Victorious at Battle!!!

There's this one shelf in my house that owing to the fact that I cannot easily reach it, has been converted into what looks to be startlingly similar to a rarely used attic! I normally dump a whole lot of things onto that not-so-large a space, always making a mental point to clean up the clutter one weekend by throwing away the things that I haven't used in months, and probably never will! Considering my inability to throw away things that easily, having almost always formed some kind of attachment to many of my belongings, that weekend didn't seem to be menacingly hovering anywhere in the near future! Unfortunately, suddenly last week, as I was preparing to start studying for my February 4th exam, I realized that my book was lost somewhere in the mêlée of the attic. With trepidation, but having no choice whatsoever, I pulled a chair right under the attic, and attempted to stand up on it and search for my book. On spotting its title, my eyes immediately lit up with glee! I proceeded to carefully pull it out from under a whole load of other books and things balanced precariously over it. I had but pulled it almost all the way through, when I noticed a pair of antennae suddenly poke out from between two books. With a yelp and a leap, I found myself on the floor, poised and ready to strike the monster down, if it so much as made a move towards me. After displaying its full length for a while, the cockroach scuttled right back into its hideout. From that moment, I knew no peace!!! Small little roaches I can handle, but not one that took pride in displaying its full length!!! I imagined all sorts of things; I was almost convinced that the roach having built a nice, cozy home would not relinquish its abode for anything, and would be, at every moment, secretly gloating at my fear and displeasure! I started waited impatiently for A to arrive.

Friday came, and it brought good news in the form of A's arrival! That very evening, I set him to work on cleaning out the attic. What was hilarious was that the moment A made a joke about how he was all geared up to vanquish the roach; the brave thing that that roach was, it peeped out the attic and let us have a good look at it, before scooting right back in! I could almost hear it say "catch me if you can!"

Having locked myself safely inside the bathroom, I listened to the sounds emanating from A going about his chore of cleaning the attic. There were some thuds and bangs, and A soon announced that the deed had been done, and that I could safely come out of the washroom. Gingerly, I stepped out, with the feeling that the insect would at any moment land flying down on my head! After having convinced me that it wouldn't materialize out of nowhere, A started clearing up the rest of the clutter that had been dumped into the attic. I soon pitched in to help, feeling all brave and courageous now that danger was nowhere in sight! I guess I'd thanked my stars too soon, for we found another warrior waiting with bated breath, at the other end of the attic. The yelps and the leaps and the locking myself into a safe place started all over again! This second warrior put up a brave fight and went to his grave like a true martyr! However, we had apparently underestimated the old strength in numbers adage! Out popped another fully-armed-with-its-antennae soldier from between the pages of an old diary that had been relegated to a corner of the attic! This one proved to be the quickest and the most courageous of the lot! It scurried all around the place and anticipated A's every move, akin to a true-blue soldier of the soil!

We gave all of them a nice burial, fitting the tremendous fight that they had put up. Swooping them all up into a dustpan that can give any royal casket a run for its money, we led them all to their pre-ordered, designer, plastic bag graves. My only remorse is that in between all my squealing and yelping, I didn't think of immortalizing them in the lens of my camera. Also, I do pray that none of their ilk ever shows up in any crevice of my attic or any other place in my house, ever again! Not that I intend to speak ill of the dead, but they really don't seem to do anything other than scare me out of my wits!

Needless to say, we carefully looked into every corner of the attic, threw away all the old and unimportant stuff that I'd so lovingly hoarded up, and even arranged security personnel in the form of naphthalene balls, to keep a twenty-four hour vigil on our fort! No intruder will ever again be able to infiltrate our walls, or so I hope!!!