FicWad

Rachelle was sitting outside a café on Bondi Beach in the hot sun. She was sweating profusely - the rivulets of sweat ran all the way down her back. It had probably been a bad idea to wear a black tailored suit - that fit like a glove.
She looked down at her state of the art Rolex ladies watch.
“Who does he think he is - God?” she asked herself forgetting that she was saying this out loud.
“More like a Greek god” said a small voice that she hardly heard.
She tried to deny what had just happened, stirred her fifth latte, looked fretfully at her mobile phone.
I’m getting heat stroke she thought, looking around her at the passers-by.
They were all going somewhere, going to lunch, on their way to the beach, getting on with their lives.

“I’m down here” said a small and squeaky voice.
“You are not so” she said petulantly.
I’m dehydrated she thought, looking up and seeing a black aproned waiter looking at her with concern.
She thought: I know what you’re thinking: that crazy lady is going to get up without paying the bill.
She picked up her mobile and put it against her ear. Maybe I left it on after the last call; that can happen sometimes.
But there was no one on the end of the line; still she heard this still small voice, peeping at her from table top level, in a most irritating way.
“I’m down here” repeated the voice from the direction of the salt and pepper shakers. She looked more closely shielding her eyes from the light of the relentless sun. She could just make out a small black figure with wings and antennae standing on its hind legs looking at her from the side of the salt. It was with the utmost restraint, at that moment that she didn’t scream.

Three reasons:
1. It would raise issues of liability (restaurants should guard against insect pests in the eating area, said the rule),
2. She had already raised attention with her weird mannerisms and
3. Let’s face it in this sceptical world it would do her no good.

“You can talk” she said, not really believing what was happening but trying to go with the flow.
She had always had a lot of trouble with this, all her friends ridiculed her on the subject, but she was an accountant, so it went with the territory so to speak.
This is weird thought Rachelle. What did you call this kind of individual to his face?
“I’m a cockroach” said the cockroach seemingly reading her mind.
It seemed to have no problem with its identity unlike her, she always worried about hers.
Her parents had always wanted her to be something artistic but she had always wanted something more lucrative; attendant to a load of bucks.
She thought desperately, I’m losing my mind.

This was always going to happen. I’ve repressed every creative impulse and now I’m seeing things, like some kind of waking nightmare happening in the real world. If this is the real world she thought, looking around herself at the glitz of Bondi Beach.
“Take it easy” said the cockroach.
Its voice was tiny and squeaky, a cross between rustling paper and finger nails scraped over the surface of glass.
“That guy will turn up soon and you can conclude your business with him or whatever you call it, when he comes”.
Rachelle didn’t like the tone of his voice. It was scathing and sarcastic, like her mother when she was asking Rachelle why she came to Friday evening supper with her school friend Ester or just came alone; instead of bringing a man.
“When are you going to give me grand-children?” she whined. “When are you going to find a nice Jewish boy?”
Thought Rachelle: one bloody thing at a time.
But you couldn’t swear; her mother didn’t like that. So she had to say the words inside her head. Like secretly, she thought, I am doing now.

“I am real” said the cockroach. Was he scanning her thoughts or was he simply observing what people had said to him from time to time?
Cockroaches didn’t live very long lives because when people met them, they usually went splat.
“Don’t think about it” said the cockroach in quite a stern voice.
“Who is going to stop me?” said Rachelle, looking around her for a heavy object to total this delusion and get it out of her mind.
“I’m not a delusion” said the insect.
“And you can’t just silence me by squashing me down. You’ve been trying to do that for a long time but it just won’t work”.
“You know what they say about us cockroaches said the cockroach defiantly?”
“If you see one cockroach” said Rachelle dismally, “there are hundreds of them running around behind the fridge”.
“Yeah” said the cockroach, “and this is Bondi” he said, “the cockroach capital of the world”. She had to admit that on this last point he was right, “that and bed bugs”.
“We don’t talk about them” said the cockroach, “they’re a lower form of life”. Was he a racist or what?
“That’s fairly racist” said Rachelle to the cockroach.
She’d made a study of the subject in high school or “yeshiva” as we call it and was quite an authority on the subject in her own right.
“They’re horrid freeloaders” said the cockroach “and when they get into to your house it’s impossible to get them to go away”. She had an uneasy feeling that he was telling the truth.

Rachelle was still trying to think of something to say though her fog of self-hatred when a shadow went over the sun.
It was her client.
She jumped up from her seat nearly knocking over the table. The salt and pepper shakers and her half empty cup of coffee rattled on the table like an miniature earth quake, for the cockroach, who snapped back, “hey watch out!”.
Rachelle ignored the remark which was largely drowned out by the noise of traffic and the beating of her own freaking heart.
“Hi I’m Rachelle” she said, in an unnaturally high voice for her, which sounded a lot like a squeak.
The cockroach who had gained his footing on the table top let out a huge belly laugh. These humans were pathetic he thought; with their constipated mating games.
‘I know what I would be doing right about now’ he was thinking as he was chuckling his little brown guts out, ‘I’d be fucking that guy all over the table top’.

