The brown creature had no name – had no need for a name, the creature that scuttled across the floor in search for orts on a cold winter day. Antennae flicking to and fro as it searched, this nameless critter that you could call if you Blattella germanica wanted – but would you. It’s multi-faceted eyes scanned the room it was in, not understanding the meaning of things – the arrangement of furnishings, not that it had a desire to furnish anything – it was, after all, just a cockroach; nor did the brightly colored objects on the walls that represented something to the lone figure sitting at the desk – a figure who represented nothing but risk or reward for our little blattid friend: would he represent death or provide an unwitting feast? You, on the other hand might recognize the middle-aged man as ‘Harry’ Castle – you may even know who he was, though many would not. The small cockroach hid in the shadows, mandibles glistening as the large organism before him lifted what you’d salivate over – a Cubano sandwich, to his mouth and took a bite. Crumbs and a bit of ham fell to his shirt, from where he flicked it off with his hand – sending it tumbling to the ground.

Antennae doing a whirling 360º, the small insect raced to the floor and snatched the bit of ham and devoured it. Then, there was a loud noise – a banging on a door as you would know – our friend knows not of doors, and the man you know as the Commissioner of the PEBA put his sandwich down and went to the door. The Blattella germanica wasted no time.

Up the leg of the desk it ran to a large plateau. Across papers with emblems that meant nothing to this singular German cockroach, but the words had meaning to the man who abandoned a partially consumed Cubano sandwich – words such as ‘endeavored to ignore the rumors and misinformation you have published about us until this most recent act of libel’ and ‘your attempts to damage Mr. Slummings’ reputation by association are ludicrous’. To the ‘roach, anything in this moment other than the nutritional value of the monumentous sandwich was ludicrous.

First it was crumbs he came upon, and his instinctual behavior – it would not know of instinctual behavior, of course, it just acted – made it stop, made it sense, with antennae moving as if they were doing pushups – something that would never be in the blattid’s repitore. Then it sensed the prize, and raced for it, across another decorated paper with words spoken in a language the ‘roach would never understand. ‘engage in a spate of denial of service attacks’ or ‘Taffy Mayberry of Aurora, Colorado’ or ‘continuing reports to be both unproductive and unfounded’. No, the blattid made a bee-line, if I may mix my arthropodian metaphors – it knows not of a metaphor, either, just metathorax – for the glistening ham and cheese before it.

Then the door that is not known and will forever be to the blattid just an unfound door, slammed shut and with that forceful vibration that traveled across the room to the ‘roach, it scattered and flew off the table, landing on the floor. The large human known as ‘Harry’ made large, guttural sounds that the ‘roach did know – anger – and slammed his hand and some papers to the desk and grabbed a glass that was partially filled with an amber liquid. With a swift motion ‘Harry’ consumed the liquid in one gulp, placed it on the table and with one fluid motion slid his hand across his desk, sending everything on it flying as he let out a scream. Then he sat, reached for his phone and began speaking – something the ‘roach will never be able to do.

But our friend the ‘roach was having a lucky day, for landing near him was the sandwich – still glistening, still sending his antennae into orbits, grease dripping from the sandwich onto the sheet of paper that Harold Castle – as his mother may have called him, something the blattid would never experience – had just received. The sandwich was more than enough to sate the blattid as it stared across the sheet with the beautiful script that it would never be able to read. Instead it scuttled over to a bottle that had fallen to the ground with everything else – a bottle that had remenents of a brown, sticky liquid, and as it lapped up the brown sweetness – sweet being a word that it only instinctually understood, it gazed at words that, if it could understand, would have looked like:

To: Commissioner Castle
From: Nurse P…

The rest, obscured by the unfinished Cubano sandwich, which by the nights end would feed an army of Lasius niger, not to mention another blattid or two.