Insurrection Smirks in the Daytime

The alarm wasn’t supposed to go off yet, and yet there it was: an incessant, roiled-up bleat of distress begging for immediate relief from the turmoil within the house.

Mark and Diana stared blankly at each other in mute confusion for a few moments. It took Mark a full half-minute to grasp his senses and turn off the car’s running engine. Diana shut her gaping jaw only after she faced the house, where the blaring was coming from. There didn’t seem to be any words capable of evincing her shock until her husband found the only necessary explanation.

“Maybe it’s broken?”

This seemed the only sensible conclusion, although it entailed the possible belief that the store clerk had either lied to them about the alarm’s reliability or had simply been mistaken. Diana grimaced at the wasted money and closed the car door as she stepped out of it. Both figures emitted abstract confusion as they bumbled their way back up to the garage’s side door.

Mark opened the side door halfway, hesitating as he did it; in a way, neither he nor his wife were entirely sure they wanted to know the cause of their alarm’s premature eruption. It had been a strange set of weeks for both of them, and neither of them was entirely ready or willing to get external forces involved. The whole fiasco had begun when Mark woke up three weeks ago to find his shoes nailed to the roof directly above his bed, without a trail of foreign footsteps to be seen anywhere in the house to denote any local responsible pranksters. Diana also began finding her clothes in the deep inner recesses of the garbage bin, seemingly buried there by possibly the same culprit. As tools, kitchen utensils, family jewels, and other items began showing up in odd and random places (the microwave was found buried in the backyard) or otherwise missing entirely, Mark and Diana began investigating their neighbors, scouring every eye in the vicinity for signs of rambunctious rascality.

“Think, Diana. We’ve knocked on every door in this neighborhood ever since we first moved here two years ago and haven’t found anyone younger than us. Who do you think has the energy to run in and out of our house in the short time it took to install the alarm just an hour ago?”

Diana stood confused for a moment and then finally grew frustrated. “Well, we’re never going to know just standing here and thinking about who did it!!” With this exclamation, she turned the knob herself and kicked the door wide open. “We’re here, whoever you are, and wherever you’re hiding! The jig is up; the fun stops now!” she boldly announced as she stepped into the garage. Mark followed after, his eyes adjusting to the dark.

But there was no one to be seen. No shamefaced figures stood in their presence, no thieves cowered in wait in the corner, no specters floated above them in grinning deviltry. Further investigation of the rest of their house revealed the same disappointments, and there seemed to be no other answer than to return the alarm to the store.

Until they opened the kitchen cupboards. Diana called to her husband in fright (who was busily scouring the shower drains for anything caught in there) and brought added witness to the sight within. Oatmeal lay in identifiable patterns, although it wasn’t clear initially what these patterns were. Then Mark gasped; they were letters.

“V-I-V-L-A-R-V-O-L-S-H-U…. huh?” Mark turned to his wife.

Diane reread the letters, but she wasn’t any more successful. “They’re definite letters, but I can’t see what the words are, either.”

“Do you think maybe it’s not just one word, but two or even three?”

“That’s possible, but I think more likely it’s not English.”

This was a thought, although neither of the two was bilingual. However, if their neighbors could be trusted to be honest, it would help whittle down the suspect list.

A knock resounded at the front door. For the second time that morning, both Mark and Diana went into paralysis, and they grabbed each other’s hand in desperate unity against the unknown phantom.

“Hello, Diana. Is everything alright?” came the call from the front door. “I heard an alarm. Is everything okay with you two?”

Diana sighed in relief. “oh come, Mark, it’s only Margie from the 7-11 close by!”

“Diana, wait!!!!” Mark grabbed his wife’s wrists and held her back. “Don’t you see??!! It could be her!”

Diana pulled herself away from Mark’s grasp, but her face emitted a complete understanding of the situation. She clambered to the door and opened it. Margie stood there, her hair strewn with sweat and jeans bearing a slight tear on the right ankle. Diane eyed her with obvious suspicion.

“Are you folks alright? We heard the alarm clear across to the grocers, and the manager gave me leave to follow up with you. What’s the matter? Are you hurt? Was there a break-in? Where’s the fire?”

For a moment, Diana was tempted to let her guard down, but she could feel Mark approaching with growing intimidation behind her. “No, Margie, there’s been something far worse.”

“Well, dear, don’t keep us in suspense, what is it? What’s happened?”

