the disturbance hiss
The cockroaches were the final straw.
She could put up with him calling her Wendy. He seemed to have forgotten he asked for her number in a Wendy’s, that wasn’t her name, but she didn’t correct him. She just called him Jack. He corrected her, you better believe it, oh yes. But when he took her to the booth between the cotton candy and the elephants and bragged he was entering the cockroach eating competition, well, that just about did it.
She was meant to squeal, and squirm, and do what girls do. But she stared, and scowled, and did what came naturally, which was to reach towards those wriggling antennae and stroke, ever so tenderly.
Her Czech granddaddy had given her a taste for juniper brandy and Kafka stories, and she had a fondness for those little legs kicking. But Jack didn’t know this, or how to read her dark eyes. And nobody seemed to know these were Madagascan hissing cockroaches, or they wouldn’t have had them lined up in glass jars, the route to winning a season pass to the rollercoaster.
Jack was half way through crunching a thorax when his swagger gave out, and his lunch came up. He pretended not to be embarrassed, and she pretended not to smile as they headed to the ferris wheel. She waited until they were almost at the top, until the toxin of the cockroach had begun to numb his mouth, to tell him about the hissing.
They have three hisses: the disturbance hiss, the courtship hiss, and the fighting hiss. He was trying to swallow, and finding it difficult. The first one is my favourite, she smiled. Like a song, it is.
Their carriage swayed as she put her teeth together, and began.
She could put up with him calling her Wendy. He seemed to have forgotten he asked for her number in a Wendy’s, that wasn’t her name, but she didn’t correct him. She just called him Jack. He corrected her, you better believe it, oh yes. But when he took her to the booth between the cotton candy and the elephants and bragged he was entering the cockroach eating competition, well, that just about did it.
She was meant to squeal, and squirm, and do what girls do. But she stared, and scowled, and did what came naturally, which was to reach towards those wriggling antennae and stroke, ever so tenderly.
Her Czech granddaddy had given her a taste for juniper brandy and Kafka stories, and she had a fondness for those little legs kicking. But Jack didn’t know this, or how to read her dark eyes. And nobody seemed to know these were Madagascan hissing cockroaches, or they wouldn’t have had them lined up in glass jars, the route to winning a season pass to the rollercoaster.
Jack was half way through crunching a thorax when his swagger gave out, and his lunch came up. He pretended not to be embarrassed, and she pretended not to smile as they headed to the ferris wheel. She waited until they were almost at the top, until the toxin of the cockroach had begun to numb his mouth, to tell him about the hissing.
They have three hisses: the disturbance hiss, the courtship hiss, and the fighting hiss. He was trying to swallow, and finding it difficult. The first one is my favourite, she smiled. Like a song, it is.
Their carriage swayed as she put her teeth together, and began.
