9:45, June 7th 2023

I felt hungry, so I climbed down the stairs in search of late-night grub. I had left, on the stove, a naked naan—exactly where I left it an hour ago, quite forgotten. It was uncovered by the plastic packaging it comes with, and although it was microwaved once before, I stuck it back in and dug inside the fridge for hummus. I don’t even remember the chime-like ding of the thirty-second timer, but I do remember sitting in my Mami’s seat which faces the window.

My seat—the one I claim by habit and ritual—faces away from the outside world, towards the table. But today was not ritual. It was not my dad serving salad while obligating me to put forks, knives, and water on the table. It was a digital clock displaying 9:45 in garish red light—my Mami upstairs, my Papi working the late night shift. Tonight was a disruption from commonplace routine.

I sat in my Mami’s seat, looking out at the still yet noisy summer night of a scorching Texas sky. Insects and bugs come alive in their nocturnal reprieve from a blistering Sun. I could hear a quiet hum, a small song of grasshoppers, but only faintly. I sat as I chewed on the rubber-stale body of a twice-microwaved naan. Looking at the void of dark blue ahead, I thought back to the fires in Canada that turned New York’s air toxic orange. I thought, with anxiety, about some stale words I repeated––phrases reading: hell scape and hell world. We live in a hell world. The future is a hellscape. I wonder if that’s really how I feel about the world, seeing those words here—in small print, typed up in front of me.

Still, at the moment when I chewed on the rubber-stale bits of hummus, I heard a frantic buzz at the window. Spazz-like tapping interrupted my thoughts and fired within me a strange, fearful curiosity. Two winged bodies seemed to be rapping at the window quite hysterically. I felt disturbed, from my meal, but also by the feeling that my being there was intrusive. They, I thought, might be mating. The way they had buzzed about gave me the impression they were bees.

My phone produced a video of the mating ritual of bees, and I alleviated my discomfort by joking about my unease with Eikharia. I sent him a message about the bee who was spazzing out in front of me, and how I thought it might have been mating moments before. I should have gotten it on camera, he replied, laugh-reacting to my messages, and I no longer heard the tapping at the window. I was back to my meal. He may perform at an open mic tonight.

I ate, but my nagging curiosity drew my eyes to the empty window pane. A buzzing resumed. Less a buzz, and more a violent thrashing. I looked on, narrowing my eyes. Hello, bee? Are you okay? I approach the window pane to get a closer look. It is so dark outside that I see the reflection of the window pane, but not the brick I know lies behind the window, on the other side of me looking in.

As I gaze outward from the edge—to a small plant outside, a ladybug crawls upward in calm steady paces. It outstretches its wings and lands on the window. Where once its spotted shell was visible, now I see its legs crawling white-like on the glass. I look now, at eye level to the pane, so I can see the frantic bug better, if at all. I see only darkness until a rapid fluttering comes from the corner of my adverted gaze which was tired of the blue-black nothingness of its focus.

I stand, adjusting my body, repositioning myself, now alert. I see the bug had hidden from view to the metal beam holding up the window. I feel my concern turn into the prying eyes of my mind’s pursuit. What creature thrashes its body like that? What could it be? Until finally, I see a brown flying bug—whose wings no longer outstretched—scurries into the darkness.

I fear and have always feared cockroaches. I was disgusted and insulted when my Mami gifted me, Martina the Beautiful Cockroach: A Cuban Folktale. Martina as a cockroach the same year I read about Gregor and his waking nightmare. When the book touched my hands, I was tied to this reviled creature by my name—through a children’s book.

I remember my disbelief, my mouth gaped open like a fish mouthing last words while its gills heave frantically. It was shock and horror and fascination and disgust. It was disbelief similar to the feeling of finding a brown-winged bug writhing against window glass.

I return to my seat and obsess about identifying the creature beyond these walls—somehow preferring the idea it was a bee. At a distance, the bug continues its tapping. I stay seated until the bug calms, sinking back to the non-visible darkness I know exists but that I cannot see.