w i n t e r
roach
My friends. You're silent I know, but you're out there. I know that too.
We're gonna pay for this.
It's December 7th. A little after midnight. It's still 70 degrees outside when it should be freezing. It's also Pearl Harbor Day, but that's another long story. I was just sitting in the circle window, smoking, and I noticed a roach about an inch and a half long. Big one.
Here in the South when they get that large we call them Palmeto bugs, but they're roaches. They should all be gone by now. Dead for the season, gone until Spring, but it was there on the wall. I caught it in the headlights of a passing car. Still. Just above me on the wall.
So far this winter is breaking all records. We've still no water. No rain. Mandatory conservation has been in effect for weeks now and the best we've got is some light drizzle. Enough to wet the lips. Enough to catch in my eyelashes, that's all.
And the roaches still walk around on the walls outside.
The bugs are gonna kill the Spring flowers. The plants are gonna get tricked. Farmers can't fertilize without rain. Crops will suffer.
Meanwhile everyone is out in shorts instead of sweaters. The parks are full and people picnic on lunch hours. Birds have left when they could've stayed and it all seems so very wrong. So very comfortable, but so very wrong.
We can think what we want.
We can drink late at night and walk arm in arm in shirt sleeves all the way home.
But when we get there. When we lie down in the sheets and close our eyes. While we sleep things move all too fast.
And when we wake up in the morning, sun shining on frostless grass...we're gonna pay.
goodnight 12.07.98