Penance

Aaron Bliss

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Dan sighs and grunts as he wrenches his toe-capped boots off,

turning his head to avoid the whiff of a turbulent day on the picket

lines. It’s hard to know whether you’re really doing the right thing

when you’re spat at and threatened day in, day out. He never asked

to be head of the Union. The way Dan remembers it, his name was

put forward, followed by a hundred fawning sweet-nothings in his

ear. It was an offer he couldn’t refuse, but leading any movement is

only fun when you are winning: then you’re all in it together. In

times of adversity you’re on your own; the wrong choice; a failure.

Your enemies tap your phone and your friends poison your drink. At

least that’s the way it feels right now.

Dan spins the Glenfiddich lid and retrieves a whiskey tumbler,

pouring himself a treble measure. He has stopped watching the

local news for fear of seeing himself portrayed as a villain, so

instead trudges steadily up the stairs to bed. He recalls the words of

Pete earlier today:

‘I’m worried about you Dan. Some members have got it in for you.

Try to lay low for a while until this blows over.’

He was invited to discuss tactics at the Gentleman’s Club this

evening, but all he desires at this moment is sleep. The warm malt

licks his throat and warms his gullet as the muffled hooting of owls

signals the onset of night. He peels off his stale clothes like he was

flaying an animal and crashes onto the soft eiderdown. A double-

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bed always seems indulgent alone. Dan pictures Caitlyn’s soft brown

curls beside him; tastes her scent. He cannot wait until this is all

over and they are a family once more. Even the impromptu 3 a.m.

feeding and lullabies he can deal with. Matter of fact, it is the

memory that keeps him going in his lowest moments. As he drifts

off he sees Caitlyn, smiling again.

Dan stirs softly and mashes his face into the super-soft goose-

feather as forceless footsteps pad across the kitchen linoleum and

peel smoothly up the staircase towards his bedroom. He is snoring

obliviously as the boiler hums, orchestrating a radiator concerto.

The intruder stops dead and hugs the wall anxiously before the

dissonant banging and gurgling diminishes to simple landing

acoustics. He dares to take a breath and listens intently at Dan’s

door, before nudging it ajar; the moon from the skylight throwing his

shadow over the slumbering target as he stands poised over his

head, before deciding against hasty action and evacuating as

noiselessly as his incursion. Within a few efficient strides, Casper

has descended the stairs and bolted through the cat-flap.

The terraced streets are devoid of life. The sun has been set for four

hours, and this section of earth is as cold as it will get. Not but the

derelicts, addicts and nightshifts are awake, and none of them

active. This is the dead time. Casper glissades between the metal

halide pools like a true prowler, before arriving at the garden he is

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looking for and screeching like a banshee until a sinuous blue

tortoiseshell ambles out to meet him at the wall. As they slink away

together, the dormice rummaging through the opening they had

torn in the rubbish overflow sack emerge tentatively and bounce

away, hugging garden walls in case of predators.

Word is that a fox had been on the prowl not more than an hour ago

in this neighbourhood, so the rodents keep their wits about them.

They have already feasted well on the remnants of a Heinz baked

bean tin, soggy chips and lettuce; perhaps they can find a nice

beetle or spider on their journey to the house. Their potent noses

guide them through the minefield of the urban maze they inhabit

when other senses fail, and they bound through crevices and

apertures effortlessly, scuffing topsoil from the opening to a large

ant colony as they pass.

The queen orders all drones, workers and soldiers to the surface.

The harvest is over, and despite the darkness, slumber must be

postponed this night. The first ant heaves the stone from the tunnel

opening and the legion streams out in mighty phalanxes, marching

uniformly towards their goal. A gigantic pair of oblivious boot treads

wipe out a dozen of the army but the battalion plough on

regardless, minds focussed as one on their ultimate destination; a

good hour’s troop ahead. The mild breeze carries the distant scent

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of putrescence from the outflow of the reservoir on the outskirts of

the town.

A pack of purposeful rats depart from the filthy waters to scale the

causeway and scurry down the rolling hills towards the hub of the

town like a looming spear of infestation. A particularly pugnacious

badger ponders an ambuscade before shrinking back into the

undergrowth of woodland. The teeming shriek of squeaks and claws

on broken leaves and branches stirs a curious jackdaw in the bough

of an adjacent oak, who peers at the commotion before plunging

from his nest and gliding over the pack, mimicking the snake of

nimble vermin from above.

