Domestic Inhabitants

The hotel’s grand lobby was littered with inlaid gold-framed mirrors and crystal tiered chandeliers, Italian marble floors and handloomed Turkish rugs. His door stood at the end of a small, dark hallway off the second-floor lobby, which was hugged by a twin set of wide curving staircases forming almost a complete circle from their carpeted bases to their polished brass crests. The smaller lobby was as elegant and formal as the main, but its only inhabitants were an old woman and a young girl, hunched over a low mahogany table, playing cards.

Pete opened the door. Meredith was there, her head bowed, sitting on a wooden chair facing him. Behind her lay an unmade bed, with unfamiliar sheets. Intricate black and white wallpaper covered the walls. Pete saw a small cockroach scurry across the floor. He lifted his foot to step on it when he saw two more cockroaches crawling onto his shoe. He slammed his foot down violently, knocking the insects onto the floor.

Meredith looked up and asked if he had brought extra wasabi. Pete started to ask what she meant when his eyes noticed the wallpaper moving, and he realized the walls were streaming with thousands of cockroaches. He backed up, knocking against an oak dresser. The mirror rattled and dozens of cockroaches swarmed out from the back of the mirror. Pete froze. He imagined them nesting in his hair, crawling in and out of his ears, over his eyelids, into his gaping mouth. The only thing he could think to do was pull off his shoe and throw it at the wall as hard as he could. Meredith looked at him in bewilderment. At the impact, hundreds of cockroaches he failed to crush became airborne, taking to the air of the increasingly cramped room, coming at him in droves like stealth bombers. He batted them away with his hands desperately, sweeping one fleet of cockroaches away and then another. It was like the Millennium Falcon before the jump to hyperspace, the insects coming faster and faster until they blurred into whiteness. He stumbled into the hall and the lobby as if he was drunk, beaten, dying.

Pete wondered if this was a nightmare about Meredith or cockroaches.

The old woman started laughing in a low, slow baritone. She and the girl tossed their cards into the air. Pete lurched into the empty space, knocking into the mahogany table, falling into an overstuffed chair to catch his breath. He examined himself. Nothing was crawling. The girl jumped over him as if he wasn’t there, trying to catch the falling cards, laughing. “I love you,” the old woman said to the girl, in a sticky dripping voice. Pete stood up to go back to the room.

When he cracked open the door, the air was calm. The chair was empty and the walls were white, free of bugs. He stepped inside. A few cockroaches still inhabited his bed, running playfully on his sheets, zigzagging over one another’s bodies, confident and secure. Meredith was crouching by the dresser, playing with two small furry animals. At first glance, they were kittens, but then he saw one was a baby monkey. It had a long pink tail and a plump, hairy body and he watched Meredith scratch its upturned belly as she rubbed the kitten’s head with her other hand.

It was then that Pete noticed the vulture sitting on the dresser. Its black wings were ragged, its face white and hot. The bird’s beak was opening and closing hungrily, yawning, stretching, ready for dinner. Pete looked back at Meredith. The monkey was a rat. Meredith was petting a rat. Then a wet nose pressed against his arm. A huge slobbering bulldog wanted to be cuddled. Pete stared, not understanding, and a giant, hairy spider carefully picked its way towards Pete’s shoe. A snake coiled, preparing to strike, and lashed out, its jaws unhinging, the spider’s legs spasming in pain and falling limp as the snake crushed its life from its body.

Meredith was smiling. She had picked up the rat and was holding it out to Pete.