by René Zadoorian
This short story was originally published in Qafiyah Review.
Forty nine and freshly single, Aram sat in his dimly lit living room with a plastic container resting on the coffee table. The container’s lid was covered in unevenly spaced holes, punctured with the tip of a knife, which allowed ventilation to his new… friend.
Aram had always been afraid of insects. Prior to their separation, his husband had been the one to deal with such nuisances- the spiders, the flies, the occasional mouse, and most importantly, the cockroaches. Left in the shell of their apartment, Aram’s determination to deal with pests required that he first got over the fear of them.
Aram leaned forward on the couch, hesitant to open the enclosure, but knew he was bound to eventually. After all, he had been avoiding this task all day and it was nearly midnight. The bug needed to eat sometime. Hands shaky, he opened the container and looked inside at the pieces of egg carton and soil he had gathered from the street. Beneath some dried leaves, a giant Roach buried itself to hide from the light. Madagascar Hissing Roach, specified his neighbor, an enthusiast in unusual animals, upon delivering the gift. It was Aram’s last day in his forties, and he was determined to enter his new age as a new man.
He took a deep breath and lifted a finger against the leaves, slowly pushing them aside. Underneath, the brown and black insect raised its hair-thin antennas, navigating its naked surroundings. Aram recoiled his finger, immediately disgusted by the fact that he shared the Earth with such an animal. Its body was armored- evolved hundreds of millions of years, pre-dinosaur. He wondered if one day, humans would become so thick-skinned, their exterior hardening to withstand the imminent heat of nuclear blasts.
The Roach moved its sticky legs, each one covered in minuscule spikes resembling rose thorns that allowed it to climb walls, and inevitably, the sides of the plastic container. Aram feared the bug would voyage up his arms and into his ears or mouth as he slept. Just the thought of it made him scratch the inside of his ears, swearing that he felt antennas poking into his brain.
Regardless of its disgusting demeanor, the animal had to eat. His neighbor had not given him too much information on the diets of these Things. Leftover vegetables were fine, according to the bug collector. Aram assumed that it was capable of devouring trash and metals like goats in cartoons. Despite his discomfort, the man wanted to be a good caretaker. He needed to be a caretaker. No one relied on him any longer. He needed to be needed, and getting over his fear while doing it was the leap he desired after such a separation.
The evening prior, Aram had entered the public library in search of information.
“What are the Dewey decimals for cockroach care?” he asked the librarian.
She looked up at Aram, who stood with his worn down library card in hand.
“Taking care of infestations?” she suggested, sitting up in her cushioned seat.
“No, care. The keeping alive type,” he emphasized.
The librarian nodded and searched through the old relic of a computer. Between telling members to not watch pornographic content on public computers to explaining overdue fees to patrons, this was one of the tamer tasks of her day.
“Nature is in 590.” She ripped a small piece of paper from her notebook and scribbled the decimals before handing them to Aram.
The Cockroach Papers: A Compendium of History and Lore by Richard Schweid sat beside Aram on the aged couch. It had been the only book willing to speak on cockroach history and some care, and although it was not much, he cherished the author’s ability to write on such an off putting subject matter. Schweid had mentioned that hissing roaches could live off of something as simple as banana peels. Simple for others, Aram thought. He hated bananas, and the only time he was in their presence was when his husband- ex-husband– bought some from the market. Now, a hand of overly ripe discounted bananas idled on the kitchen counter, ready to provide protein to a much smaller being. Aram raised his body from the couch and entered his bare kitchen. He separated a banana from the rest of the stems and held onto the brown fruit, minutes away from decay.
He stood beside the counter, noticing for the first time the silence of the apartment. What was once a space of morning meals and coffee breaks between two lovers now held as much life as the Dead Sea. The coffee maker was unplugged with its dry and unchanged filter inside. Cabinets once filled with dishes and utensils now sheltered paper plates and leftover cups.
For the first time, Aram felt overwhelmed by the nothingness around him. His short nails dug into the banana’s skin, unintentionally wounding the fruit. He listened to the nothingness around him- the nothingness in the cabinets, the nothingness in the fridge, and the nothingness that would greet him in his bedroom that night. It was not until he noticed the time, quarter past midnight, that he felt the nothingness within him.
Fifty-year-old Aram wept into his hands which smelled of banana skin.
The Roach, oblivious to its roommate’s heartache, climbed the wall of its open container. Its sticky body marched down the table’s leg and steered its journey towards the comforting crevice of a life in solitude.
Category: Featured, Short Story