Many, many years ago I wrote a poem called "lebensraum" about a cockroach infestation I had in my apartment. I was Chamberlain. At the time, I had a sort of appeasement attitude toward the roachs. As long as they stayed away from me and out of sight I would leave them alone. But slowly their presence grew. I was seeing more brown skittering as I turned on the lights. I was finding more egg sacks. At night I could hear a billion legs marcing from the door jams to the bathroom sink. Room by room they advanced. They stood on the wall and said "this is my Led Zeppelin poster!" Then "this is my couch!" And "This is my stereo!"
One day I was cooking something in the microwave. Probably left over pizza a friend gave me, as I didn't have much money to waste on things like food. As I put the cook time into the microwave I noticed that the time didn't flash on the LED. At first I assumed that I "forgot" to pay the electric bill, or that that cheap piece of crap microwave had gone out. But then I saw stuck between the LED and the windowpane an inch long body, legs and twitching antenna. It was at this moment that I conceded my mistake. These things could not be reasoned with, and any gesture of good will I had made was just an opening large enough for them to scuttle through. I didn't stay in that apartment much longer. The battle had been lost and I fled.
Now I am faced with what I had thought to be a similar situation. The room I live in now has no screen on the window and there are no air conditioners in the building. The sun doesn't ever really go down and because of the latitude, it pretty much always shines on my side of the building. So the window has to stay up. And I've been slowly invaded. This time by bees.
When I was a child in elementary school my friends and I used to catch bees by their wings. We would lie down on the ground and wait for one to land on one of the little flowers the grew all over the recess grounds. Once the bee landed and began it's ritual of cross-pollination and gathering nectar, it would become calm. It's wings would stop buzzing, and so dedicated to its work, it would be oblivious to all that was around it but that flower. Then we would reach over. Slowly and carefully we would take hold of the bee by its wings and pull it away from the flower. We did this countless times, grabbing bees then shoving them in sandwich bags, jars, or whatever. I don't remember anything cruel being done to these bees, aside from the snatching. I think we just liked displaying our courage to the other kids and daring them to best it.
Then one day, as I snagged another, it somehow bent around and stung me on my middle finger. How it did so was just as much of a mystery to me as why none of them had ever done so before. But sure enough it did. And then, as I had heard it would do but had never witnessed, it fell lifeless to the grass and flowers.
My finger swelled to three times its normal size. I've never really known if this was an allergic reaction. But my bee-catching days ended there. I didn't want to risk a confirmation, and letting that bee fall for nothing seemed such a waste.
But now they come in my room. At first, I was giving them their space. I figured they would find nothing of interest and then be gone. But they kept coming. I thought of the cockroaches and my possible allergy and I knew I couldn't just let them come in here. I didn't know if they were building some hive and one morning I would wake up covered in buzzing honey. Or maybe not wake up at all-- dead from anaphylactic shock after accidentally rolling on one in my sleep. So I bought a can of Raid for flying insects. Every time one flies in they get a shot. Some zip right out of the window. Others crash to the floor and writhe around until I put them out of their misery. But they keep coming.
I've started watching them a little more closely. They don't seem to fly to any one particular spot. Some just sit on the wall. A few have been trapped in the light above. A few have made it outside after being sprayed. I expected them to warn the others "the Outdoor Fresh Scent is death!" But they still come. Nor have they come in huge numbers to avenge their fallen. I've murdered dozens of them now. But they still come. Their only provocation is their presence. So it has me wondering if I am the one being appeased. I've only lived in this room a few months. Maybe this is where they have been going every summer after the thaw. Am I the terrible force that brings only genocide but which they hope is somehow capable of reason? Are they giving me my lebensraum?
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