One Morning...

Early morning, and I lie on the couch, in the dim cool light of predawn, a warm Impling curved in the recess of my body. She sleepily played with my face, little fingers tracing a soft path over my cheeks, my nose, my eyes and eyebrows. Her own blue/brown eyes are inches from mine, then she turns her head so the soft gold of her curls warms my nose with the scent of baby sweat and shampoo.

She falls asleep, her breathing slow and regular. I fall asleep myself, smiling at her little snore. We lie together, at peace. I am in a light doze now, so I open my eyes to the grey light and the ceiling and the smooth expanse of wall. The shadows are muted and soft. Sleepy light. I absently note a black smudge on the wall, then feel a shiver of horror down my spine as the huge black smudge begins to move.

I am not wearing my glasses, so I can only guess what it must be. A roach? The Impling, oblivious, sleeps on as I watch the thing slowly crawl across the wall away towards the back door. It's crawling away. I don't need to move. Yet. Christ, it must be 5 inches at least. I've seen big roaches before. They still give me the creeps. But this...this didn't seem like a roach. I didn't know what it was. It crawled, faltering every once in awhile as it lost it's grip and falling, then catching itself...oh, crap. Please, don't let it be a spider. Please please please.

It was above the back door when the Impling woke up. She smiled at me and sat up, awake and happy. All was right with the world.

Except now, I had to do battle. Dr. Science was catching up on his sleep. I couldn't wake him for this. So I smiled at the Impling and followed her towards the kitchen. It was time for juice.

It was time to see what the monster on the wall actually was.

A space alien, on my wall. The long body, countless long legs moving in tandem, huge antennae waving. All the air left my lungs as I moved a chair and grabbed the Maine road atlas.

Ok...Ok... up on the chair. Shuddering in primal fear at this thing that was easily five inches long. I stared at it, and saw flecks of blue in the body, a kind of sick grace, beauty even, that made me want to cry. I was going to kill this thing. Because I was afraid of it. Because it was in my space. In the Impling's space. And it didn't belong.

“Okay. One...Two...Threeee...”

THWAP.

Behind me, I heard the sudden intake of breath, and I turned around to a stricken face, the Impling looked up at me with overflowing eyes, her mouth a mask of tragedy.

“What did Mommy do?!” she cried.

Then I was beside her, arms wrapped around her shaking little body.

“I was...Mommy had to...take care...of...” I stumbled.

What the hell am I telling her...I can't say “take care” Now she's going to freak out if any one ever says they are going to take care of her...I just scarred my child for life. She is frightened. I frightened her. Or the bug did. Or we both did. She will never come into the front room again or sit at the table or look at a map without breaking out into a cold sweat I suck i suck I suck. Don't say “take care”, moron.

My voice came, finally, with a regret at my brutal action, that I hadn't had the presence of mind to maybe trap the thing and throw it outside. Yeah. Right.

“Mommy squashed a bug sweetheart. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you.”

The morning had mutated into a killing field, and now I reaped my reward...persuading my sobbing child that the chair was okay, the map was okay, the room and the table was ok.

“Whaywe's the bug Mommy?”

“on the map. I need to clean it up” I reached for a fistful of tissues.

“NOOOOOOO!!!”

“it's ok, sweetheart, there's nothing to be scared of”

“wanna go in youw woom now”...she pulled at my hand insistently. Security gone. We go to her room. We read books. We hide until I persuade her to come out for breakfast. She will not walk by the table. She cries in fear when I do. For the rest of the day we talk about it. How big the bug was. How it “startled” her, how Mommy squashed the bug. It got better. Dr. Science joined in the calming words and by the end of the day she was mostly back to her little cheerful Impling self.

The next morning, though...memories die hard.

I have never been so sorry for killing a creature in my life.