Ocean 海 ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 49

4. Shhiullumizh

When I was giving my fourth delivery of last year of my thirty-eight babies, there was a lot of ‘shhiulumizh’ coming out of me. More so than during any of my previous delivery experiences. In our dialect, the blood is called shhiulumizh. Shhiulumizh is whiteyellow. Our body fluids are pretty screwed up.

Oh I forget to tell you that we cockroaches don’t even have tears. You know we always hear those stories and anecdotes from the enemy, about how they cry and cry for things ridiculous to cry over. The fable is that the humans would cry over a lost one.

5. Nextlife

The last time I led my children to flee from an accustomed-to extermination, twenty of my children did not make it. I myself was too much in a hurry to escape so I ran without even turning back my head. But later that night I went back, wanting to cry and waiting to be sorrowful and all - for you know how much I would like to be a human - but the grief did not happen. The weep did not come.

Next life, next life when I am a human, I will feel the sorrow and the tears. How amazing it is to lament, just as a human would.

It was in my Nymph years when maman found me the husband. I was not ready then. I was not capable of understanding love. I was only a nymph. You cannot tell differences between an adult cockroach and a nymph cockroach, considering we only differ in

size. And I happened to be a very big nymph. Maman told me: “Uodfy silly girl, you are thinking too much. We only use them once to get us pregnant. For the rest of life, we don’t need them.” So, I did. But now you see, I am the one who has to be stuck with this obscene belly throughout the rest of my life. And gee, now I don’t even remember what my husband smells like.

Next life, next life when I am a human, I will understand about love and I will do the love right; I will also age properly, gracefully, just as a human would.

6. Our village

About my traitorous behaviour, maman was severely concerned. She took me to the prophet in our village. By the way, the landscape of our village is an odd shape, somewhere square somewhere rectangle some up-hills more down-hills and all that. And there is even a lake that we are told not to go in. Last time a nymph went in, and she was pulled into a big swirl all of sudden, while she was just innocently doing some lap-swimming. Huge sound. Like those from a seashore. Well, I only read about the sea in the human world.

How much bigger can it be than our village lake? The oldest cockroach, the prophet Muilliska, told us that our lake is linked to a metal tunnel and possibly to the ocean. Every night when the light goes out, I hang on to the edge of the lakeshore and fantasize going in. But the bigger problem is the torrent does not occur until the light is on, with a human approaching…

7. The right number

Anyways, I was telling you that I was once taken by my maman to the prophet to meditate upon my previous life. According to Muilliska, I have been a cockroach for ten hundred and thirty-eight THOUSAND cycles of lives! To this, maman happily announced: “see daughter, you are not meant to become a human. You have already failed ten hundred and thirty-eighth THOUSAND times.” Well then, okay then. Yes I have failed. But you see this time, I have a good number: you see I have already given birth to one hundred thirty-eight nymphs… one hundred thirty-eight… maybe ten hundred thirty-eighth is THE right number! It’s a calling. I shall succeed the very next time.

8. The impossible My first delivery of this year was an impossible one. It was failing me. Maman ran out to fetch Muilliska. The prophet came to my bedside. She held my Loufo, my upper limb, and sang the usual ritual, danced the usual dance. I wanted to beg her not to. But I was too weak to protest being reborn into yet another cockroach life the ten hundred-ninth time. My shhiulumizh flowed, even more than my last time in the fourth delivery of last year. Although something felt different. Muilliska stopped her singing to stare at my shhiulumizh. She looked into my eyes. In an excited tone, mixed with much awkward awe and fear, “Girl,” she said, “your shhiulumizh is RED?”

I was too weak to decipher any syllables by then.

She went on: “Uodfy, poor thing, who has to go with her many unborn nymphs. Uodfy, you have three more minutes in this life. Are you sure, are you so certain, that you want to be a human in the next life?” Are you sure? Yes, I am bloody sure. BLOODY, can’t you see that? Yet still no sound coming out of me.

I felt myself starting to go then. More shhiulumizh came out. Still RED.

9. Muilliska

I could not believe Muilliska was still speaking, as though she has to speak if she is not singing. And yet, she continued:

“You know, I am the oldest one in our village. But it is a secret that I am actually three hundred and ninety-eight years old. Uodfy, I am not going to sing our ritual for you. Here is something different. Maybe you will succeed in turning into a human. Uodfy, you think you are the only one who wants to be a human? No Uodfy, count me in. In this life alone, I have tried so many times that I cannot remember. I have only learned how not to die, and still I keep trying. But the Shhiulumizh has to be red, they say. Uodfy, you are the only one I have seen with RED shhiiulumizh! Uodfy, if you ever become a human, would you come back to our village, and find me and tell me what is it like to be a human? What is it like to have fewer than 10 nymphs in your entire life? And what is it like to be pregnant out of many loves? And please, please tell the other humans not to kill all of us.”

“Uodfy, we will miss you…” “Uodfy, good luck.