The Cockroach and the Crumb

Roach scuttled along the street, sidestepping the chunks of broken buildings and shattered glass. The pads on the bottom of his six spiny legs could have easily helped him climb the debris, but he barely had the energy to even hold his antennae up after a long day spent hunting.

A long, futile day. Just more decaying bodies and dead wood, a few bits of cardboard here and there. They weren’t terrible snacks, but Roach longed for the days he scratched through the kitchen walls, stealing bits of cheese off the table. Once, he even had the pleasure of gulping up a layer of powdered sugar dusting the countertop.

Roach sighed and shook the ash off his body so that he once again resembled newly minted copper. He could have sworn he smelt the sweetness.

He suddenly skidded to a stop on the cracked asphalt. His antennae quivered. Roach wasn’t imagining it; there was a sweetness. He closed his eyes and inhaled.

There! Roach snapped his head around. A piece of a brick with a large crack running through it sat to his left.

Roach stared. There was something odd about that brick.

He glanced up at the world around him. Pieces of ash rained from the heavens, covering everything in a layer of gray. Half-destroyed shops, some of them still smoking, lined the street. Only one of them had bricks, and a faded sign on its door (which hung on only one hinge) said “Bakery.”

Bakery? Something tickled the back of his mind. There was a cookbook in the kitchen… “Bakery Treats for the Beginner.”

His stomach rumbled. The days when the old woman opened the book were good days. Days where Roach got to enjoy sugar and vanilla, and perhaps a sprinkle of nutmeg. Days where he almost floated from the intoxicating aroma of chocolate—

Chocolate. Roach widened his eyes. He returned his gaze to the brick, crawled forward, and peeked inside the crack.

A crumb. A human food crumb, so tucked away inside the brick it remained untouched by the raining ash.

It was the color of sand with a darker brown around the edge, and about half the size of his oval body. The smell, the color, the consistency of the particles—Roach knew exactly what morsel he had found: a chocolate chip cookie crumb.

Roach almost cried. Chocolate chip cookies were his favorite snack before the nuclear blast. He remembered the last time he enjoyed one—in the kitchen when the old woman decided to bake enough cookies for the whole town. He didn’t need to eat for weeks after the feast.

He was sorry the old woman got blown up with the rest of them.

“You’re beautiful,” Roach whispered to the crumb, who said nothing back.

He took a step forward and caressed the crumb with his antenna. She really was beautiful; she almost shimmered with the sun reflecting off the small batch of chocolate decorating her edges. Roach felt a twinge of self-consciousness at his ugly, burnt copper body.

“I’m Roach,” he said to the crumb, who said nothing back.

He inhaled her sweetness and shuddered; none of his friends would believe this.

His friends! Roach swiveled his head to the left and right, furious with himself for being so careless. He was so close to the Fort; any one of them could smell the crumb if the right breeze swept through.

He turned back to the crumb—his crumb—and a fierce wave of protectiveness washed over him.

“I’ll keep you safe,” he murmured to the crumb, who said nothing back.

Roach scurried around the road until he found a suitable piece of crumpled cardboard, then hurried back to his crumb. He gingerly pulled her out of the crack and wrapped her in the cardboard before setting the bundle on his back. He gave a shake. She didn’t budge.

Roach spared one last glance around before scuttling away in the opposite direction of the Fort.

Where to take her? The scorpions were to the north and the Grand Lake to the south. He couldn’t risk her being discovered, even if the scorpions were friends. He certainly couldn’t risk her getting soggy. He tucked the crumb more securely onto his back and began to scuttle west.

Roach traveled for weeks. On clear evenings, he plucked her out of her cardboard cocoon, gently set her next to him and wrapped his antennae around her. They watched the sun paint the sky orange as it sunk below the mountaintops.

On the days it rained ash particularly hard, Roach covered her in dry twigs and stood guard, coughing and sneezing as he struggled to breathe.

He consumed pieces of hair and leftover sewage. She consumed nothing.

They passed broken houses and demolished skyscrapers that had once towered over the streets. Roach crawled around cars and dead bodies and struggled to climb the hills.

“You good back there?” Roach asked the crumb, who said nothing back.

Once, she fell off of him and rolled down a steep slope. He screeched so loud he couldn’t speak for a week. The cardboard did its job spectacularly, though, and she remained in one, beautiful piece.

Twice, Roach smelled a wasp buzzing near him, and he burrowed straight underground to hide his prize. Thank goodness the only survivors of the blast were the wasps and the scorpions and his kind, or Roach would be fighting a different monster every minute.

Finally, a month into the journey, Roach sat inside a mountain cave with the crumb at his side. She leaned against him and together, they stared at the ashen valley spread out below them. Smoke curled from the ruins. The glow on the horizon told Roach that fires still roared in the distance.

“We made it,” he whispered to the crumb, who said nothing back.

He stared at her. The crust, the chocolate, the glow of dusk—he never could have imagined this.

“I love you,” Roach said to the crumb, who said nothing back.