Death of Gregory

A completely insane story for your Sunday :P

And now for something completely different, a completely insane short story. Please enjoy this eight-minute read for your Sunday evening, or the next time you’re bored.

Death of Gregory

The blazing glare of fluorescence exploded in all four of Gregory’s eyes mere minutes after he had found his way out of the tunnel. For an instant, he was sure he’d found heaven. Past the trail of rotting ant carcasses, beyond the fields of lint, and stalactites of dust, there was a land of lavender and roses. Gregory’s spiracles relished in sweetness, before the awful flash of light, followed by a scream that curdled his cerci like the sonic equivalent of Napalm. He retreated to find himself surrounded by the plastic palaces of chemicals. Lysol, Windex, store-brand bleach. He pressed his belly against the cold porcelain bowl the wannabe Clorox lived to worship, and prayed to a God he didn’t believe in. The shrill voice kept on screaming. “There’s a roach! Get in here and kill it! There’s a ROACH!”

A heavy energy went padding on socked feet not to the speed of the shrill one’s liking. “Get in here right now! What is taking so long?”

“Do you still see it?”

“No! For the love of God, get in here and kill it!”

“I’m coming.”

“What are you doing?”

“Getting a cup.”

“What the fuck?”

“I don’t want to kill it.”

“Are you serious?!”

“I don’t want to kill living beings… I told you that.”

“Then you need to get rid of it!”

“Okay, where did he go?”

“Behind the toilet.”

Strong, slender fingers rested on the blue ocean of tile, blowing the heavy wind of breath across Gregory’s hard outer shell. He sat frozen, staring at the glistening porcelain, inches from flight or fright, stuck in freeze. That little roach almost pissed himself, when the hand disappeared. The shrill one had gone running out of the room, and was shrieking from a distant doorway. “Do you see him? What is going on?” The deep one sighed. “I don’t see him, but I see where he came from. There’s a huge hole at the corner of the tub.”

“Well, that’s just great. Lord knows what else is in here.”

“Will you get me a Brillo pad?”

“How is a Brillo pad going to kill a roach?”

“If you want, I’ll go get it. I just thought I should stay here, just in case —”

“I’m getting it! Jesus, I’m getting it. Stop explaining everything to me like I’m an idiot.”

If Gregory knew what a Brillo pad was, he might have a mad dash amid the distraction. Instead, he stayed planted, hidden safe, doing his best to be practically invisible, until the codependent couple went to sleep, and he could crawl back into the hole he came from. Instead, he stayed there, clinging to the toilet and a false sense of security, until the deep one came back, and a giant ball of metal wool snuffed out his only hope.

“I know that works for mice, but I can’t see why it wouldn’t work for roaches.”

“You’re not sure if it works?!” shrieked the shrill one.

“I can’t see why it wouldn’t work,” mumbled the sad one.

“It clearly works,” Gregory sighed in defeat.

“Since when do you not kill roaches?!”

“I thought we talked about this. I told you that it is important to me to not kill living things.”

“I thought you meant, like, beautiful spiders!”

“Why would I only not kill beautiful spiders?”

“Oh my God. How does this apply to roaches?! We live in New York City and you’re too spiritual to kill roaches?! Are you too spiritual to have a credit card? Are you too spiritual to buy food wrapped in plastic?”

“If I can catch and release, why is that not okay with you?”

“What’s not okay with me is that you did not catch it!”

“Why is it my job to catch it?”

“Because I am terrified of bugs and you are apparently in love with bugs.”

“Do you have to be so dramatic?”

“I’m not being dramatic, you’re the one who is to kill dramatic to kill bugs!”

“I think he went back in the hole, and he can’t get in there with that Brillo pad.”

“And what if he’s not in there?!”

Gregory banged his head against the bowl.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Find it!”

“I tried. I don’t see him. What do you want from me?”

“I can’t even go in here now! I can’t go in the bathroom, does that make you happy?! I don’t even know how I am going to sleep tonight!” The shrill one stormed off, followed by a sigh from the sad one, and out went the light.

At last, Gregory’s eyes could relax, but his nerves continued blazing hot fire. The hints of lavender and rose hovered just above the chemical castles. The evil ball of lint blocked out the point of no return. In the vibrating stiffness of a stony silence, Gregory scurried out of the bathroom, along the rim of the wall, until he found the looming mound that the moonlight cast as a cat, before it became a bean bag. Gregory scurried into the deepest crevice he could breath in. Gregory had barely allowed himself to swallow enough air to sigh relief, when he heard a horrible hissing, and froze again into fear. The shrill one had turned her shriek into a vicious whisper that hit the deep one with an awful thud. What little air Gregory could breath had turned mean.

“I can’t believe you.”

“You can’t believe me? Really, you can’t believe that I couldn’t find a cockroach?”

“How dare you belittle me like that!”

“How is it belittling you that I could not find a cockroach?”

“How dare you take twenty minutes to even bother trying!”

“I was in the middle of something. Do you expect me to jump up and do whatever you want whenever you say so?”

“Yes, that is exactly what I expect when there is a cockroach! And what the hell, now you don’t kill cockroaches? I mean, I was screaming bloody murder in there!”

From his warm, dark hiding spot, Gregory heard each word laced with poison that seemed to harden the sad one into an empty shell. The shrill one took the presence of the void as a cue to shriek with such force, Gregory was physically shaking in the corner of farts and darkness. It was not what the shrill one shrieked, but how she shrieked it. In fact, Gregory could not understand a word of what was being said, because he was literally a bug, and yet, even without the subtitles, that tiny roach could feel, deep in the curdling sensors of his cerci, this sonic onslaught was a routine nightmare that that was only just beginning. No escape loomed as a void loop of impossibility. With his head in the pillow, Gregory screamed, “I can’t live like this!”

What felt like hours later, they were still having the same conversation, when the sad one said the same, only softer, “I can’t keep doing this with you.”

“Can’t keep doing what?! Refusing to kill roaches?”

“I came as fast as I could! What do you want from me?”

“You absolutely did not come as fast as you could!”

“Well, maybe you don’t need to be that dramatic about a bug!”

“Are you kidding?! You didn’t even know it was a bug!”

“Well, I assumed it was a bug.”

“Ha! And if I was getting raped and murdered in there? You would probably bring the guy a cup of tea! You would bake him a cheesecake with his favorite fruit parfait!”

“Why do you need to be so mean?”

“Why is it so hard for you to care about me?”

“Why do you need me to kill things in order to care about you?”

“I actually just need you to stop killing this relationship!”

“Then just break up with me already!”

“How dare you!”

“Oh my fucking GOD!” Gregory screamed at the top of his lungs, which were actually a system of tubes known as tracheae. Gregory might have used the opportunity to search for another escape route from his fresh hell, to crawl around in the cover of night, and easily find his way through the rip in the screen, where he could fly up to the stars, and maybe even find the dumpster of an Italian restaurant, but he could only see one way out of the sad sky box where he was trapped in that moment, and so, as the shrill one shrieked and the sad one slowly lost all sense of healthy self-esteem, Gregory closed all of his eyes, and pushed his face further and further, further, further, further, further, further into the heavy darkness of the rock and the hard place, and let himself die.

Thank you for reading this deranged edition of Pancake Brain. If you enjoyed your time here today, please subscribe and spread the word.

As always, I’ll see you in the comments.

p.s. What are you reading lately?