The little critters have littered the floorboards, like an atmospheric layer of corpses that must make the breathing difficult for any fellows wriggling in the rough of it. But from my grand perspective, of five foot six and a sneaking early near-sightedness I throw to the backroom of my mind with the dead childhood friends and my mother’s rapid weight loss, the children look almost like a colony of ants or a still lake of brackish kinetic sand. Kneeling down, I see they are actually young roaches. A mass grave of offspring have sprung in the guest bedroom. The wood beneath is unknowable. It’s as if the carpet I had pulled apart myself last January had apparated in my sleep, just now the shag had become a crunchy lather with legs that seem to flail occasionally and make me think of the painful heat of final breaths. It’s strange for a few reasons. I will list some for you.

1. The rest of my home is clean. It is not spic and span. I do not always have the time to be on top of things as much as I would like. I am human and my lingering forks and spoons reflect that, though they may not reflect my visage when I gaze into them. Sometimes I walk into the kitchen and stare at the food debris forming alien ecosystems in the crevasses of my microwavable container that has survived consistent radioactive annihilation for three and a half years and I feel like I will never ever be okay with myself. But I don’t think this justifies the level of contamination and infection that has occurred. It only justifies the overwhelming puncture I feel when I picture a version of myself, a cosmic alternate, a more fulfilled me: a me who can afford a dishwasher. 

2. I don’t think they were here yesterday. I don’t go to the spare room. I don’t have spare people who would like to visit. Why I looked today is a question I can’t answer satisfactorily. A door was closed and I needed to open it. Like approaching a fridge and swinging it wide at midnight, the primal part of the mind that thinks, ‘yes, yes, this is where food is. Surely there is the exact sweet snack I’m craving awaiting me in there.’ Maybe I thought there must be a spare unaccounted for. I opened the guest bedroom. And I found a deluge.

3. The nature of their death. I wasn’t involved in this massacre. I don’t remember the last time I purchased a pesticide. I didn’t do this. Were they ill? Hungry? Can a plague suffer a famine? My pantry isn’t full of cobwebs, it’s full of many perishables including bread, oatmeal, blueberry jam, strawberry jam and beans. That should have satisfied. It satisfies me. It satisfies me. 

I leave the room and close the door behind me. The next day I have dark circles beneath my eyes and scones for breakfast.