The Life and Times of the Curious Cockroach

Last time on “The Infinite Possibilities of O”: Alyona Andreevna Volkova’s search for a husband through superstitious tricks. The attack of the coffee table, and subsequent reprisal by electric saw. The maiming of every other piece of furniture in sight. Two black cats’ habit of sneaking into apartments and fairy tales at the most inopportune moment. The interpretation of a dream. The search for a bachelor whose name begins with the letter “O”. The encounter at the tea shop.

The gentleman named Oleg traced Alyona’s gaze to his own name tag and blushed. He felt ridiculous, wearing a stiff suit in a shop full loose-leaf tea bins and psychedelic paintings of toads.

“I just got out of a business conference,” he said, almost apologetically.

“Business conference?” asked Alyona and, unable to resist, added, “… right here in Arkash, or in Kiev?”

“Arkash, of course.”

The corners of Alyona’s lips slowly curled into a smile.

Oleg and Alyona spent several hours in the shop together. They sat at a small table that sagged under the weight of teapots, cups, flimsy metal contraptions and sand timers, which a skeletal waitress overturned with each round of tea. Oleg and Alyona’s cheeks becoming rosier and rosier as they filled and refilled their cups and shared stories. When the maiden became convinced that Oleg had no intention of running off to Kiev in search of work and matrimony, that he didn’t drink or smoke, that his real name was indeed Oleg and had been Oleg since birth, she invited him over for dinner. He accepted.

Walking along the Arkash streets, arm in arm, such a lovely pair they were! The poplar trees nodded to Alyona, and she nodded back, feeling just as tall and proud as them. She swayed in the wind, her head whirled in the clouds, she could hardly see the ground below. Was Oleg husband or stranger? The girl didn’t know. Was this walk their first or their hundredth? The girl didn’t remember.

There were many things she no longer remembered, in fact.

Giddily Alyona unlocked the front door of her apartment and ushered Oleg inside. The gentleman jumped back, startled at the sight. His eyes looked from the sad coffee table with its corners sawed off, to the rest of the mangled octagonal furniture, to the electric saw leaning against the refrigerator, to the yellow dust that lay in heaps and covered everything like a malignant mold, to the brown furled-up bits that smelled of apple cider and rotting earth, to the young maiden, in her furriest coat and reddest lipstick, who stood in the middle of it all as if it were just another renovation project gone slightly awry. Alyona may have even been able to pass it off as such if, at that very moment, two hairless creatures of unidentifiable species had not begun mewing hungrily at the gentleman’s ankles.

Oleg let a throaty tenor scream. With his mouth still open, he looked up at Alyona. But the girl didn’t say anything. She only stared at Oleg, as hungrily as the two animals, with her left eye twitching uncontrollably.

They spent a long while like this: Alyona ecstatic, Oleg terrified, but both immobile. Then Alyona blinked abruptly and turned on her heel.

“Make yourself at home, darling, while I fix us something to eat!” she said, and disappeared into the kitchen.

Oleg baited his breath, tip-toed out of the apartment, and closed the door behind him as quietly as possible. Only when he was far from Alyona’s street did he slow his pace. Oleg’s panic had ebbed and he was able to think clearly again.

He reached into his silk trouser pocket, pulled out a rat tail, and threw it down on the dusty pavement.

“That’s the fourth one this month,” he thought. “I’ve tried every good-luck charm I could find, yet I keep falling for total nutcases.” And as the gentleman walked on, he had a sudden urge to move to Kiev.

The End.