Thorax Part 1

          The death alarm was going off. Bill Blattaria could hear everyone running and screaming. Bill moved his antennas around trying to make sense of the commotion. He wanted to get a sense of what was going on before running wildly and joining the chaos.

          Bill's left antenna picked up an image and relayed it to his brain. He saw what he needed to see. A squadron of Wasp storm troopers were spraying their deathicide again. The squadron was quickly approaching Bill's location. They would be overhead within seconds.

          Bill Blattaria just closed his eyes and held his breath. It was all he could do, he was too far from his chemical fallout shelter. At this moment he wished he had not wondered so far to scavenge for food. He was really hungry and the hot dog vendor had dropped some scraps of food about three blocks away from Bill's apartment.

          He had almost made it there, too bad now, those hot dog scraps were death in disguise. Bill felt bad as he thought of the next unsuspecting victim to eat those scraps. Would it be a sewer rat, the neighboring ant colony, or a fellow cockroach.

          Bill could feel the deathicide come down in a mist. He could hear the death throes of the elderly, weak, and young insects. The death mist was all over him by now. He never got used to the burning. It would start at his antennas, work its way down his thorax, storch his wings, and burn his feet. Bill held his breath and pinched his nose with his two front legs. In a few moments, the death alarm would stop and he could wash the deathicide off.

          The deathicide started to irritate his nostrils. He pinched his nose tighter, if the deathicide made it to his lungs it would be a bad day. An average cockroach could hold breath for forty five minutes. This average cockroach was tired from wandering for food all day.

          Bill could feel himself start to pass out. Just a few more seconds he thought. Just a few more.........

          Who knows for how long he was out?

          Bill felt like he was floating very strangely. It felt like when he went to the Morbid Roach concert and stage dived. He was being held up thousands of antennas. His body was swaying up and down like a wave. He missed those days, different insects just hanging out and getting along while listening to music. They were all getting high on raspberry leaves.

          As he became more and more conscious, he realized he was indeed floating. Bill was being carried on the backs of ants. The ants were in a high speed march back to their colony with their new found dinner.

          " Hey put me down, I am not dead yet", screamed Bill to the marching ants. The ants stopped their trotting on a dime, it sent Bill sliding to the ground.

          " I am not dead, you fiends", screamed Bill once again.

" Oh, sorry Bill. We did not feel any vital signs on you. We even tried to give you mouth to mouth. After that it was fair game", answered back Reggie the ant and Bill's upstairs neighbor.

" Fair game. So let's eat our neighbors is a fair game", refuted Bill.

          Roger the ant stepped forward and said, " We were going to eat you very respectfully and we would have felt bad the whole time."

         " What if I would have come around during middle of dinner? would you guys have spit me out?, questioned Bill, still somewhat upset at the ants.

          " I am disappointed. Reggie, I watch your kids when you are forging for food", said Bill as condescending as he could be.

" Rember Bill, when you ate three cheese puffs on 3rd Avenue and Vine Street. It was the middle of winter, our colony was starving. You did not offer us any of the cheese puffs", interjected Fred, the foreman of the ant colony.

          "That's different Fred. All is fair in war and cheese puffs", uttered Bill as he recalled that day. It was unneighborly of him to eat all those cheese puffs. His anger subsided.

          " Either way, how is the neighborhood? How bad is the loss of life?", asked Bill.

          "It's bad. The silk worms lost half their population. We lost a colony on the east side. Even the butterflies took a hit. We never thought the Wasps would try and kill other flying insects", mentioned Roger the ant dismayed from the destruction of earlier today.

          " Those damn Amuplex Wasps!!", shouted Bill, biting down hard on his mandibles.

         " Dr. Apoidea Dementor has released a book called, The Winged Panzer: The Rights of the Winged Insect", stated Reggie.

          " The flying insects are eating every word she says without question", added Riley the puss caterpillar climbing down from a dumpster can.

         " Hey Riley. We thought you would be a cocoon by now", exclaimed Roger the ant.

         " I love crawling around. I think I might skip out on that part of my metamorphosis", replied Riley.

         " I read that book. Just someone taking pride in their origins", stated Bill.

          " That's how it all starts", uttered the ants in unison.

" The ants are right Bill. Dr. Dementor has all winged insects flying to the same drum. She convinced a colony of honey bees to go on a suicide sting mission. When all was said and done fifteen hundred honey bees laid dead. Four hundred mole crickets were stung and paralyzed, a flock of black birds came and ate bees and crickets alike", stated Riley.

         " I hear she wants to meet today with the grass hoppers. She wants to include partial flyers in her hate campaign ", intervened Reggie the ant.

          The deathicide was really gnawing at Bill's exoskeleton. He needed to wash it off right now. If he waited too long it would weaken the exoskeleton, if a second raid were to happen it would be certain death.

          He bid his farewell to the ants and Riley. He sped off towards his apartment, there was a pond nearby that he could wash up at. He really missed his apartment right now. It was a cockroaches paradise. The ground was soft and moist. It was also right in front of a candy store.

          No time to daydream. He needed to kick it in high gear. His stomach was beginning to churn all the loss of life he saw on the way to his apartment.

          Dr. Apoidea Dementor.

Bill knew that name very well. She was not a docter when they first met. She was a sociology major. He was a mathematics major. They went to the same college, St. Hexapoda University.

          He knew her by her nickname Dea. They used to date back then. It seemed a lifetime ago. They would meet down at the lake on 7th Street and Vine Avenue. Dea had a soft spot for cotten candy. Bill would race off to the park after class and pickup as much cotten candy as he could carry. He would be out breath and exhausted by the time he got to the lake. It was all worth it to put a smile on Dea's face.

          They were going to change the world for the better. Where dit it go wrong?

          Bill finished washing off as he pondered on the recent events. He knew he could trace it back one single event. He knew all too well that violence only begets more violence. Some how he still blamed himself.