Kwiksie Vs The Cockroaches: It had to come to this.

Date: Sometime in 2010

Time: 8:30pm

City: Port Harcourt

Location: Kwiksie’s Kitchen

C1: Alright boys, remain focused. These folks often turn on their electricity about this time so we’ve got to move swiftly!

C2: Got it. Who’s on duty tonight?

C1: Kwiksie. She’s supposed to be making supper for her folks.

C3: You mean that skinny one? Oh boy! I absolutely love coming out when she’s the human around. She gets so excited whenever she sees us!

C2: That isn’t excitement fool. She’s terrified of us.

C4: But how’s that possible? Aren’t they supposed to be stronger than we are?

C1: Yeah but obviously, she probably doesn’t understand that. Now concentrate. C2, you stay above. As soon as you sense activity, fly from your station near the window to the cupboard where the ingredients are stored. She’ll be sure to see you there or at least hear you. C4, you stay in the frame of the sliding windows and just keep walking back and forth. The sound drives her crazy. You may also beats your wings loudly for good measure. C3, you stay on the ground. With others, that’s often a really dangerous position but she’ll most likely run away from you than actually step on you. Are we ready?

All Cs: Yes sir!

C1: Then move out.

***

Kwiksie walks into the kitchen at 8:37pm very slowly, flashing the dim torchlight in too many places at once as she proceeds with great caution. She expects to see those evil little things. They always seem to be all over the place when she’s alone. She proceeds further into the room and starts to relax when she hears it. The unmistakable sound of thin brown wings beating.

“Mommy! Please can I just wait a little longer till the electricity comes back on? They’re in here.”

She hears her mother’s reply from the living room. “Who’s in where honey?”

“The cOckRoachEs! They’re in the Kitchen and they’re flying!”

“Wuoh, Kwiksie you either ignore those things or kill them. It’s late enough as it is. Must your brothers eat their dinner by 10pm simply because of your ridiculous fear of these creatures?”

Kwiksie is still whining about the injustice of the entire situation when she hears the irritating scraping at the window directly opposite her. Immediately, the beam of the torch travels to the window but the curtain hides whatever is behind. She moves the light again and sees something dark crawling over the spice cupboard and her miserable frown deepens. A movement at the sink catches her attention and next to the tap she finds another one. She is almost in tears. As she is still trying futilely to get her heart’s beating to reduce in tempo, something crawls over her foot.

The torchlight goes flying through the air and crashes into the dish rack and in the next instant, Kwiksie flees the kitchen at top speed, frantically flaying her arms the entire time.

“Ooooooh Lord, why!? I told you. I told you! Now the stupid thing has crawled on me! Oooooooooooohhhh!”

Her mother tries to calm her down but her efforts are wasted. “Please mommy, please! I can’t go back in there until someone kills all those things and stays with me until I finish cooking oh. I just cannot.”

Kwiksie’s mother asks her older brother who’s also seated in the living room, to come to his sister’s aid. While he heads for the kitchen, shaking his head in disgust at Kwiksie’s reaction to mere insects, she rushes off to the bathroom to scrub her feet. As she hurries off, her mother’s voice is loud enough for her to hear; “Only God knows when you will understand that they are more terrified of you than you are of them. Your fear is what keeps them alive and gives them power. You must outgrow this Kwiksie.”

Kwiksie sulks and mumbles to herself. “Eeehn, I’ll outgrow it. But certainly not today.”

To be continued….

(Check for the conclusion and moral of the story in the following post(s) )

Xxx, Kwiksie.