COCKROACH'S REVENGE

by Abigail Pesta

It was destiny. The cockroach and I would meet again. I never would have guessed it when our paths first crossed, many years ago, that steamy evening in the tropics.

The light was fading over Wan Chai--its girlie bars and mossy skyscrapers--when we locked eyes, this bug and I. We sized each other up, paralyzed. Then, I made a break for the can of bug spray, and the battle began.

I blasted the creature out of my kitchen with a steady, lethal gusher of Raid. The roach galloped into the living room, then to the bathroom, fleeing as poison sluiced from beneath my angry fingertip.

Finally, my foe retreated to the back bedroom and hid under a wardrobe. Raid surged like water from a fire hose--gallons of Raid, billowing cotton candy clouds of Raid. The bug withstood the assault, while my own breathing grew increasingly difficult.

For the record, it's not possible to step on roaches in Hong Kong. They’re simply too big--more like rodents clad in armor than mere bugs, really.

But as my own asphyxiation set in, I became increasingly confident of my ultimate triumph. “There's no way a bug can survive the insecticide hellfire being unleashed upon this wardrobe,” I thought to myself, as my eyes swelled shut. “Unless, of course, it scampers to safety on top.” So I doused the wardrobe from top to bottom, back to front.

Before turning my back and declaring victory, I tilted the can, now nearly empty, to release the final few atoms of toxin.

Next morning, my face was so puffy and nose so bloated, I had to breathe through my mouth till after lunch. Still, it’s a small price to pay for living in a faraway exotic land, I said, and promptly forgot about the whole affair. After all, in this peculiar city of old men with birdcages, office girls with Hello Kitty hairclips, and bicycle messengers that carry freshly slaughtered pigs and chickens in their handlebar baskets, nobody’s really shocked by a bug.

A year passed. Friends came and went, and a boyfriend, too--a different kind of rodent, really, but that’s another story.

It was my last night in Hong Kong, in my little flat. I'd just come home from a going-away party where I'd said farewell to friends. I'd taken a job in another country, and it was time to go. The apartment was now empty. A half-dozen sullen movers had packed everything up earlier in the day, leaving it dark and forlorn.

All that remained were a few furnishings that came with the place -- a single bed, and a weird shoe cabinet nailed to the wall. The only light came from skyscrapers outside that kept their colored lights on until the wee hours.

I kicked off my sandals and padded across the apartment in the dark, wandering room to room, gazing out windows. The skyscraper lights were one of the features that had first drawn me to rent this particular apartment, and tonight was a chance to look at them one last time. My favorite had to be one towering neon sign, flashing the word "ONWARD.” However, from the vantage point of my apartment, it appeared to be backward, since I was viewing the sign from behind. "DRAWNO"--a great big backward onward. A poetic summing-up of five years in this town, I said to myself.

I shuffled through the living room and stubbed a toe on the bathroom threshold. It would have been wise to keep one lamp behind, I realized belatedly. The pitch-blackness in here might make it hard to use the toilet.

A final look at the "onward" sign, then I went bed and slept fitfully (having forgotten to keep back some bedsheets for myself, too).

The next morning, I awoke early as the sun streamed through the uncurtained windows. Annoyed and uncomfortable, I cracked my neck, swung my feet off the bed, and planted then firmly on the ground.

And who was there on the floor, right between my feet? Why, none other than my onetime adversary, the cockroach, whom I had long ago gassed. It lay on its back, basking in a sunbeam. The movers must have shaken it loose from its final resting place.

So there it was, waiting patiently, patiently for the ultimate revenge--the morning when I'd get out of bed and step on it, barefooted.

As I peered down between my feet, a wry smile passed my lips. Sorry, cockroach, it looks like you lose again.