Martha woke with a stab of pain in her gut. Hunger. She hadn’t found much to eat over the
past few weeks, but now she really needed a decent feed. Food was scarce in the nuclear
holocaust, but Martha’s stubbornly positive attitude had seen her through the endless dark
days of hunger and thirst. And today the determined spirit that had kept her alive was
going to pay off.
She crawled out of her dark little corner, a safe space she’d managed to make a cosy little
home in. Truth be told it was a putrid home, but she wasn’t fussy. As long as it was
protected from the cold, she was fine. She certainly wasn’t going to sit around feeling sorry
for herself because she was all alone and living in a filthy hovel. She was just grateful to
be alive.
Martha always tried to look on the bright side of life, as her mother had taught her. At least
she didn’t have to worry about predators, as every creature in the world was dead, or so it
seemed.
She was the first to admit it was a lonely existence; she wasn’t in the habit of lying to
herself. And she could quite possibly starve to death any day now – let’s face facts. But
she would cross that bridge when she came to it. Today was a new day, filled with endless
potential. She could literally smell it in the air.
She took a few deep breaths and focussed on the task at hand: finding food, even if it
were only a few crumbs. She ventured outside into the dark, freezing, nuclear winter. She
had never liked the cold, but she could cope with the interminable darkness. She’d always
been a night owl anyway.
Every so often she wondered whether anyone else had survived, but she didn’t allow
herself to dwell on it. That might have sent her mad, caused her to give up hope. She cast
her eyes across the decimated horizon.
“Hmm, probably not,” she shrugged. “Oh well, onward and upward.”
The city was a smashed skeleton of its former self. A barren wasteland, corpse-like in its
absolute stillness. There were a few crumbling buildings left standing, the odd shell of a
car or bus, half a bridge, the remains of a children’s playground. They were mere relics
now, clues as to the kind of civilisation that had once existed. But now it was a dead city; a
dead world. Wiped out in a matter of days.
A less optimistic soul would have despaired at the situation she found herself in, but not
Martha. She had always felt she’d been put on the earth for a special purpose. Her
mother, bless her, had told her she would one day have an important mission to fulfil. Until
she knew what it was, she would simply keep putting one determined foot in front of the
others, making the most of each day that had been given to her.
Some days were better than others. If she was lucky she might stumble upon an
incinerated corpse and ravenously gnaw away at its charred flesh. Humans, dogs, cats,
horses, birds, faeces – she’d eat anything. She wasn’t in a position to be choosy.
On this particular day she was whistling to herself as she munched away on what looked
like the remains of a dog’s leg, tearing tiny pieces of flesh off the blackened bone, when
she heard a movement in the rubble behind her. She was immediately still and alert. Fear
swept through her. Her instincts told her to run, but her curiosity got the better of her.
“Who’s there?” she shouted nervously.
“I come in peace,” came the reply.
She heard her mother’s voice telling her not to run, to stay and be brave. She summoned
her courage.
“Show yourself!” she commanded.
From a dark hole in the debris emerged the most gorgeous male she had ever seen in her
life. He hesitantly took a step forward and smiled at her.
“I thought…I thought I was all alone,” he said in a soft voice.
Martha detected his manly scent. It made her head spin and her stomach turn
somersaults. Mmm mmm, nice pheromones! she thought. She let her guard down a lot
sooner that she usually would have.
“I thought I was alone too,” she answered, shooting him a sparkling smile. She couldn’t
help herself, she’d always been a shameless flirt. “My name’s Martha.”
“Charmed Martha. I’m Christopher, but you can call me Chris.” He flashed her a smile so
sweet it made her melt. His dark, penetrating eyes did something funny to her, got her
insides buzzing, made her antennae stand to attention.
“What’s a handsome cockroach like you doing in a place like this?” she asked, tongue-in
cheek.
No male had ever had this effect on her before. She finally knew what her girlfriends (may
they rest in peace), meant when they spoke of love at first sight. It used to annoy her how
giddy and giggly they got, but now she understood.
“Shall we dance?” he asked, holding out one of his legs.
Martha might have been temporarily blinded by desire, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew
she had trusted him quicker than common sense would dictate, but then, what did she
have to lose?
“How do I know you’re not going to try and kill me for my food?” she quizzed. “Or kill me
and eat me? These are lawless times you know.”
“It’s okay Martha, you can trust me. I’m on your side,” said Chris. “We have to stick
together now. We may be the only two cockroaches left on the planet. Besides, I fell in
love with you the minute I got a whiff of your scent. I promise I would never do anything to
hurt you.”
She believed him. As they entwined their twelve legs and crunched their shiny black
bodies together, Martha had a strange feeling of déjà vu. Had she dreamt this moment?
She had longed for someone like Chris all her life, and it took a worldwide nuclear war
wiping all life off the face of the earth for her to find him. How ironic.
She laughed to herself, remembering how her girlfriends used to complain that it was
impossible to find a decent man, and here she was falling in love in the most unlikely of
circumstances. But she had always believed love could happen anywhere, at any time,
and completely catch you off guard, embracing you when you were least expecting it.
They danced together by the light of an oil fire left burning after the blast, and then,
satiated after eating their fill of roast something or other, they lay together under the big
black cloud that blocked out the stars and made slow, sensuous, passionate love. Martha
had never known such tenderness, such mutual adoration, such feelings of pure delight
sweeping through her crusty body.
Martha and Chris talked and laughed and caressed each other all night – or was it all day?
There wasn’t any difference anymore. They were so blissed out in their little love bubble, it
felt as if they were the only two beings in the world, and sadly, they were. But not even that
fact could have wiped the smiles off their faces.
Such is the power of love, it can make the most hopeless situation seem bearable.
But they weren’t alone for long. Three months later Martha gave birth to 40 beautiful
babies. Finally, she realised what her life purpose was: to repopulate the earth with
cockroaches born of a pure and eternal love. She was the chosen one: the goddess of
vermin.
As the years passed Martha and Chris had 400 gorgeous babies. Martha was queen of
the colony, and ruled with a firm but fair hand. Sometimes she remembered fondly the
days of her youth, wandering the world alone with no-one to answer to. Now she felt
weighed down by responsibility, but her strength and cheerful attitude saw her through the
tremendous task of repopulating the world.
She passed on her mother’s lessons to her hundreds of children, and taught them to be
happy, positive and independent. To stand on their own six feet. It had to be so if they were
to inherit the earth.
And now, the skies were clearing and the plants were beginning to grow again. A new
world was being born. Martha and her family moved underground, into the darkness they
were so fond of. Life was pretty good. There were no humans to stomp on them or spray
them with insecticide. It was a cockroach’s paradise.
It turned out that the nuclear war that had ended all civilisation and obliterated almost all
life on earth had been a good thing – well, not for the rest of the planet’s species, but
definitely for cockroaches.
Martha’s mother used to tell her that the bridges you cross before you come to them are
over rivers that don’t exist. She was right. Had she allowed herself to despair and give up
when things got tough, she might never have survived to find Chris, the love of her life,
and to see the dawning of a new era, where cockroaches ruled the earth and peace
reigned supreme.