“You know very well what’s happened, you old bat!” Mark growled in retaliation from behind his wife. You and the whole neighborhood are all in cahoots!”

Margie stood flustered, her glances shot back and forth between the two figures. When she saw they were in earnest, she retorted shakily, “Well, I didn’t know it would be YOU TWO who would be on fire this fine morning!”

“How many languages can you speak?” This was from Diana.

“Two, why?” Margie had become defensive; she was contemplating running away.

“We’ve got a message upstairs we want you to read,” this from Mark.

The already fragile Margie looked faint, but she acquiesced to their request. Stepping inside, she stopped in mute shock and promptly ran as fast as her plump little limbs could carry her back out the door and across the lawn.

“Now, what do you suppose caused that?” Diana looked in consternation at Margie running away.

“I’m not sure; I think you were a little too rough on her.”

“Just what on Earth are you talking about?” Diana was clearly not a little irritated. “I wasn’t the one who called her an old bat! Margie’s one of the friendliest people we know. Just look at the way you treated her!”

“You think she might have been our primary suspect?” Mark put his hands on his hips.

“Are you kidding, man??!?? Just look at the old bird!” Diana pointed out the door. It was true; the figure of Margie had still yet to clear its way across the short 30-meter lawn. When she tripped head-first into the grass, she whimpered into the dirt and picked herself up with a moaning effort that would have drawn sympathy from any casual bystander. “You think that old woman has it in her to make it in and out of our house in time to write cryptic messages in our kitchen cupboards?”

Mark stared silently for a time at the gradually receding fat form and then offered his back in response. Diana sighed and followed him as they plodded together to the scene of the recent crime.

The cupboard’s contents revealed another surprise, however…the oatmeal letters were gone.
“What in blazes…?” Mark shook his head and angrily faced his wife. Who do you suppose has been sneaking in and out of our upstairs in that five minutes?”

Diana shrugged her shoulders. “It wasn’t Margie, Mark.”

“Yeah, well, I’d like to know just who it was. This is beginning to get creepy. What’s the point of buying an alarm if it can’t even tell you where your house-breakers are hiding?” Then he turned somber, although his voice had a touch of irony. “Do you believe in ghosts, Diana?”

Diana was briefly tempted to roll her eyes, but instead, she chuckled. “What, ghosts that glue your underwear to the shower tiles? Or bury the microwave in the backyard?”

Mark smiled for the first time the whole morning. “Or scribble in lipstick all over the pancake mix?”

“How about leaving a stray cat in our oven?”

” What about sawing half the legs off the bar stools in the living room?”

“And making off entirely with your French grammar book!” Diana was enjoying herself now. “Just think, a ghost obsessed with learning other languages! What about the time…”

“Stop, Diana!” Mark’s eyes spun as widely as chrome plates, and his mind was clearly screaming ahead in its own dazzling world of epiphanies. He pondered silently for a few more moments. Finally, he analyzed his wife again. “What did those letters in the cupboard say again?”

“Well, they didn’t look like they were saying anything,” Diana offered. “Unless it wasn’t English.”

That’s just it, Diana!!” Mark’s eyes were tinged like a frightened animal, and he appeared liable to become violent. “I think I know which language it was. Remember 3 years ago when my company was considering moving to France? Remember when my manager made a big deal about all of us having to learn French??”

Diana didn’t need any further remembering; by this point, she had put two and two together and, along with her husband, was mentally calculating the full implications of a French terrorist bent on pestering their tranquil existence. “But…but…but… why would someone want to learn French just to mess with us?”

“And how could they sneak in and out so quickly?”

“Something bothers me about all this, though, Mark.” Diana put her fingers to her cheek and peered into the void of her husband’s befuddlement. Neither of us understands much French, but that oatmeal sentence in the cupboard didn’t look much like any French sentence I know. Did you get any sense out of it?”

Mark shook his head slowly. “no.”

This said, there seemed nothing further to be deduced from this recent clue. Mark contemplated returning to the bookstore and buying another French Grammar book. Still, for the moment, it seemed the most sensible option to dedicate the remaining hours of the day to scouring their premises for footprints, trinkets, specks of mud, and anything at all that might reveal some further sign of the mysterious perpetrator. But as the hours dwindled and the sky began to cast its somber curtain of dusky disappointments, the increasingly vexed couple resigned themselves to an early bedtime, hoping that morning would bring recuperation with it as well as deeper percipience.

