La Cucaracha - part 2

As my rat-sized cockroach friend watched sadly from the sink, Kate and I made our escape, fleeing back to the hotel with the ferns and hammocks on the roof.  For two days I played the Gypsy King’s classic, La Cucaracha, on obnoxious repeat while Kate searched for a new place.
And she found one, too – our new home. It’s tidy, cozy, and reasonably close to a supermarket. It’s on the cusp of one of the hip areas, like Elgin Street or the Glebe in Ottawa. Our new place has a security guard a few hundred feet from the door, and boasts a charming portcullis. Kate likes to lounge in the landlady’s garden; there’s a gazebo for her to enjoy morning tea, and a hammock for reading.

 

But as we frolicked in our new comfort, a deep animosity stirred with our previous (unintentional) roommates: the roaches. They crafted a plot – an operation as precise and delicate as laying eggs under a lady’s eyelids as she sleeps.

Early morning, the plot is hatched. Kate shrieks from the kitchen. She’s wielding a knife like she’s being attacked by ruffians. “Matt! Matt! Matt! Matt!” Where’s the thug? I wonder? The gang? The hoodlums? The ogre? All I see is an agitated lady with a knife, a cutting board, a partially sliced pitaya… wait a minute.

 

 

They came in the pitaya! The roaches were flooding out of the fruit! They had been living in the fruit – drinking its blood-coloured nectar – growing fat in the dark and breeding breeding breeding. One large cockroach blinked in the dazzling light, and a seemingly endless stream of baby cockroach progeny was marching out of the fruit: the Trojan Horse.

The fighting was heaviest around the pitaya – the infiltrators knew retreat was not an option. Someone listening at the door would have thought Kate and I were crunching into a whole bushel of apples – en route to a stomach ache. We avoided sustaining major injuries, though my arm was tired from clubbing the roaches with a hiking-boot – no Hector or Ajax, here. 

The aftermath of the battle and Kate is doing that thing with her spine stiffer than the cutting board. Shattered exoskeletons on the counter remind me of remnants of a Newfie lobster boil, and my boot is crusted with ichor. The pitaya is still bleeding when I drop it into a plastic bag. Then I throw that bag into another bag. Then triple-bag the double-bag and drop the whole bag of bags into a box. Then I weigh down the lid of the box with a water jug and throw the box of bags outside.

The next morning, ants. Bureaucrats of the insect world, I admire their efficient administration and pheromone communication systems. The big ones sting like bees, here.  I have decided to join them.