The bird flies ahead and waits for the rodents on the roofing gutters

of 36 Orton Row, which haven’t been flushed or cleared in going on

ten years. Not the fussiest of blackbirds, the jackdaw inches along to

the upstairs window and swings upside down to survey the sleeping

human inside. A crack and a rustle alerts the bird to company at his

right wing. A second jackdaw bounces down to the climbing trellis

just under the sill, ensconcing itself in the tangles of shrubbery while

darting his head around like a little propeller.

Emerging from deep inside the bowels of 36 Orton Row, arachnid

number one watches the sleeping carcass intently from the skirting

board refuge of the radiator pipe crevice. The third pair of her eyes

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twitch almost imperceptibly and four of her legs flex as the human

stirs slightly, only for him to return to unconscious slumber. She

sways ponderously for a moment before darting back inside the hole

in the wall; the tiny sensation-carrying furs on her lithe limbs

allowing her to expertly negotiate over and around the network of

dust-sodden beams and stained, sagging gossamer architecture

strung between the groaning aqueducts, before descending to the

interior wall cavity on the ground floor, where she congregates with

a particularly bloated male tegeneria domestica. She has seen him

round these parts before, looking at her like he wanted her spawn,

but she was done with birthing and had just fed. He doesn’t have

long left on this mortal coil, but tonight the agenda is somewhat

different, so she will spare him his life. He has used his eminence to

gather a garrison of smaller specimens and the odd domestic

soldier, and she gnashes her fangs in approval. The walls swell with

activity.

An intrusion hisses at the noises from beyond the cleft at the

juncture of the kitchen walls as they feast on the liquid refuse

seeping from the edge of the waste bin. The little creatures’

carapaces twitch in unison as they communicate. The consumption

ceases for a moment as the cockroaches seem to wait for

movement from some outside agitators. An uneasy breeze sighs

through the partition between the bedroom curtains and tousles the

hair of the blissfully unaware.

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The creaking of bed springs provokes movement once more as a

legion of spiders spills from the kitchen skirting board seams in a

tangled throng of furry limbs and quivering fangs. The cockroaches

lie still as the cavalry charge scuttles obliviously past and mount

each stair fervently in a black riffle, like coffee soaking up a pyramid

of sugar cubes.

The cat flap clatters as the pack of reservoir rats streams through,

past the swarm of voracious ants already on their way to the top of

the stairs. The creatures seem almost oblivious to each others’

presence on their journeys as the dormice ignore the bountiful small

prey around them in order to reach the hallowed room at the top of

the staircase. As they bound in, corps of ants, spiders and

cockroaches wait, poised and motionless at the foot of the bed. The

dormice wind to the perch of the two bedposts above the human’s

head and watch intently.

Dan is dreaming about the ocean, pulling Caitlyn out of her

depression and off to a new adventure: kissing on the pier; watching

Charlie’s little eyes light up on the carousel. His eyelids twitch

furiously and a modest smile plays across his lips as he groans

contentedly.

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The creatures react as one. How can this human sleep the sleep of

the innocent?

He has crushed our brothers and sisters!

He has murdered scores of our brethren, scalded them to death!

He has poisoned our kind many times over!

Our parents fell to his grotesque snapping jaw trap!

The crackle of death beneath his boot heel still haunts us!

A small beak taps at the window, prompting a surge from all

corners. The ants clamber up the bedposts, under the covers and

begin biting Dan’s prone flesh as the spiders descend on his face,

weaving through his hair and biting at his scalp and face. He wakes

in terror to find his duvet a mesh of cockroaches. The dormice gnaw

at his ears and at his boxer-shorts. He utters a scream, inducing a

tide of cockroaches and spiders to flood into his open mouth. His

earlobes are oozing blood as the insects infiltrate all of his mucous

membranes. As he convulses and chokes, the rats burrow into his

underwear and sink their diseased canines into his genitals, soon

aided by a plethora of ants. Every scream is noiseless; every breath

futile as ravenous insects congest his every cavity. As death enters,

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so do the two cats, just in time to feed on the fresh meat and feast

on revenge for the good friend fallen under the wheels of Dan’s

Passat.

Outside, the jackdaw perched on the gutter hops down to the trellis

and looks at his fellow bird for a moment and caws, before unfurling

his wings and swooping away en route to his nest on the outskirts of

town. He cannot wait to spread word of what he has witnessed

tonight. He might be absolutely shattered, but some things are

more important than sleep.