One roommate too many.

I’m walking into my flat, and it’s there. Size of a small dog, sitting next to my shoe. 

I scream, panic, run to my room, shut the door.

I know I’m being stupid. I call Anthony. Usually when they’re smaller I just kill them., But not this one. This one is a devil’s creature.

Anthony advices to “beat the shit out it with a broom.”

I’m a girl living in twenty-first century in New York - I have no broom…

I’m standing on my bed, wondering obsessively - what if it crawls into my shoes?! My shoes, my poor shoes…

I begin to breathe heavily. 

The clock is ticking.

I need to get myself together. My hands are shaking when I roll a newspaper, and tiptoe back to the living room.  Light on, I check..

It’s gone…

Oh my god, it’s walking around the flat somewhere, waiting for me to go to sleep, so it can enter my room freely. I barricade the door with a couch’s cushion. I’m being held hostage in my own bedroom.

The full moon is out. The night is about to begin. I know it’s there somewhere, I can almost hear it’s footsteps on the kitchen floor.

It’s just us now. 

Me against the monstrous roach.

K.