Pest Perspective

It was a good one, and snuck up on me
like any good one does. The book I'd
recently received in the mail on Papa's guns
kept me company while I sat on the porcelain
and did what I'd gone there to do.
Just as quickly as it started
it was over; conveniently, I'd just finished
a chapter. I love when that happens. It seems right.
Take what you can get and be grateful.
You'll lead a fuller life.

Like most honest people I peered into the bowl
while I stood and wiped. Nothing out of the ordinary.
No blood-- always a good sign. But then that claim
of normalcy changed. Something moved. Then it
moved again. I saw legs and antennae swimming around
at the surface of the water. The venison in my gut
re-sprouted its antlers and turned ninety-degrees.

At first I thought it came from me; a parasite, a tapeworm
a demon from hell. Then I sobered up. It was a silverfish
common to my house at night. It must've fallen into
the toilet before I'd entered the bathroom and I hadn't noticed.
What honest person looks before they squat?

Relieved, though slightly disturbed, I resumed with the
customary wiping. The next wad of tissue landed on the critter
intentionally. I couldn't bear to see its grotesque dance with
death anymore. It made my dinner quiver.

But when I pushed that chrome lever down it dawned on me
which of us was the lucky one. I would return to my nightly routine
only to go down the tubes in a figurative sense if the laid-off pattern
of empty-wallet misery progressed. The bug, on the other hand
would shortly be quite dead after a putrid drowning death
sans company of Davy Jones in my overfilled septic tank.

And yes, I mean to call myself the victor in that scenario.
It could always be worse, ladies and hosts.



Currently reading:
"Hemingway's Guns" by Calabi, Helsley, and Sanger.