Cockroach in a washbasin

A cockroach is stuck in a washbasin.

The cockroach expends all its energy trying to get out. Runs around blindly at the bottom feeling the porcelain with its antennae, trying to identify a climbable substance but faced with an impenetrable, impregnable wall, wherever it goes. The harder it tries to climb out, the more it slips back. If only it could understand the fact that the washbasin curves in an increasingly convex gradient, so that the farther it reaches, the greater are the forces pulling it back. Cockroaches, simply put, are not designed to get out of washbasins. But of course, its only a simple-minded cockroach that doesn't understand all these mysterious laws. It just knows that it wants to get out. So it keeps trying. And then, at one point, it seemingly defies the laws of physics and refuses to slip back as it reaches the edge. Or perhaps its just pure luck that it hasn't slipped yet. At any rate, it works its six legs hard, pushing, pushing with every ounce of strength, until the top of its antennae just cross the tip. Ah! The outside, finally! It can actually feel the air outside! Nothing can stop it now, it thinks. It surges forth with renewed hope, renewed vigour. The cockroach has finally mastered its fate and beaten insurmountable odds. It has boldly gone where no cockroach has gone before. But then....the unimaginable occurs. The washbasin comes to life! It sees the cockroach about to leave, and knows it must prevent it, at any cost. The washbasin realizes that its very design, its very purpose, meant to keep cockroaches trapped for all eternity, is being threatened. Its knows it must emerge the victor in this struggle, or be subject to a lifetime of shame. It then exerts powers beyond the cockroach's realm of understanding, and gives life to its walls. The walls of the basin start to dissolve beneath the cockroach's legs. What was once a fixed, solid wall, is now a fluid, slippery substance. The very walls of the basin start to move downwards, as if in ultimate defiance of the cockroach's will. It flails its legs wildly, tries in vain to grip with its antennae, but to no avail. The edges of the washbasin move downwards in a powerful spiral, dragging the cockroach along. It goes down until it can go down no more, and is helplessly pinned against the bottom, looking sadly upwards at the edge, the edge that was once so close, once within grasp, but is now an eternity away. And the walls continue to move, pinning the cockroach with ever increasing force, as if they themselves were conspiring to keep the cockroach trapped in its porcelain prison. The prison itself the ultimate warden. The cockroach continues to trash about, to try to escape the powerful downward spiral, but its struggles get feebler and feebler. It feels itself helplessly stuck in the drain, while the washbasin, as if to prove its superiority, or perhaps in anger, trying to teach it a lesson for its insolence, or perhaps even to guarantee itself ultimate victory, continues to pound it downwards, downwards....ever downwards.

A tryst against fate. An attempt at control. Nectar that burns. A house made of thorns. A lesson in futility.

The cherubic little boy, in the meantime, realizes the cockroach is nearly done for. He bites his lower lip and frowns in a moment of deep thought, causing little, ever so cute, wrinkles to appear on his brow. He concludes the cockroach is completely spent, and turns the faucet off.

Do you realize that cockroaches never go extinct? Where there's a washbasin, there's a cockroach.

Next in this series of wonderfully fascinating chronicles of animal behaviour, we present....the life of a sloth!

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[Note]: I wrote this about a year ago, one night when I was really down in the dumps. The first and only time I tried to vent my feelings out on paper. Do let me know what you think!