Giant Mutant Antagonist

By Chris Broadribb

 

I scrawl this as I sit in a sink in my cooking nook. My limbs will cramp up, no doubt, but a giant cockroach is scuttling around on my lino and I can’t confront it right now, or possibly at all. I say ‘giant’: it’s abnormal, a mutant, dribbling from its fangs, waiting to trap and rip apart a puny human. No spray will kill it; nothing can stop it.

My shift was to start at 6 am but a clock shows that it’s almost half past, and I’m still in my pyjamas. What should I do? My Nokia’s on a chair by a window; I can’t call for aid.

Grating door. Soft footfalls. Jazz from an iPod. It’s my darling Abby, back from jogging.

“Randall! What’s going on? Why ain’t ya at work?”

Abby stamps on my antagonist, squashing it flat as a bad pun.

 

Chris Broadribb from Australia has an MA in Professional Writing. She has published several works on multiple platforms.