26th September, 2012
And there it was, staring in my face, the cockroach near my
left foot as I sat on my toilet seat seeking the blessings of the gravitational
force. It was waving its whiskers at me in a delusional way, as if it was
asking me to eat it. It was full grown roach and it was asking to be smacked
before it touched me. But I, being a humble polite resident of my house, spared
the poor creature’s life by scaring him away, trying to avoid stepping on it.
However, as I waved my hand by it to scare it, to my horror, it didn’t move at
all. The first thought that came to my mind was “Do cockroaches have hearts?”
because I was considering the fact that it may have been scared to death with a
heart attack by my waving. But I was wrong. It had a sense of drama to it. It moved slowly,
almost as if teasing me to come and get it. It was moving away, away from my
feet, at a slow rate. The light in the bathroom was not great, so I could not
see clearly if it was hurt or something. It didn’t matter anyways. Slowly and
steadily, it crawled and with some effort, it finally moved out of the bathroom
from beneath the door. When I came out of the room sometime later, I could not
find a trace of him. Perhaps that is the way they live. They come and talk to
you and then they leave, only to be found again when they want. And they said
that we were the most powerful species on the planet.
28th September, 2012
It was morning. I was getting ready to leave for the bus
stop to catch the company bus. You see, it comes at 8:10 in the morning. Hell
of a timing. Almost lost the habit for it, of waking up and early and stuff.
And Worse; I see the old little cockroach again. The obvious conclusion at
seeing him was that it was the same one, giving myself comfort in the belief
that it was a one-off roach in the house. It was hiding behind my right shoe
near the bed. I bent down to pick up my shoe and to my surprise, for at least 5
cm above the ground, it was clinging on to the show somehow. Then it dropped,
running like haywire around me as if to try and kill me. It tried once, by
hitting my feet with its ferocious pointed needle-like whiskers, but ended up
getting dis-oriented. It ran away beneath the bed and disappeared into thin
air.
1st October, 2012
It is dead. I saw it, lying upside down near the dining
table in the hall. Lying with his back to the floor, it laid in peace, eyes
closed, whiskers not moving, heart not beating. Like Jaithliya lies on a bed
while sleeping, motionless, dead, without life and warmth, it was waiting for
the inevitable, the maid clearing it out and putting its big, grown, beautiful
body in the dustbin. I was hoping that it would suddenly turn again and start
walking around the house. I would even let it crawl on my keyboard for a while,
if it wanted to. Would its feet have been able to move the cursor off the touchpad?
I miss it.
Comments
Post a Comment