Massacre

‘Did I ever mention how mercilessly immaculate my home always is?

That I take great pains to keep it spotless and sanitary is no secret, and there’s something of a virtuous gratification in gloating over its unsullied hygiene, faultless in bearing, twinkling with an unstained sparkle, it almost mimics the gleam in my eyes when after an unrelenting diligence of rigorous cleaning I give a final glance over and smile satisfied at the speckless sheen that my hours of sweat and labour render to my beautiful household.

It has often been called sterile, for the lack of warmth as it might be said, but some people confuse messiness with a homely glow and I rarely ever fall for that bait. 

Sterile it may be, but it’s also absolutely decontaminated and germ-free, not to mention meticulously set and effortlessly classy and it was in this state of dexterous cleanliness that I left my home for a month-long vacation.

There isn’t much to be said about the vacation except that it was a stint of much-needed carefreeness and it was with a heavy heart that I returned home, but one glance at the glinting wooden floorboards did much to revive my spirits, for I was home and it was most inviting in its unsullied welcome.

The first week of settling in came at its own pace and I didn’t much bother to rush into the way of things, letting the calm sway me into fluid directions of running the household, and that was when everything suddenly changed; my meditative mood embalmed in zen outlook was furiously set ablaze with a burning rage when one day while preparing lunch I noticed some activity happening on the kitchen floor through the corners of my eyes.

Something seemed to skitter away on the floor and it wasn’t my cat. If this had happened within my view shot I’d have ventured a hardier guess, but since just the barest corner of my eye caught a slight movement I tried dismissing it as a scurrying spider. 

Spiders, to me, aren’t a laughing matter, and even though I’m overzealous about  vacuuming the slightest hint of a thread of a cobweb– the humid conditions and the vast thickets situated around my living spaces do let a few renegade spiders enter my house, though their stay often results in consequences most hazardous towards their health. 

Safe to say that my house is spider free and a few ronin that do find themselves stranded in my living spaces have rather high mortality rates. 

It was with these thoughts that I cajoled myself into a sense of calmness though I knew within my heart that I was but lying to myself, for this little flutter of activity was caused by something larger than a spider.

When you let your mind get jaundiced by a malignant thought it’s a task nearly impossible to put it on a back burner of your mind because it takes precedence over any activity no matter how crucial their relevance. 

With doubt torpedoing my every optimistic speculation it was with a haste most alien to my bearings that I finished with lunch and without as much losing a minute found myself hunched on the floor of my kitchen peering under my cabinets and drawers.

Nothing save shining surface of clean tiles staring back at me and after casting a  panoramic glance of vigilant deliberation I got back on my feet wondering what necessary steps must I take to be doubly sure that it was but my imagination I saw skittering away on the floor when suddenly out shout a cockroach most heinous in appearance, almost as big as my middle finger from under the kitchen cabinet I had just carefully inspected and so revulsed was I at the mere appearance of the ghastly insect that before my mind could even register disgust I found myself armed with my soft slipper and without any ceremony I brought it down upon the six-legged abomination with such unrestrained madness that I nearly hated myself for being so injudiciously jubilant about the satisfying crunch that emanated from its destroyed chitinous shell.

My indignation knew few bounds as I continued to push my slipper on the now very dead cockroach until the crunch had ceased. 

I lifted up my furry instrument of death to inspect the remains, of this odd masochist streak I knew little for I knew I’d be very nearly grossed out at the dead body of something so vile as a cockroach, except there was nothing but a small smear of it’s remains on the floor for the rest of its body was a mangled mess of sickening pulp stuck to my slippers that I proceeded to throw into the dustbin followed by a quick floor mop.

If there’s one cockroach there are bound to be more and this wasn’t the kind of reality I was comfortable to live with. 

Cockroaches in my sanitary surroundings? Might as well live with a dash of bubonic plague then. 

Yes, I can be overdramatic, but this wasn’t my ideal living situation and that I lost sleep over it would be putting it rather mildly, for all night I was up planning and plotting best ways to exterminate these repugnant creatures of the most noxious variety that seemed to have encroached upon my home, my territory, my living spaces in my absence. 

How dare they? 

This isn’t their place, it’s mine and mine it will always be. They are but revolting critters, most viciously sickening. 

Their existence in my home is but an insult to my life and they shall not live through this week.

I fed my fury by bringing forth the vision of that ghastly gigantic cockroach and the kind of contemptible chicanery it must have been up to in my absence. 

Its kin must not be allowed to thrive and with that thought fumigating the crevices of my each waking moment I loaded up on every available cockroach killing paraphernalia that included sprays and tubes of boric acid.

It was my decision to dedicate the entire day to emptying the kitchen of its wares and foods and literally bathe the kitchen in cockroach killing spray and it was in the midst of this activity as I emptied out the drawers and cupboards that I came upon another cockroach, much smaller, probably not even a fully grown adult; absolutely oblivious to my existence prancing about in my knife drawer. 

The cheek of this bastard to pollute my wares, the nauseating little louse. I was grating my teeth between curses as I picked up a knife and drove its sharp end in its thorax and pushed it harder than the death necessitated but I was mad with savage rage. 

It died the moment its body met my knife but the kind of pleasure I derived from impaling it on my vegetable katana was grotesquely delightful.

Another one dead, and a young one too. Now for the rest.

My sleep had been lost over the knowledge that some roaches might still be alive and that God knows what skullduggery they must be up to right now and this thought alone kept me awake for longer than I wished.

It was with this fog of cynical misgivings that I stepped out into the balcony to ruminate over this roach problem while sipping on some water when I noticed some activity happening near the drain pipes. 

To get a better view I turned on the lights and sure enough, there were two nefarious bastards trying to make their escape through the drainage pipe in my balcony, no doubt. Perhaps this is where they came from I ventured a guess.

A moment might be too long a unit of time to measure my actions because it was with lightning speed that I grabbed the aerosol can of cockroach spray and clouded their existence with a burst of poisonous fumes right over their heads. 

So malevolent was it in its delivery, so efficient in its promises to kill that the two cockroaches, one adult and the other still a young one took mere moments to die.

I must have looked rather a maniacal sight in my dressing gown. Laughing in a corybantic frenzy holding a mug in one hand and a spray can in another that I almost embarrassed myself and repaired to bed wherein I had a rather fitful sleep.

Of cockroaches, I saw none the next couple days and my sleep had become more or less regular yet I kept a vigilant eye. 

I had taken to waking up at odd hours in the middle of the night to inspect the kitchen, for it was mostly at night that these roaches foraged for foods and I’d sworn I wouldn’t let a single one survive. 

Call it a stroke of luck when during one of my midnight inspection visits I saw a tiny cockroach come scampering towards me. 

How dare it? What did it think that it’s a pet?

Too bad baby roach, for I raised my foot and squashed it flat. 

There, Rest in pulp little bastard. 

My sleep that night was beautiful and if there is another, any single roach still alive, I swear by the disinfected purity of my tidy home it shall not live. '