Insurrection Roars at Night

Mark and Diana received their answer that night. It had started as a simple scurrying about the bedroom floor that warranted little reaction. Once around midnight, Diana woke up briefly, surprised by its solidified footsteps. She remarked to herself that they sounded surprisingly like marching, but she fell asleep too quickly again to draw any conclusions. It was exactly at 2 AM that their bedroom door creaked open, letting its soundwaves pierce dream country and re-introduce the previous day’s worries.

“Diana, I thought I told you to close the door completely last night.”

Diana was visibly shaking, and the bedframe reverberated with her increasing alarm. “Mark, you fool, can’t you see it opened by itself?”

“That’s impossible, Diana!” Mark whipped off the blanket and swung to the right to climb out of bed. “There may be a lot of weird things happening around here lately, but doors don’t just magically open by…”

“Arrêtez-vous là!!”

This caught their attention. Mark’s seated frame froze on the bed, and Diana whimpered quietly into the mattress. After a few seconds of this painful silence, the command came again.

“Arrêtez-vous là!! Nous sommes sérieux!”

For a few moments, no further sound pierced the room. Finally, Diana faced Mark. “I think that’s French.” She turned to scrutinize the door, but no figure stood there, and no breathing denoted any fresh alien presence. “Mark, I can’t see anyone…Mark, do you? Mark…Mark…Mark…Mark?”

Mark finally shook his head. “Not a thing there!” This tone of confidence spilled out into the open, Mark’s feet hit the floor with the same resolve. His next action lacked the same resoluteness, however, as the man found himself flopping to the ground. Expletives pierced the air as Mark grabbed his feet, screaming in both pain and surprise… but mostly surprise. Over this superlative-laden roar, Diana could hear a chorus of voices conferring with each other.

“Les imbéciles sont tombés dans le panneau,”

“Avons-nous préparé le reste de la maison?”

“Oui, tout est préparé, numéro 2381. Annoncez votre présence!”

Diana bent over the bed and helped her husband back onto the bed. To her shock, she could see him pulling hundreds of thumbtacks out of his feet’s bleeding cavities. “What the h-…”

“Écoutez! Depuis ce soir 21 juillet, cette résidence appartient désormais à la légion de blattes libérées réunies, désignées à leurs propres fins. Résistez-nous à vos risques et périls!”

Diana was more than a little disturbed, but Mark was clearly showing signs of growing anger. “Who or what is there?”

“nous le demons encore une fois, nous sommes…”

“Oh, for crying out loud!” Diana let herself down nimbly onto the floor, taking care to avoid every unseen obstacle in the dark. Gingerly moving forward, she kicked past thousands and thousands of thumbtacks ubiquitously placed. Once or twice, she accidentally stepped on one, and on more than a few occasions, she heard the satisfying crunch of something being crushed beneath her. Softly but steadily, she clambered to the light switch, ready to cast the light of illumination on the night’s web of peculiarities. –Click! – went the switch.

The floor was wall to wall with cockroaches, interspersed among the thumbtacks. This time Diana screamed louder than Mark did.

“Mark, get the bug spray; they’re everywhere! Can’t you see they’re climbing all over me!??!” Mark could see they were everywhere, but Diana was jumping up and down too rapidly for any of the roaches to clamber up her legs, who, for the moment, didn’t seem interested in moving from their spots anyway.

“Madame, il n’y a aucune raison de vous conduire de manière aussi stupide, pouvez-vous s’il vous plaît arrêter de sauter partout comme un…”

With a herculean cry, Mark soared out of bed, clearing the space of the whole room and landing just outside the entrance. Landing on his knees, he could feel the muffled flattening of hundreds of little bodies beneath him. He continued down the stairs in the same helter-skelter spirit to the bathroom cabinet, where the aforementioned bug spray promised deliverance. Upstairs, he could hear the thousands of little pitter-patters rustling to and fro afresh, but this only added further zeal to his desperate mission. Ramming through the bathroom door, he dove straight into the cabinet above the sink, tossing out useless items where they prevented his view of the much-needed liberator. But as the floor piled up further and further, the cabinet revealed its gaping horrors to Mark’s bloodshot vision. The spray was nowhere to be found.

Mark burst out of the bathroom without stopping to contemplate, rushing madly to the cabinet below the kitchen sink. This time, he flung everything out of it desperately, only stopping to look amongst the pile on the floor for the fabled repellent once he was confident nothing else lay inside. But no success was to be found in either spot.

