s head! Yes we could mend up Kyle like a brand new roach with stiff and steady feelers twitching around all the time… oh come on, only a head to recover…
One of those vermin was dragging his head and a full legion of was acting as an escort legion to their destination; the nest somewhere at the end of backyard. The condition of Kyle’s head was almost deteriorated into an unrecognizable piece of dirt; no sign of feelers and eyes were almost like nibbled up, and it none the less looked like an eaten up bone, I’d at least had to save the remnants of his head… and all of these observations were gushing in my nerves like halfcrawler fists, I ran towards the target, gained height on a knife-handle projecting out of the stool resting adjacent to their route, and plunged myself into the ongoing caravan…
BANG!
The first thing that came to my grip was that precious head, I clutched it tightly in my arms and the chaos started. I fell on my back and all of those villains started dispersing, the fighting force emerged from the back ranks and launched their assault on me. A thousand mouths started gnawing at me, I shouted, flinched and writhed in agony but soon everything started to dissolve in my eyes; I felt as being hauled slowly… I was probably watching the ceiling of the kitchen, and soon it dissolved.
In the darkness I heard the fluttering sounds for a moment… felt hurled to the ground… and then light came again into my eyes… I saw the silhouettes of my lady and others flying below my feet… then I heard a familiar voice… Kyle… Lash… Tim… Ling… Lingoo; yes it was Lingoo… again noise, lots of cries, pandemonium… and probably Lingoo started dragging me by the feelers… and I lost consciousness while holding Kyle’s head still in my arms…
**********************
I gained consciousness… my chamber started appearing into the view… the whole lot of my clan was gathered in there… from floor to roof all stood around me, my lady was standing in the corner like a dead leaf. Probably Lingoo had repaired me up, ‘cause he was packing up his herbs pouch. But no one asked me anything, rather on gaining my consciousness they started emptying my chamber, it felt strange… very strange indeed! And In a couple of moments, all of them were gone except me, Lingoo and her! I relaxed myself still lying there. Silence…
“Hue do do feel naow?”, Lingoo finally broke the silence, “Do’s lady saved do’s dayee! Fatunately be bere going fur durt hund in the pandry and while goeeng there do’s lady caught site of ee… do wus crawlung as if in a dream, and den ee created that bloodshed there… but be saved do! And why the hellz do wanded that pieze of crap?”
“what?” he asked something so abruptly in his bore conversation that I was startled for a moment.
“Yes, you were holding this...” my lady came forward with a piece of small bone in her hand and spoke so coldly that I was surprised on such a peculiar behavior from her. “it isn’t even worth a crap!”
Suddenly I realized that the head I tried to snatch from those ants wasn’t actually a ‘head’ but a piece of bone… Oh damn holy food! I did all this for just a piece of waste! I was so preoccupied with Kyle’s tragedy that I couldn’t even recognize a piece of bone… What a shame!
“So, now tell me why you ran for it, we were not dying of hunger in here…” sigh! She again started attacking me with her sarcastic taunts, “Tell me, if you wanted to die then you should’ve told me, I myself would have smashed your skull!”
“err… err I just wanted to save Kyle’s head.” I replied intently observing her expressions, she was unexpectedly fuming with anger and watching me angrily as if I’d never be forgiven… and then she broke into tears…
“Hey hey sweet, I’m alright, as new as a seed, don’t cry please.” I was deeply moved by her crying, she never ever cried before “I told you I went there to save Kyle’s head!”
“Ha ha do wanded to feex bone pieze instedda ee’s edd…” Lingoo tried his humor again.
“Shutup Ling!” she again came to a start, “Are you such an idiot that you distinguished this junk as his head… I’d already found it there in the kitchen, and Lingoo tried to fix it up on him but no worth… you should’ve at least asked me… why the hell you did this” she broke into tears again. Lingoo remained silent this time.
Silence, followed by the sobs of my lady…
“What’s happened, why you are acting so dumb today… look I’m arrkkk…”
It felt as if my trunk was torn apart, I shrieked in agony… Ohhhhhhhhhhh! I slowly moved my gaze towards my trunk… half of my trunk was missing, and I couldn’t even move at my own will. My lady’s sobbing again started!
Silence again…
I understood everything; the ants had eaten the half of my gut!
And for the first time I noticed something beside me… sitting with me, same headless Kyle, was playing idly with the air…
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