An Epic Battle

I murdered her. At least, I started her on the road to her death. In fact, one can say that she courted her own death; I just helped her end it.

I was walking out of the kitchen after eating a particularly satisfying piece of pear, when something big and brown flew across my path, inches from my face. I shrieked, ducked, and ran in circles around the kitchen trying to avoid that thing which was flying in circles around the kitchen.

As I ran, I shouted my war cry, “AAAHHHH what is it? What is it?”
“It’s a cockroach!”
“What is it what is it?”
“It’s a female cockroach!” My mother repeated her battle call, hiding behind me.

At last, the cockroach stopped flying and settled above the window grille. I made sure I was as diagonally far from it as possible, which meant outside the kitchen, peering in. My mother stood guard on its latest position while I reached for my trusty green weapon: Baygon!

We contemplated the enemy’s position. I reasoned that we were standing straight in the enemy’s escape flight path if she decides to escape the deadly biochemical weapon. And if she were to escape the kitchen, the surroundings would be too dark to make out her position. Intelligent as I was, I switched on the floodlights and flooded the surroundings with light. My mother tried to contact my dad but he was annoyed at being shaken out of his dreams, so the extermination of this formidable foe was left to us brave sacrificial warriors.

My worst nightmare was being crawled upon by the enemy, (well it happened before when I was young and some boys used to fling live roaches at girls for kicks) so I went and put on my armour: The Great IP Zone Jacket, zipped all the way. My mother laughed at me, but then again I was armed with a long-distance weapon while she had a newspaper stick. Before the battle started, we cleared the battleground of edibles, and closed the kitchen door until there was a crack left where my hand could stick through.

Taking careful aim, I struck! It’s always important to hit while the roach is not looking. With the can of Baygon 1 meter away, I sprayed bullseye for a solid 7 seconds until my mother screeched that the floor was oily.

The enemy was startled and started to run. She dashed across the kitchen sink, and we could see she was getting weak. Then she disappeared into the stove area. That was a smart move. I could not spray at the stove without risking an explosion the next time I cook.

I sent my brave mother ahead, and she removed the black metal things on top of the stove. I taunted the enemy, but all we could hear was her scuttling around. It was too dark in there, so my mother went to get a torch. While she was away, I prayed to our God who grants victory that the enemy would get out of hiding, as she was near impossible to kill in the stove, and I do not relish the thought of getting her out manually.

The torch did not show anything of importance. However, we could hear the scuttling become louder. As we tried to pinpoint the enemy’s location, and were puzzling over the source of the sound, the enemy squeezed out from a crack in the cupboard beneath the stove and fell, belly up, at our feet. And she wriggled. And I let out my most vicious, bloodthirsty, menacing, intimidating cry that went something like:

“OMYGAWD!!!!!!!!!!”

And almost tripped over my mother (who was behind me) in a rushed retreat attempt with my eyes on the roach. Then, noticing that she could only scuffle a few centimeters at a time, I sprayed, and sprayed, and sprayed mercilessly. My mother thought I had control over the chaos, and asked me to remove all evidece of the fight since the enemy was dead. I was aghast.

“She’s not dead! She wriggleth!”
“She dieth!”
“She wriggleth!”
“She dieth!”
“NUUUUUUU she wriggleth!”
And the roach wriggleth.

My mother, the brave, sighed, went over, and whacked the enemy with her hard newspaper stick. And jumped back, leaving the stick lying on the roach. Perhaps she was trying to pin it down. Or she just didn’t want to pick it up. Then she came back and crowed “It dieth!” When the roach wriggled. So I sprayed. And sprayed. And was really losing faith in Baygon the citrus smelling insecticide. Perhaps the roach was too big; it was about 2.5 inches long.

In the end my mother had to whack it to death. She was charged with the solumn task of disposing the corpse while I mop the floor. I think that was the best arrangement we could ever have had. My dad owes us big time.