"I know it's you. And I'm not shocked at all. For, one, I was secretly joking to myself that if this cockroach was a man, he then is the man I've seen the most.”
"I didn't know you thought of it."- Roach cannot believe he is talking to the lady already.
"One day, I was talking to myself that how nice it would be to have a company, even if he was a cockroach, and it'd be even better if it could talk. I have been thinking this thought since then, and I don't remember for how it's been. Last night, a spirit named herself the Goddess of the Lonely came into my dream, actually I am not sure it was a dream. It's like I was in between sleep and awake."
"She came to you too?"- Roach now believes everything is happening now is real.
"Yes, she told me: 'Anne, tomorrow after the sun comes down and when the moon rises, I'll have the little bug you've been seeing and feeding every night be a human man, to keep you company, to take away your loneliness. But you mustn't let him walk out of your apartment, or both of you will be punished, for the rest of your lives. Do you want it or not?' I didn't get too much time to think, and the answer just popped out so effortlessly. So here we are." -Anne replies.
Anne looks so naïve and innocent, like a 5-year-old girl, so happy to meet the boy just moved to next door and can't wait to play with him. The loneliness that she carried for centuries now is nowhere to be found.
They sit down at the kitchen table which has been here since the last tenant, or maybe many more previous tenants. Anne doesn't like it at all because it is too big for the kitchen, and it's made of glass. Besides, she never has so many guests to fill the seats around the table.
Roach very quickly starts preparing the tea. He knows where the tea is, where the tea pot is, where the cups are, like he has been living here as long as Anne has. Well, remember, when he was the cockroach, he had been through everywhere and everything in this apartment. All Anne has to do is be seated and be served. It's quite an experience, she has been living alone for a long time after all, and it's the first time someone waits on her. Every night Roach shows up, they sit down at the table or they get cozy on the couch in the living room, having their teas and talking through the night.
So Roach gets to know Anne. She's a middle-aged woman. Has seen the world when she was younger. She worked in Europe for years. She's been through a lot of turmoil and ended up alone. She stays at home a lot because all though she worked for some organizations she found her passion for words and languages, and for working solitarily. She spends most of her time doing translation and writing, that's the way she makes living. She doesn't often go out except sometimes when she eagers for fresh air.
They have a great time together. Roach would share his experience as a cockroach, where he has been, what he has seen through the senses of a cockroach, and he tells the secrets he knows about the neighbors upstairs, downstairs, next doors. Anne would laugh, sometimes weep and some other times her jaw falls for how ridiculous things could get and people could be. Sometimes she just can't believe what can happen behind those walls, and listening to what Roach has to say is so much fun, as if she had traveled as a bug with him.
Anne feels consolation. "This man, though actually a cockroach, knows me better and is right here with me more frequently than any friends of mine, or those once boyfriends or lovers, or even the ex-husband."
