Of shrieks, creatures and fragility…

I was sitting in the lounge sipping on my coffee when I suddenly heard a shriek - the kind you hear in operas, ultrasonics that can break glass or ceramic (does that actually happen?). It was my sister. I couldn’t comprehend what went wrong and before I could inquire, my eyes gave me the answer. It. In my state of confusion a monster-sized being caught my attention. My eyes widened. I sat motionless, not knowing how to react. It shifted sides. I sprang up on my feet and gave out a loud shriek. My grandma came running from the other room but when she saw what I saw, she took the nearest sofa and said something which I did not understand in my fragile state. My mom appeared in the scene next. Her first reaction was a laughter. Till now the creature was motionless staring at our helplessness, may be laughing at it too. Suddenly it shifted sides again. What followed was quite predictable - a series of ear-deafening shrieks( Yeah, shrieks are a family thing I guess). And then came my brother, with a mighty weapon in his hand, like a true warrior - my hero. I could have put in some details of the encounter but I’ll spare you the horror. To cut the long story short, he killed the giant king-sized cockroach.(Yeah, yeah I know you knew from the beginning) It was collected in a dustpan and safely buried in the trash.

A tiny creature, a small invertebrate is all it takes to move three generations of humanity. Such is the fragility of human life…