Centipede

My dear friends,

This may be hard for you to hear, but if I mysteriously disappear in the next few days or so, and my body -eaten from the inside out- turns up weeks later, I believe you have a right to know why.

It all started while I was waiting in line for the bathroom at our local Mexican restaurant. As I stood there in the hallway, an old woman with a sagging face came in the front door, and unknowingly let in a...centipede.

I was terrified. The centipede was, as I recall (and my memories are hazy with terror) green and black and utterly murderous. It came straight for me, teeth bared, ready to latch on to my décolletage and gnaw me into narrow strips. I truly believed it was my fate to be devoured then and there, but he took a turn when he reached me and went under the bathroom door. When it was my turn to use the ladies’ room, centikiller was waiting at the threshold. If his eyes had been visible, I am quite sure they would have been alight with bloodlust. My fright was matched only by my desperate need to relieve myself. Giving the centipede a wide berth, I made my way forward, eyeing Mr. Centipede warily the entire time. There was a drop of water on the floor, and at one point, he crawled into it headfirst. He must have been either confused, injured, or having a drink, because it stopped him in his tracks. Oh, but what am I saying? Of course he wasn’t having a drink. He would want to save all the room he could for my blood. I stared him down the whole time I was in there, except for a brief pause, when I was admiring my reflection in the mirror.

That, my friends, was the first encounter.

The very next day, in my own home, I was walking through the living room, when I looked up, and on the ceiling was an even bigger centipede. Perhaps thousandpede is a more accurate term. It was positively frilly with thin, feathery legs. Its undulating body was the same shade of rust as old blood. Coincidence? I think not. I called for my father to save me, but he was already in bed and refused to come to my aid, which I will probably hold against him for years. For the rest of the evening, I had to walk through the living room with this gorgon looming above, ready to drop down and finish the work his underling at the Mexican restaurant had failed to do. Three times I passed through, each time eyeing the creature, ready to fight for my life, and each time he stared back at me, smelling my fear and probing the depths of my soul.

The fourth time that I came through the room, horror of unspeakable horrors, the deathpede wasn't there! There is only one thing worse than seeing a bug, and that is seeing a bug, returning, and seeing that the bug has gone into stealth mode and at any moment will swoop down and stick you in the jugular with its fangs. I dashed upstairs to my bedroom; I had no plans to be impaled that night. I slept with my door closed, and the next few days were spent checking ceilings, making sure he wasn’t lurking in the room I was about to enter.

But he will return. I know he will. And when he does, he will drag me away to his lair, where he will kill me with nothing more than a look from those beady eyes, and then eat my organs. Maybe, being a generous and forgiving Lord of Darkness, he will even let his underling from the Mexican restaurant have the scraps.

Well, dear friends, you have heard my account. If I am dead before our next gathering, watch Cinderella together and think of me as you weep into your chocolate cake.

Yours,

Emily