A cockroach in the hallway today displayed none of the behavioral symptoms of cockroach-ness. It failed to run away, it peered at the light, and it didn't crouch down when I did so to investigate it. Its antennae flicked lazily back and forth, tasted the air as I disturbed it and sent tiny molecules of myself, regarding me as I regarded it. It and its peers have survived unmolested by evolution for centuries because of their desire to be together in the dark.
To be in the light alone is to die for a cockroach, and not only the limited range of species who've moved to the apartments and restaurants of the urban undergrowth. In rotting logs and beneath fallen leaves moist with decay stoop the tiny millions of them, unrecognizable to us accustomed to only the date brown of the kitchen dweller.
The ant and the bee, the tireless metaphors for labor--the tiny women of work who have become so accustomed to their own task that they will pursue it regardless of the presence of their thread waisted siblings. Not so the cockroach, for whom solitude is anathema. The ant and the bee are marked and modified numerous times by the fractional change of mutation, but today's cockroach would be indistinguishable from one thousands of years previous and thousands of years hence.
Why, little cockroach, don't you want to huddle in the dark?
PS If you ever want to buy any of the art I post, please message me. All of my work is for sale as long as it hasn't been sold yet.
PPS I have a piece at the UAM in Long Beach, with a reception on the 14th of this month. You should come and pretend you don't know me, and then say something in an outside voice about how wonderful that one piece by Camilla Taylor is.
2 comments:
Some people think we puny humans need to be nice to Mother Nature because we might harm, perhaps even, kill Her. Ha. We should be nice to Her because otherwise She will squash us like bugs. I think that's why this cockroach momentarily stepped out of character - to tell us this. Not because she really cares so much, but for some reason she became curious how we would process this information. Perhaps she even has a twisted sense of humor - like those profs who give open book tests and then diabolically design their tests so that not only are the questions not found in the books, but the books all lead away from right answers.
we actually foudna roach last ngiht at my friends place , not a tiny 1/2 inch one but a rather large3 inch long one. We discovered it after we heard a lot of scurrying across the floor from her cats which she assumed was them playing witha toy then i saw them bat somethign across teh floor dark brown that flipped over and started running quickly again. i ended up captureing it and chuckig it across the 4 lane road in front of her house in downttown Baltimore. I hope it does not come back since we have ahorrible problem with roaches and rats in baltimreo becasue well people jsut dump garbage on teh street and the police don't fien peopel ro chase them down for such crimes since they are afraid you mgiht be a minority and sue them.wtf. Admittidly i will squash other bugs like mosquitoes casue they carry viruses aroudn here and also if somethng attacks me. But usually i capture and throw the things out. the insect that annoyws me in my home though the most ( and the onyl one that seems to get in )is the tiny carpet beetle which is so small it can climb inthru the holes in your windowscreen, the main problem being is tehy lay larvae ( you never see their egg sacs) and when teh larvae comeout they will eat any natural cloth especially cotton and wool/felt. theyve ruined 3 of my t-shirts and had a go at one of my vintage jackets. It peeves me off casue some fo those thigns are irreplaceable
Post a Comment