Psychic Roach Part Five

For the last four entries of Just Plain Stupid, we’ve been following the progress of a roach which has uncommon psychic ability. This ability has saved him from both bug traps and spiders, but is that all he has to fear? If you’d like to catch up, here are parts One, Two, Three, and Four.

And now:

Psychic Roach Part Five

by Headley Hauser

Two rooms remained. He took the darker one that was now straight ahead of him.

This room was larger than either the empty bedroom or the baby’s room. A large bed framed by two windows stuck out from the far wall. To the left of the bed was another closet with its own window. Against the right wall was a long dresser under yet another window.

It took him a moment to realize that two humans were lying in the bed. He wondered if each knew the other was there? Surely this warranted some closer investigation.

A thick comforter made an easy path to the top of the bed. From there Only Roach could see that they must be aware of each other because the man’s arm was resting on the woman’s shoulder. Both were asleep, though neither as soundlessly as the baby down the hall. They had escaped the powder that covered the baby. Each had mostly pleasant, natural smells, though the female had a faint artificial flowery scent coming from spots around her neck.

The female’s eye flickered, and suddenly the comforter erupted, landing tangled on the floor.

“Get it!” the woman screamed. There was now more light poking through the folds of the comforter.

“Get what?” the male groaned.

“A roach! He was up here on the bed.”

“I don’t see him.”

Only Roach knew he had to get out of the room. He zipped through the folds of the comforter, found the carpet, and ran as fast as he could toward the hallway.

“There he is!” the woman shouted.

Only Roach couldn’t understand why the woman hated him so. Seeing a doorway a little to his right, he scrambled through.

 

He wasn’t in the hall. The screaming and getting tangled in the comforter had thrown off his sense of direction. There were boxes and shoes and a hamper of laundry. He was in another closet. He felt a towering presence looming behind him. He wanted to get in the hamper, but he knew the male would get him before he was halfway up the side. One pair of shoes smelled especially good, but they were too far away. He ran around the box in front of him and crawled in from the other side.

Outside the box he heard things moving around. Then the box started spinning. For a second or two he felt like he had wings, but he couldn’t control where he was flying. The box crashed into something and fell to the carpet upside down. The box lid was knocked ajar. Only Roach fell out of the box and onto the carpet. Quickly he climbed back onto the lid and the box’s side as high as he could go. He wedged himself in where one piece of cardboard flapped over another.

“Don’t look in the shoebox!” he wished as hard as he could. He heard things flying around outside. The box was jostled again, but this time it didn’t fly. “Don’t look in the shoebox, don’t look in the shoebox, don’t look in the shoebox!”

The rustling outside the box stopped. “I’m not going to find it honey, let’s get back to sleep.”

“I’m not about to sleep after that! Besides, it’s almost six o’clock.”

There was a clicking sound, and suddenly there were other voices in the room. The voices changed frequently, and with them music and sounds that didn’t belong in a human bedroom. Only Roach recognized that he was hearing another of the talking picture boxes, a…TV, like the one in the kitchen.

Only Roach cowered in the shoebox and wondered. Did the adult male forget to look in the shoebox, or was he wished away? Antennae nervously twitching, Only Roach decided not to leave the safety of the shoebox until the humans were gone.

Finally the TV and other people sounds stopped. Just to be sure, Only Roach waited in the shoebox until he saw patterns of sunlight illumine the carpet by the box’s edge.

Whew!

Here’s another unroach-related video, offered for no other reason than that each post seems to have one.  This is one of the funniest moments on TV.

Though the Only Roach might find his way around spiders and traps, would it ever be safe for him to live among humans? Find out Thursday in the sixth and concluding chapter of:

The Psychic Roach