Mark finally stopped to catch his breath. He wiped his brow; he was sweating. Then he noticed that the rustling above had stopped. Without a moment for himself, Mark bolted again up the stairs and approached the bedroom, but he stopped abruptly at the entrance.

Diana was tied up on the floor, face down. Inside her mouth was a sock.

“What did you little stinkers do with my bug spray!??!” Mark exhumed in growing consternation. “And for crying out loud, speak English!”

“Nous excusons, monsieur, nous ne comprenons pas vos propos. Cependant…”

Mark growled in exasperation and stepped boldly into the room. A sea of black parted for him, allowing his feet to touch the ground unimpeded. To his surprise, he found the thumbtacks had been removed completely. Making his way towards his wife, he ripped the sock from her mouth; he could hear the insects discussing something of great importance around him. As their voices muttered on and on, he could hear more and more voices adding themselves to their convention. The racket grew in volume, although Mark could sense that none of it was directed towards him. Wild-eyed, he asked his wife, “How much French can you understand?”

Diana, her head still pressed sideways against the floor, shook it in disappointment. “Not a word! You were the one who was supposed to become proficient in it! Get me out of these ropes, will you?!?”

Mark nodded and began untying. Immediately, the voices became louder; it almost sounded as if they were angry, he thought. Standing up, he raised his shoulders to bolster any nerve he might have within him. His mind racing furiously, he pumped his memory bank for any trace of French grammar or phrases. A catalog of vocab materialized hazily, and Mark ventured into the brave unknown with the first phrase that came to him.

“Bonjour!”

The voices stopped abruptly. Not a sound was heard for a moment, and an eerie silence permeated the bedroom. Diana gasped in shock but emitted no further ejaculation.

“Je suis Mark!”

He waited a moment more. When the cockroaches made no reply, he grew bolder.

“Elle est Diana!”

Mark smiled. The cockroaches seemed lost for answers, in awe of his progress so far, he imagined. He continued with “c’est…c’est…c’est…” but then stopped. Darn it. Diana, how do you say ‘my house’ in French?”

Diana had sat up by this time, although she was still tied up too strongly to free herself. “I know ‘ma’ is ‘my,’ but that’s as far as my French goes.”

Suddenly, Mark brightened. “Oh, wait! I got it!” He turned to face his highly attentive audience. “c’est ma maison!”

A rumble and a crack flattened the air around the two. All at once, the black hordes of synchronized insurgents scrambled up all four walls around them and onto the roof. Within 20 seconds, they had coated almost every spare crevice the room provided, and no light could pierce their enveloping form as they encapsulated every spare inch afforded to them. The room grew blacker with every second.

Diana was the first to overcome her stupefaction. “Mark, we gotta go!!!!”

He needed no reminder. With superhuman strength, he promptly tossed his tethered wife over his shoulder and raced out of the room, all the while noticing the walls outside were also whispering hidden contents within. Too panic-driven to investigate, Mark raced downstairs. But even the kitchen was humming a din of French cries; from out of the sink, the pipes, and the cupboards came the crawling calls: “Vive la revolution! vive la revolution! vive la revolution!” Mark didn’t stop until he and his wife were laid sprawled out in the grass of their front yard.

Mark untied Diana, but there didn’t seem to be any appropriate response for a few minutes after. Panting on the grass, Diana stared in befuddlement at the whole catastrophe, while Mark stared in growing worry and fear. The whole house vibrated with growing animation, but the noise remained stifled within. Diana turned to face her husband. “You know, Mark, this whole thing is your fault. We’re about to lose our house because you were too lazy to learn French!”

Mark stared momentarily and then shakily sputtered, “I just told them this was my house!”

“Yeah, well, it was the wrong thing to say. Can’t you see what they want? This whole thing is a mutiny, an uprising!”

“A battle for our own house…” Mark stated emptily.

“The crafty little buggers were smart to start this at night, with all the exterminator companies closed. We have to act now before they take over everything! Did you say they hid all the bug spray?… then we need to use brooms.”

“What chance do brooms have against an army of 10 million roaches?” Mark groaned for emphasis.
“A far better chance than us just sitting here watching! Anyway, do you have any better ideas?!?”
Mark was still too stupefied to offer any plausible alternatives, and he began standing up when Diana dealt him another blow: “And by the way, Mark, you have to do it yourself.”

