A short-story sort of thing I cooked up:

Adventures of a Cockroach

Hi there! In case you haven’t already known by the title, I’m a Cockroach. To be precise, I am a Cockroach living in a Hawker Centre. Seriously, it isn’t that bad. You have all the food you can eat, all the spilled drinks to drink and a spacious home. Life is good. Though there are some minor disadvantages. Humans are one of them.

Look, humans provide me with all the food I need, all the water I need, and other luxuries. Though I am not welcome, I usually steal a minute amount of their food when those humans are not looking, or when they place it in the garbage bin.

I have been discussing with other Roaches in the community, and we have agreed that humans are pests and must be annihilated. Even without anyone running this Hawker Centre, we could easily find other sources of food. Humans have been destroying our species and homes for decades, mercilessly crushing us, and all we have done is steal a small bit of food from them.

My now question is: How do we stop them?

Humans have height, strength and reach over us, and possess countless Cockroach-killing weapons, like what I think is called Insecticide or something. They have also been seen crushing our kind with something on their legs known as: Shoes? And are these the limit of their arsenal of weapons? I doubt that very much.

I have heard many horror stories of humans killing our kind, murdering them without mercy. I never thought I would experience such a thing myself. Let me tell you a convincing tale of why these humans should be crushed:

It was a cold rainy, night. The wind howled and it poured and poured. However, there were still humans dining at the Hawker Centre, where it was sheltered.

I myself was happily eating at the bin-outlet at the back of a noodle stall. I had ordered some food, and the waiter was rummaging through the leftovers and scraps in the bin looking for what I ordered.

After the meal, I cautiously exited the bin. The stall owner had gone off somewhere, so the path was clear. I hastily scrambled out of the food, or rather garbage outlet and out of the noodle stall. My home was at the other end of the Hawker Centre, and I had to avoid being seen.

I expertly ducked and dodged the footsteps of the humans, and manoeuvred between the legs of tables.

All was going well until I reached a certain point where a little girl spotted me as I was crawling about near her foot.

“Cockroach!” she yelled, “it’s got on my foot!”

Remember that I was a cockroach and a girl was screaming at the top of her voice. It was so loud that I almost lost my footing (though it is always good to have six legs). Ah! It was like a sonic attack of some kind.

Several of the larger humans were closing in, and all trying to stamp me with their feet. I quickly scaled the length of a table and began to fly (yes, I am a winged cockroach).

I somehow managed to fly back to a little hole in the wall-my home-and have a good rest.

Here my story ends. You can see how the humans try to kill us all, wipe us out entirely from the face of the Earth. They are cruel!

The day after the incident, early in the morning when the vendors were just arriving at the Hawker Centre, I flew out of my home, flying out of the Hawker Centre, towards the ‘great outside’.

‘The Great outside’ is a term given by me and fellow insect inhabitants of the Hawker Center. It refers to the great an seemingly endless space outside the centre, where it is rumoured the dreaded humans live.

I headed towards the Green field near the Hawker Centre. I was searching for someone, someone that I would need the help of.

Aha! I spotted him! Perched on the leaf of a low growing plant, almost invisible due to camouflage, was a single, light-green praying mantis. His true name had been lost to history, so all the inhabitants of the Hawker Centre call him ‘Mantis’. He has never moved from his post, just stays there, his greyish compound eyes scanning the area for prey, which usually consists of a few unlucky flies and mosquitoes.

He never expected a large winged cockroach like me to land on his leaf and knock him off balance.

“What do you want?” he said in a cold, unforgiving voice of a born hunter, as he watched a large mosquito-his lunch-slowly fly past him and fly away.

“What do you suggest we do about the humans? They’re getting far too irritating! Last night, some of them tried to kill me after I stole some unwanted trash! That’s so unreasonable!”

“If I were you,” said Mantis, “I would suggest an all-out assault on the humans. That however, is none of my business, so I do not want to take part in the attack. I have nothing to do with the Humans, they have nothing to do with me. Now scram!”

I flew away, shaking my head. What could we insects do against humans?

After some thought, I realized that Mantis’ suggestion wasn’t so insane after all. We insects had the numbers and speed; we could easily nimbly evade the blows of humans, while swarming at them with superior numbers.

So that afternoon, I held a meeting of all the insect leaders in the Hawker Centre. To us, any insect, no matter how small or stupid, has the chance to talk in front of our leaders and express original opinions.

So, assembled in front of me were the two leaders of the Cockroaches in my neighbourhood. Do you know that there are more than 4000 kinds of cockroaches worldwide? Our species is just one of the many more that there are.

Beside the Cockroach leaders sat three small beetles, the only three left in the Hawker Centre. They were known to be vicious killers and scavengers, and the three of them had survived more human assaults than any other insect individual. That had earned them a high place in the insect society.

Nearby were a couple of ‘guests’. There was a wasp, who refused to tell us where he came from or who he was, the queen of a nearby bee hive, the respective leaders of the mosquito and fly population, and the highly respected queen ant, known for her often successful tactical assaults on human food and territory. There was also a large female spider, who had volunteered to help us.

Strangest of all of them, however, in my opinion, was the leader of the termite population, which seemed less interested in the meeting and more interested in consuming the chair he was sitting on.

I quickly explained my strategy and how we should attack the humans. My plan was what Mantis had suggested: we swarm out and attack all the humans, irritating them and forcing them out of the Hawker Centre, even downing one or two with tremendous firepower. The two cockroach leaders agreed on my strategy, clicking their mandibles in anticipation. The mosquitoes and flies said that they did not think that was the best plan yet, but they would be happy to help. The queen ant said she preferred a more subtle strategy, but would be happy to lend us a large number of troops if needed. The termite leader said he wanted to have nothing to do with it, while the spider thought it was foolish.

Eventually, we had a vote. It passed 6 to 3.

After a long and hard discussion, we agreed that we must fight back against the humans and destroy them. We would then adapt to eating other sources of food. The plan was to organize a strike force and wipe out the humans in one blow.

The next day, the attack began.

First in the attack were the mosquito females. Did you know that only female mosquitoes bite? And when they bite the blood is needed to nourish their young?

The mosquitoes swarmed into human territory, attacking them, biting them and then laying their eggs in pools of stagnant water. Watching all the confusion, irritation and annoyance in the humans was actually fun!

Next in the attack came the flies and cockroaches, swarming in numbers that no one had seen before. They attacked in enormous numbers, storming into human territory in the hawker centre. Like the mosquito attack, they were unprepared. We had the element of surprise. The humans were confused and disorganised, fleeing or futilely swatting at us. The attack was soon followed by the ants that approached from the rear, surrounding the humans.

However, soon the tables had turned against us insects, as the humans sprayed insecticide everywhere and our side suffered heavy casualties. By the end of the day, most troops were either dead or in no shape to battle. Survivors were either evacuated or squashed.

If you are a human reading this record of mine, be afraid. For us insects will strike again someday-even if we have to wait for years.

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