Something Left Behind

Dear Karen,

About those cockroaches.

Do you know you have cockroaches?

I've been living in your basement now for a few months, and honestly, before now, I only knew they existed in theory. But as you and your husband have been preparing for Armageddon--stocking up on staples like grains and flour and such--well you should know that the cockroaches are busy depleting those provisions.

They only come out at night.

I'd heard this was true, in theory, well in a literary sense, because one of my mother's favorite books was Don Marquis's Archy and Mehitabel. Archy is the cockroach who types free verse poetry late at night on the boss's typewriter, but of course, since he's a bug, he can't shift and capitalize words and his punctuation is a little funky, too.

At any rate, they do come out at night. Confirmed. They do not type free verse poetry. Also confirmed.

They scuttle. In the dark.

I know I'm only a renter. I know that in my desperate financial circumstances I should be grateful to have a roof--well two roofs, technically, since I'm in the basement--over my head. But please. They scare me.

Your several children, god bless them, they annoy me, but they don't scare me. They scuttle, too, visiting me rather frequently in my basement room uninvited to try on my shoes and report on their daily activities and such. But they do so with the lights on. And sometimes they are charming. Not often. But sometimes.

The cockroaches, though, not so much, I'm afraid. And again, there is the issue of them freeloading on your foodstuffs. What if the End of the World came, well, right now? Have you checked those boxes of granola lately? Not a pretty sight.

All right. I'll admit it. I've been into the boxes of granola recently. I have this slight, well, eating disorder myself. I get hungry, especially around two when I can't sleep. When the disasters that led to this reduced circumstance march into consciousness and demand to be fed--with guilt and remorse and what not. But they, the thoughts, seem seem to respond quite well to Quaker Oats Honey Granola, as luck would have it. I've been known to consume an entire box. Dry. In one sitting or lounging. (I am trustworthy, I hasten to add; I always replace what my conscience steals, so, no harm no foul, right?)

But foul is, I'm sorry to say, these...creatures. It must be a primal atavistic response of some kind. I hate them. I hardly hate anything, except myself at the moment.

So I'm doing us both a favor. I'm killing a few of them. I can't stand it, killing. I mean, we're all working on survival skills down here. But.

Ewwww.

REally.

So maybe I'll come back as one of them, a nameless part of a reviled mass, scuttling and feeding, or maybe as an inspired cockroach like Archy. Either way, I deserve my fate: shortlived fame or perpetual infamy. In the meantime, I'm leaving my murder victims, i.e., five cockroaches, conspicuously displayed in the hallway in hopes that you will do what is right. Evict me or evict them. Your call, but I pay my rent on time.

Thank you,
Dawn