Jar of Juice

What humans failed to conquer, however, is thinking in a rational manner. Case in point: Entomophobia, or, simply put, fear of insects.

Let us assume for a moment that insects are inanimate objects, much like pebbles. Would you fear a pebble? That is 1 cm in length? Probably not.

Animate that pebble though, and it is a completely different issue. Suddenly, 1cm long insects threaten an entire race of an average 167 cm tall humans.

Back in college I lived in the same dorm room for 4.5 consecutive years. During those years I had my share of experiences with all sorts of things (ghost stories in a later post) and lots of fun activities (mostly involving gaming marathons with Hamza over the breaks).

However, due to a little crack in the window, I had my share of non human visitors.

My first visitor was a spider, a particularly large one at that too. She was completely harmless and, to my utter delight, found herself a home at that very crack, to capture all other insects attempting to move into my room. I befriended the spider, called her Deathbringer, and assigned her that daunting task as part of rent.

Over the course of the years, Deathbringer has saved me from countless invasions from the outside. The area near the crack was always filled with dead, webbed insects, many of which were later devoured or were left alone as a threat to newcomers.

One day though, a hideous insect crawled in from the outside. It looked like a cross between a grasshopper, a cockroach, and a mantis. Although it had wings, it never used them, and preferred to crawl slowly and rather awkwardly across my wonderfully clean and Dettol-polished floors.

When I first saw the monster I panicked. I did not know what to do. I had neither Bygone nor Pif Paf at my immediate disposal. I never even thought of resorting to these chemicals as long as I had the spider as my guardian. The thing slowly crawled across the room, often stumbling at its own disproportionate legs.

I backed against the wall, as if approached by non other than Alessa from Silent Hill. The disturbing 3 cm monster threatened my very existence in the room. I could not find the spider, and, even if I did, I worried that throwing it to battle the crawling grassroachantis thing would bring about an all-insect war in my very room.

I climbed on my bed in an attempt to escape it. I “rationally” thought that it would never be able to climb the bed, and, if it did, I would jump across the room and escape through the door, where I only would pray that the rest of the tribe would not be waiting outside - that this was all a clever plot by the grassroachantis clan to lure me outside and then capture me.

I also “rationalized” that I could just drop something on it and it would squish into death. But what horror would that bring - I could not even begin to fathom the suffering I would bring upon the grassroachantis as it slowly crushed into its death, and, more horrific, of the cleaning I would have to do after.

Then it dawned onto me. My ultimate savior. The only “rational” thing to do.

I had a blue-flame-throwing lighter. One of those “jet lighters” that burn off half the cigarette by the time you take the first puff (note to readers: I don’t smoke, I use the the lighter to light up the awkwardly placed incense candles).

I grabbed the lighter from the side table and flung in an acrobatic maneuver over the grassroachantis in an attempt to catch it off guard. Bewildered, the grassroachantis froze in its position as if to play dead and dumb on my rather intelligent and quite “rational” mind.

I approached it from behind.

The grassroachantis twitched.

I turned on the jet lighter.

The grassroachantis instantly coiled and uncoiled as it silently screamed in pain, which, to my “rational” mind, was more forgiving than having to squish it. To my utter surprise, the grassroachantis suddenly became all red, like iron, before turning into white, all while at the same time twitching uncontrollably.

It lay there, dead, deformed and crisp.

Deathbringer moved out shortly after the incident.

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