My neighbor calls them his children. I call it an infestation.

I have two immediate neighbors in my apartment building. Ms. Bangles is a sixty year old woman who somehow has a different man over every other week. Based on the noise I hear filtering through my wall, I’m inclined to believe she really likes the discovery channel and has the hippo mating season on DVD. 

It’s the quieter neighbor, Mr. Receesh, that I’m worried about. There’s this skittering, shuffling sound that makes my skin crawl. I never notice it during the day, but without fail once the hippos have settled down I can hear something scuttling around. I still don’t like to cause problems though, and I’ve gotten into the habit of just playing soft music at night so I don’t have to listen to it.

This worked pretty well until I started dating someone and she spent her first night at my place. It turns out she can’t sleep with the music on, or with it off, given the symphony of the thin-walled building that plays every night. I told her I felt uncomfortable bringing up the heaving, grunting sounds from Ms. Bangles, so we agreed that she would speak to her about it in the morning if I talked to Mr. Receesh. 

I got the bad end of that deal. Mr. Receesh is a short, dark haired, man with a mustache and glasses. In other words, somewhere between an IT guy and the man at the playground with no kids. He was wearing a bathrobe when he opened the door, and there was more hair spurting out of his chest than I have on my entire body. 

“Police?” he asked, standing in the crack of the doorway like he didn’t want me to see inside. 

I was in sweats and a baggy T-shirt. Nothing about me looked like police. I told him no, I was his neighbor, and I just wanted to say—

Click. Door snaps shut, right in my face. I knocked again, feeling more than a little insulted. Again the door opens, and he looks me up and down. Then I heard the scuttling sound, and right there on his foot was this cockroach looking critter at least three or four inches long. It was crawling between his toes on his bare foot, but he didn’t seem to mind. 

“That. That’s why I’m here,” I said, pointing at the giant insect. “What the hell is that?” 

His mustache wiggled when he grinned. “Her name is Percy. Do you like them?” 

He opened his door a little wider as if to invite me in. I threw up a little bit in my mouth. The floor was covered in them, so thick I could barely see the tiles. More on the counters, scampering over the spoiled and uncovered fruit and open cereal boxes. Scaling the walls, wiggling through the carpet, and burrowing into the couch that had so many antenna sticking out of the rips in the fabric that it almost looked furry. 

Sitting in the corner was a thin, unhappy looking woman who stared down at her magazine without looking up. Her baggy skin hung loosely from her bones as if she’d recently lost a lot of weight, which I’m sure I would have done too if my kitchen looked like hers. She made no move to shoo away the creatures, and it would have been a futile effort as she already had a good number visibly crawling through her frayed hair. 

“This is Ulean, my wife, and all our wonderful children.” Mr. Receesh beamed. “We would do anything for them, wouldn’t we Ulean?” 

“Mmm,” Ulean grunted, flipping a page. She glanced up at me briefly with heavy eye-lids—a weary, long-suffering face—before letting gravity droop her head back down to the magazine. 

A few of the insects made a mad bounding rush for the door, but Mr. Receesh closed it most of the way again and wedged his bare foot to block the exit. I tried not to look at the especially large insect trying to squirm free of his toes to get away. 

“Well don’t just stand there,” he told me. “You can come in and meet them or go, but we can’t just chat here or they’ll escape.” 

I honestly don’t know what I told him. I was feeling a little dizzy and my brain couldn’t quite register what I’d seen. All I know is a moment later the door had closed, and I was standing there like an idiot, not wanting to knock again. 

“I’m going to tell the managers at the front desk!” I shouted through the door. “You aren’t allowed to keep those things. They need to send an exterminator!” 

“How dare you threaten us!” the voice came back through the door. “Ulean and I would die for our children! Wouldn’t we, Ulean? Don’t you dare come back!” 

I didn’t stick around long enough for him to open it again. I ran straight to the administration office on the first floor, but it wasn’t closed. Sunday—they didn’t open until 11. I didn’t want to go back to my room and explain to my new girlfriend what was there, because that would be the last time she ever visited me. I just waited at the office for someone to come. 

About ten minutes later, I see Mr. Receesh, fully dressed, hustling for the door with a suitcase. It squelched as he dragged it, and a little red liquid drizzled out through the zipper. I called after him, but he just flipped me off and rushed out. My girlfriend started texting me asking where I was, so I made up the excuse of going out to get us breakfast while I killed time until the office opened. 

The only thing more disgusting than seeing those teaming masses of insects was imagining them while I was getting food. I felt like I didn’t want to eat anything ever again, but I picked up some stuff for her and hurried back. The office was open by then, and I explained everything I saw to a bewildered lady who looked at me like this was all somehow my fault. She said she’d call someone about it, but I wouldn’t back down until she agreed to come upstairs with me and see for herself. 

Mr. Receesh was home again by the time we knocked. He fully opened the door and grinned, his stupid little mustache wiggling as he did. The office lady seemed embarrassed, but he laughed at her stumbling questions and invited us both inside. The moment the lady had passed, his expression changed to one of brooding anger in my direction. 

The place was spotless, and I felt like the biggest asshole in the world. Clean counters, clean floor—I know I wasn’t imagining it though, because the couch was still perforated in a hundred places where the insects had been burrowing a moment before. 

“… no, no pets. Just me and the misses, sleeping in the other room,” Mr. Receesh was saying. The office lady apologized again, and glaring daggers at me, moved to exit his apartment. 

“Let’s see the bedroom,” I demanded. 

“This is getting absurd,” Mr. Receesh protested. “These baseless accusations are no excuse to harass my wife—” 

I didn’t wait for an invitation. I barged through the place and flung open the door, half-expecting a torrent of insects to come tumbling over me in an avalanche. The room was dark with no sign of the creatures. There was only the fat lump of Mrs. Receesh, peacefully lying in bed. 

“That’s enough out of you,” the office lady said. She grabbed me by the back of my shirt and began to drag me from the room. “I’m so sorry for disturbing you, sir, I promise you won’t be hearing from us again.” 

How could I explain what had happened without sounding insane? It doesn’t matter how many layers Ulean wears when she goes out, it doesn’t hide how much larger and lumpier she is now. It doesn’t hide the limping shuffle she makes as she staggers along, always leaning on Mr. Receesh for support. What kind of monster would I be to criticize a woman for her handicap? Not to mention the ripple under her skin, like a thousand marching feet going about their business… 

More importantly, how am I ever going to sleep at night with that damned scuttling sound? 

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