Rachelle and the client sat down at the table and Rachelle hailed the waiter who sprang over to the table at the prospect of normality having settled in.
“A beer please” said the client in a deep German accent, which took Rachelle’s breath away. Not only because she had been trained at her mother’s knee to think of Germans as the Devil but because this guy was a total hunk.
Seriously, he had long blond hair and was wearing board shorts; he had evidently just been down for a swim. Rachelle could see a spray of water droplets on his fine chest hairs.
He’s amazing she thought, staring at the incredibly erect nipples on his ultra-muscled chest. ‘He’s like Conan the Barbarian in human form’.
“I see you’ve forgotten your papers” she stuttered unable to reconcile this manifestation of “reality”; hers had seriously fallen apart.
The client said nothing but had a huge grin on his face.
“It doesn’t matter” he said in a voice curiously reminiscent of Arnold Schwarzenegger (even though Arnold was Austrian and this guy’s name was Kurt).
“I suppose we can go past your place and pick them up” she said her mind wandering to his perfectly formed pecks.
“Now you’re talking” jeered the cockroach who was thinking of what the German surfer guy might have behind his fridge.

They drank a beer together and then they had two more. The whole reality thing had mixed badly with the sun and alcohol for Rachelle and she had started to lose her grip.
When they got to their feet and walked together down the beach Kurt had to grab her arm to steady her and make sure she didn’t fall.
She thought casually, I hope none of my mother’s friends see me or there’ll be hell to pay.
Her mother hated her drinking. Rachelle had an orange juice and her mother told her she was a lush.
It was ironic; they would probably worry less about her staggering down the road under the influence than her keeping company with a German.
The event her mother and all the Jewish ladies from here to Rose Bay had been talking about since her Bat mitzvah was about to happen and they would be more worried that she was losing her virginity to a Krout.
As far as Rachelle was concerned: at least he’s a man.

She struggled to keep upright and keep up with him as he strode manfully down the beach. Rachelle had totally forgotten about the cockroach in her consternation and could hardly care where he was.
Her little furry friend had hurriedly hopped into the pocket of her damp and sweaty business jacket and was hitching a lift that felt like he was being bounced around all the way down the road. When they got to his flat she was a total mess.
She accepted another drink as she sat on his lounge waiting for the German to come out of his bed room with the papers so she could do his tax.
She was seriously under the weather but even in her inebriated state she could see that this flat was a total dump. The couch had a lot of stains on it, from what she couldn’t say.
The cockroach slipped out of her pocket and scuttled towards the kitchen. “So long” he said to Rachelle “I’m going to see what I can find behind the fridge”. Rachelle didn’t hear a word.
Then the client came out of the bedroom with his “papers” in a shoe box. He put them down on the coffee table and sat down on the couch. Minutes later Rachelle and he were kissing and generally making out.
Minutes after that they were having sex (her first) and the German was totally blowing Rachelle’s mind (how long had this been going on thought Rachelle, her eyes rolling back into her head).
Some hours later after they had moved to the bedroom and had sex some more she met the cockroach out on the pavement. She felt like she’d done what she could for world peace.
The cockroach had hitched a lift in the shoe box and was looking a lot more cheerful than when Rachelle had met him earlier that day.
“So how was that?” asked the cockroach who was snacking on a piece of stale pizza that had interfiled itself with the “papers” inside the box.
“Mind blowing” said Rachelle, who was wondering how she might recount this story to her mum. “Seriously if they’d done this back in the day they might have saved six million Jews”.
“Yeah I had a pretty good time too” said the cockroach rubbing his aching back. “Behind the fridge I had six million screws”. Coincidence or what?

Back at Rachelle’s place the cockroach and Rachelle got down to doing Kurt’s tax return. It was mostly Rachelle because as we know Cockroaches are not very good at sums.
Rachelle spread out the contents of the shoe box on the desk of her home office and started to input what she found onto the spread sheet proved by the A.T.O. (that’s Australian Tax Office to you).
The cockroach just hung around waiting to see if any more food stuffs were interfiled with the papers. He had finished the pizza and after all that humping and pumping he’d done was hungry for more of Kurt’s tasty snacks.

It took a long time for Rachelle to fill in all the blanks. Kurt had a delightful but complicated life. He was self-employed, philanthropic, and had a child by his second wife.
“He’s so nice” said Rachelle “he even gives donations to Guide Dogs for the Blind”.
The mention of dogs made a cockroach a bit skittish, it stirred up memories of fleas and ticks he had once known. For an insect he was an incredibly racist guy.
He said in a high pitched voice “let’s skip the trash”. Nothing doing – Rachelle continued with her task: typing and laying the papers in a neat pile.
Finally the tax return was ready: the papers were all stowed in a manila envelope in her briefcase ready for her trip back to Bondi (the electronic the file was “sent”).

After she finished her task Rachelle was tired but happy - she said “I’m going to deliver this lot myself”.
At this last remark the cockroach pricked up his ears and started to dance around in high anticipation and glee (do cockroaches have ears?).
Rachelle might have been looking for “the one” but he was looking forward to 6 million delightful fucks!!!