Saturday 23 April 2016

Death Of A Cockroach


I just had to have my bathroom fumigated. I felt dreadful about unleashing roachgeddon, but it had to be done. No more washing roach poop off my toothbrush in the morning, or checking under the toilet seat before I pee.

In a random moment of universal solidarity, I stumbled upon this poem by Robert William Service. It sums up the situation perfectly:

Death of a Cockroach 
I opened wide the bath-room door,
And all at once switched on the light,
When moving swift across the floor
I saw a streak of ebon bright:
Then quick, with slipper in my hand,
Before it could escape,--I slammed.
I missed it once, I missed it twice,
But got it ere it gained its lair.
I fear my words were far from nice,
Though d----s with me are rather rare:
Then lo! I thought that dying roach
Regarded me with some reproach. 
Said I: "Don't think I grudge you breath;
I hate to spill your greenish gore,
But why did you invite your death
By straying on my bath-room floor?"
"It is because," said he (or she),
"Adventure is my destiny. 
"By evolution I was planned,
And marvellously made as you;
And I am led to understand
The selfsame God conceived us two:
Sire, though the coup de grĂ¢ce you give,
Even a roach has right to live." 
Said I: "Of course you have a right,--
But not to blot my bath-room floor.
Yet though with slipper I may smite,
Your doom I morally deplore . . .
From cellar gloom to stellar space
Let bards and beetles have their place. 

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