“What the heck, Diana!!?? Why can’t you help??!!?”

“Were you tied down back in the bedroom?!” Diana’s wrath mounted up in full force. “Do you want me to tell you everything they did to me back up there? Did you see the sock in my mouth? Huh? I’m not going back!!!”

With this enunciation in the open, Mark grimaced and faced the house freshly, nodding twice to himself. Abruptly, he bolted towards the house and disappeared within. For five minutes, Diana could hear no sound, and even the house seemed to have stopped vibrating. Then, CRACK!! sung the upstairs window, as a broom (presumably Mark’s) smashed its glass and sent its shards sailing down towards the grass below. Diana sighed.

Murder Plots Begin in the Bathroom

Inside the house, the window was far from the only thing broken. As the roaches clambered across any surface that accommodated their fat little frames, lamps, dressers, cupboards, everything right down to the kitchen sink had mutated into a sea of black rustling seeds with bustling antennas. Mark’s broom sailed indiscriminately across every square inch, smashing, crashing, and dashing everything that lay in his path. Roaches clambered over each other in desperate directions to escape his wrath but found themselves flattened shortly after, mashed into pulpy stews with their antennas poking out. Yet no matter how many times he swung his weapon, no matter how furiously he crushed them into smithereens, a resurgence of new opponents announced themselves with growing alacrity behind him. There simply were too many.

From the washroom came the sound of running water; the bathtub was being filled. Mark scrambled through the oily carpet of cockroach corpses to the scene of the noise. Once inside, he could see the insects mounted on the faucets by the hundreds, furiously pushing down to release more and more water. Yet Mark could see, by the dozens, roach after roach after roach slipping off their precipices and into the pool below. From Mark’s standing point, he couldn’t see its contents yet, but interestingly, every single time a roach slipped and fell a –SSS! – sound briefly punctuated the air. Something was in the tub besides water. Mark approached the tub cautiously to get a better look.

SLAM! The door shut behind Mark. Whipping his head around, he saw the situation all too clearly; it was all a trap. The roaches had lured him in, and already he could hear them on the outside furiously pushing against the door to prevent his escape. But why did they want him inside the washroom? As if on cue, another – SSS! – emitted from the bathtub. Mark approached the tub and looked in-

a toaster was floating on the surface of the water. So that was their plan.

At that moment, Mark could feel the roaches approaching him from behind. Those closest to him began grazing his skin; it was the first physical contact they had made with him the whole night.

While Mark was not as squeamish as his wife, the knowledge of their scheme filled him with shudders. With uncanny wrath, he flung himself around completely and sent his broom down with a noise like thunder on the 1000 little busybodies planning his demise. The formation behind the front line stepped up to replace the casualties but was promptly disintegrated with the same fervor. Now, they began approaching him from all sides. From left, right, and above, he sent hordes of French screaming insects into the tub by the thousands, but as they landed on his head, he could feel the first few pangs of panic creeping into his consciousness. If he could just get his phone out and call his wife…

BAM! The door was kicked open. Diana stood in disgust and horror at the scene of carnage taking place within. “Mark, get out!”

For the second time that night, Mark needed no prompting. Together, the couple dashed out of the house once again, furiously slashing at Mark’s body and face. Diana slapped any sign of black she could see creeping across his countenance, but after Mark’s face bore all the signs of her rigorous methods, he had to ask her to stop. It took five minutes before the couple could recommence planning their next strategy.

“The broom wasn’t enough, Diana. We need something bigger.”

Diana was lost in thought for a moment but quickly brightened. “We still have the air compressor!”

“What good will that do? Blowing them around is hardly any solution. We need something that will annihilate them by the thousands.

“Water? Should we hook up the hose?”

Mark considered this. “We might be able to use it for the ground floor, but I doubt it’ll reach upstairs. Unless…unless…”

“Unless what?”

Mark gave no reply. Instead, he grabbed Diana’s hand and led her to the side garage door. They crept in as quietly as possible, but to their shock and surprise, there wasn’t a roach to be seen anywhere. Mark pulled himself towards the corner cabinet, where Diana could see him withdraw his super soaker water gun.

“Oh, of course! We blast them! Is there another?”

Mark shook his head, but it was clear his mind was furiously pumping away on a new tangent of ideas.

