Alex Wells

I’ve always enjoyed the darker parts of life. The quieter, smaller, or often looked over aspects of existence. When I was in preschool, I could be found picking up millipedes while I hid in the dark corners of the playground, ascribing unique names to each of them. Their bodies coiled and vibrated; their legs flowed synchronously as if being brushed by the wind. I remember the way the soil smelled as I let their bodies curl themselves around my fingers, like it had been pulled from the center of the earth. I thought we had some type of unspoken pact - they would not harm me if I did not harm them. Now I know they had no real ability to harm me. They were helpless and I just projected my power over them.

My parents were less enthusiastic about my interest in “pests” but supported it nonetheless. Our house quickly became home to tadpoles, turtles, snakes, hamsters, rats, and ferrets, in addition to the dogs and cats my parents preferred to share space with. I deemed all of these creatures safe. While perhaps a bit daft, each had a discernible personality that I found captivating.

When not outside, I would let the spell of Animal Planet wash over me, hypnotize me with images of a pink flamingo sky, or the dull hums of tree frogs, hidden somewhere in the rainforest, waiting to come home with me. I was less enthusiastic about images of sharks, shredding a seal to pieces, violently thrashing it from side to side like a painter filled with inspiration, apparently using only red to convey their vision.

But sharks didn’t live here and if they did, they were kept behind glass, encased in an aquatic world that couldn’t penetrate the safety of mine. I would see them at the Science Center near my house that I constantly begged my parents to take me to. One year, as Spring brought its bright reminder to our surroundings, I saw the Science Center with a huge sign out front that promised bugs of all shapes, all in prehistoric sizes. It was Bug Week and I had to go as soon as possible. My parents agreed and we went the very next day.

The entrance to the museum was always meditative, regardless of the amount of screaming children that seemed to cartwheel from one end to the other every time I entered. The air conditioning brought a sense of ease and I knew that just behind the front doors, I would be in a new realm, a home for the creatures that I could only imagine.

We descended the spiral staircase that lead to the bug exhibit and I was already imagining new species in colors I had never seen before, the size of dinosaurs. These moments were the moments I lived for, at least for the few years that I had lived. The kid in a candy store analogy never applied to me. This was my candy store.

The man leading the event carefully retrieved giant millipedes, with their signature bright yellow stripes, from their glass encasements, handing them to the anxious children near me. The glass that separated our worlds was different than the sharks I feared. We had more control over these tiny creatures, as I had discovered with the millipedes I plucked from the Earth earlier. To fear them seemed unnatural. My familiarity with millipedes made me begin to lose interest though. I knew their specific shade of yellow, I knew each of their one thousand legs, I knew their silent twisting in my palm. I wanted to meet a new creature.

My interest was peaked again when I began to hear a faint hissing sound. It sounded like a morse code that was even more alien to me. The source of the sound looked just like the prehistoric monsters that I had seen at the border of our land and theirs. I looked up at the brave man and pointed to it excitedly. “Ah, that’s a Madagascar hissing cockroach!” he said with enthusiasm that I felt was necessary. He impeded upon its borders, held it gently in his palm, and offered it to me.

The creature sat motionless; the only sign of life was in the calls it let out. As he offered it, I imagined it calling for me, ready to share the secret of a species I had never encountered before.

I held it and for the first time recognized the power creature, so small, could have over me. I was mystified, mimicking the motionlessness of it's glossy body. A lingering fear gripped me. I felt a tingling in my palm, like the millipedes legs. I shifted my hand to form a crescent and peered underneath its body. It's underside, unlike what it showed to the world, was in constant motion. Perhaps this was the secret I had been waiting for, or perhaps it was simply how it's call manifested.

It was neither. Its body seemed to separate, liquifying through a dark evolution of its former self. It's spawn spread themselves across my hand, trailing down my arm, and began to fall to my feet, making light tapping sounds, like blood dripping. I wanted to fall to my knees but was fearful of falling into the pit of monsters. I threw the mother to the ground, repulsed by the perverse birth and fled. I left their lair, leapt up the spiral staircase, and retreated back to my home; a home that

I would never share with them