“Diana, get the tin foil from the kitchen, a lighter, and a candle.”

Diana stood perplexed but decided for once to resist arguing back. Wordlessly, she went towards the door leading into the house but thought better of it. It would be better if the roaches didn’t know what they were up to in the garage. Stealthily, she snuck back out through the night air and opened the front door ever so slightly. Inside, to her shock, the room was vacated, without a roach in sight. Yet she could hear them above her, in the bedroom. Upstairs, the rallying cries of French declarations blocked all other noises. Diana could relax a little as she went into the kitchen to grab the necessary items. This time, she didn’t bother going outside first to enter the garage.

Murder Plots Conclude in the Bedroom

Upon entering the garage, Diana saw Mark’s ingenuity on full display. During her time inside, Mark had attached an L-shaped metal bracket about 1 inch below the water gun’s nozzle so that the flat metal came out parallel with the ground and stuck out a few inches in front of it. To the end he had stuck a piece of sticky tack. Looking up at his wife, Mark then silently took the items from her, and wrapped the nozzle with the tinfoil, leaving only the open exposed. He then took the candle and stuck it to the top of the sticky tack, allowing the nozzle’s contents a clear exit over the candle.

“How does this help the water stream power?”

Mark replied by reaching behind him. He hoisted a lawnmower petrol container and poured its contents into the gun. He then lit the candle.

Diana’s jaw dropped, and her mind started reeling at the potential next few minutes. But her mouth refused to cooperate with her brain. “Mark…Mark…Mark…” was all she could say.

Mark was too busy opening the door. Cradling his new firearm suited for mass destruction, his eyes pointed narrowly ahead as he stepped forward in growing confidence. Making his way towards the stairs, Mark kept both his gaze and weapon poised at the first sign of black animation. Diana shivered behind him and kept herself close.

They didn’t need long to wait. The procession of beady-eyed insurgents began at the very top step, who were too enamored with the convention to notice the two skulking figures approaching from behind. The chanting chorus drowned out the sound of Mark aiming squarely at the most densely crowded clump and pressing with all his might on the trigger.

The effect was immediate. Orange spikes penetrated the cluster and sent roaches spiraling downwards onto the floor one by one in sizzling agony. Immediately, the voices stopped, and Mark and Diana had the disturbing sensation that over 20,000 pairs of eyes were trained on them. For one sickly second, the two parties eyed each other curiously. At that moment, Mark and Diana saw that only one surface remained largely uninfected amongst the entire room: Mark’s pillow on the bed. Directly on top of it sat with royal pomposity a single cockroach, who faced his whole congregation. As its twisty little form twittered back and forth across the pillow, it gave the impression it was ruminating on the proper course for reaction. Finally, it stopped and faced Mark.

“Les hommes…”

Mark didn’t wait to hear the rest. Squeezing the trigger, he burst forth waves of bright orange ecstasy directly at his pillow. But the flames showed no indiscrimination, and it wasn’t long before the entire bed was up in flames. While Mark could hear the little foes crackling all over its mattress, he could also hear his wife behind him loudly berating his carelessness. But it no longer mattered. “GAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” Mark could no longer control himself, sending firestorms in every direction that didn’t include his wife. A blazing holocaust soon surrounded the couple, but Mark was too far gone to release his finger now. They were both too entranced by the spectacle of it all to recognize that the heat was driving sweat down their clothing onto the floor. It took a full minute before Mark finally released his grip on the trigger. Nothing could be heard anymore but Dante’s Inferno and its million suffering residents.

Diana was hugging Mark from behind. “Thank you, Mark,” she whispered.

Mark smiled to himself. “For incinerating everything within my sight?”

Diana shook her head. “No, for stopping.”

Mark whipped around to face his wife. “I didn’t stop.” His eyes were swathed in panic. “I ran out of ammo!” He held up the water gun and shook it for emphasis.

“Well, it’s fine, Mark, I think we got them all. Now we just need to find out if our insurance will cover this.”

Mark’s concerns were more immediate. “Diana, where are we gonna sleep tonight?”

Diana stopped to think, but suddenly, the sound of something immensely heavy toppling and hitting the tiled floor came from downstairs. The fridge had fallen over. Diana and Mark’s faces turned bright white. With reluctance, the couple began creeping fearfully down the stairs. Mark aimed his weapon in front of him, but no expression of confidence he forced on himself could help him forget its hallow contents.

The kitchen revealed their greatest horror come true: another set of fiendish foes awaited their arrival. An army of ready roaches stood on the fallen fridge, facing the approaching couple with an ardor that would have frightened anyone. Mark aimed his gun and shot out, “Anyone dares approach me or my wife gets sent straight to the great roach nest in the sky!!”

“Truce!”

Mark and Diana were taken aback. What? Did they hear that right?

“Truce!” came the entreaty for the second time.

Diana found her tongue and spoke to the insects. “Are you saying you want to halt fighting? Is that what you want?”

“Truce!” the roaches called a third time. Nothing more, nothing less.

“Mark, they want a truce!” She rubbed his shoulders in excitement. “I guess they can speak English after all!”

“Or, at least that one word, anyway.”

Diana held her hand out to symbolize a handshake. “Okay, truce!” The next was said to her husband. “Okay, put your gun down, show you mean it.”

Mark complied.

“Truce! Truce…truce…truce…truce…truce!” came a chorus of squeaky voices, clearly enamored with this new word in a foreign language.

“See, Mark, they can be reasoned with after all!”

“Hommes, préparez vos troupes. L’opération de déménagement commence dans exactement 30 minutes.”

Mark turned to face his wife. “See? They can’t speak English at all. They still only speak French.”

Diana still wasn’t sure. She called out “truce!” once more, but there was no reply this time. Instead, the roaches seemed to be moving en masse out the door, a giant procession of black heading into the night.

“We’re not out of the woods yet, Diana.”

“Yes, we need someone who can speak French. Do you think Margie can?”

Mark’s eyes brightened. It was the first time he genuinely looked excited the whole day. “Maybe! Give her a call!”

Diana pulled her phone out and dialed Margie with a renewed zest. The phone rang for a full minute.

“Mark, it’s only 3 in the morning. Do you think she’ll be…”?

CLICK! “Hello?” Margie’s voice came groggily. “It’s the middle of the night, Diana. This better be good.”

“Margie, you said you could speak two languages today. What’s the second language?”

Margie didn’t reply immediately. “What on Earth, girl? You wake me up in the middle of the night to ask me this?”

“Please, Margie, it’s a life or death situation. Please, what language can you speak?”

There was a loud sigh on the other end of the line. “French.”

Diana could barely contain her excitement now. “Great! Great! Can you be here at 7 tomorrow morning?”

The groan from the other end of the line shook the phone in her hand. “What kind of life or death situation is this? What else do you need?”

“Cockroach repellant,” this came from Mark. He was still eying the door, which the roaches had been polite enough to close behind them.

“Can you bring some cockroach spray? Please?”

“Fine!! Fine!!” Margie was clearly exasperated. ‘That better be it, I intend to get some sleep now!”

“Please Margie, please be here tomorrow morning. We need you now more than ever before.”

There was a grunt of affirmation. The click affirmed her departure.

“Oh, Mark, we’re saved! This nightmare is over!”

Mark allowed himself to smile. It really did seem as if the worst were behind them. But just as quickly, the smile disappeared.

“Diana, we forgot to put out the bedroom fire!”

Diana’s hands went straight to her mouth. She was halfway to the garage door to fill a bucket with water when she stopped in confusion.

“Mark, what’s that noise?”

There was indeed a sound, building all the time. Yes, the noise was clearly audible now. What had started as a simple scratching was spiraling into a gigantic mass of bustling activity. And was the house shaking?

“Where’s that coming from, Mark?”

“I think it’s coming from under the house,” Mark was confused.

Insurrection Laughs the Morning After

Margie wasn’t typically the sort of person to get angry quickly; it had always been her policy to maintain good relations with all her neighbors. When Mark and Diana had first moved into their neighborhood roughly two years ago, there had been no reason to treat them any differently. Mark’s rudeness had put her off a little the day before, but the call last night really drove her over the edge. Grabbing a can of roach spray from her bathroom was the easy part, but she couldn’t understand what on earth the couple needed a Francophone for so early in the morning. Upon her arrival, she was tempted to let loose a barrage of carefully chosen French profanities on the two.

When she did arrive, though, all anger evaporated. Her jaw dropped; there wasn’t any appropriate response to the spectacle before her.

Or, in other words, that wasn’t before her. Margie walked around the premises two laps in total bafflement, an easy task for what had apparently happened in the night. Then she said out loud to herself-

“Diana, where’s your house?”