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How The Cockroach Lost Its Voice, a children’s story by Samuel Reifler
One day Uncle Cockroach took his young nephew, Colin, on an expedition to the top of the freezer door. It was the highest and most distant area of the refrigerator. Few cockroaches had ever been there.
The first part of the journey, up the back of the refrigerator, was the most difficult. With Uncle Cockroach in the lead, they scrambled over coiled wires strung across their path and carefully picked their way through a maze of dangerous holes and slots. No cockroach who had fallen into one of these was ever seen again.
When, at last, they reached the top of the refrigerator, it was easy going. The surface was flat and covered with a comfortable layer of antique dust, found only on the tops of refrigerators, which made their walk across it quite pleasant.
Uncle Cockroach set a leisurely pace. “No sense tiring ourselves,” he said. “Let’s take our time and enjoy the sights.” Every once in a while they would stop to admire a particularly lovely swirl in the dust. Still, they were a little tired by the time they reached the gray gaskets, the icy cold and unpleasantly spongy barrier that lay between them and their goal.
“Almost there,” said Uncle Cockroach.
He hopped down and scurried across the gray gaskets, with Colin close behind. They shivered with the cold when their bellies came in contact with the surface, but the gray gaskets were narrow and it was not long before they were hoisting themselves up onto the relatively warm top of the freezer door.
Its narrow surface was unusually smooth and there was not a speck of dust along its entire length. “Careful,” said Uncle Cockroach, “it’s a little slippery.”
Tucking their legs in under their chins, Uncle Cockroach and Colin settled down to enjoy a view which only a few other cockroaches had ever seen.
“Behold!” said the Uncle Cockroach, nodding toward the distant floor below them. There, an enormous mound of squishy stuff was rocking back and forth, humming and squeaking.
Colin gasped, “What is it?”
“Those are humans,” replied Uncle Cockroach. “Two of them, hugging and kissing.”
“Ugh!” said Colin. “They are as big as the refrigerator itself!” He rubbed his eyes in disbelief.
“They are the largest of the giant beasts,” said Uncle Cockroach. “But they are remarkable in other ways. For example, even though they are only making noises right now, if they want to, they can speak.”
“What do you mean?” asked Colin.
“They can talk, they can use words, they can communicate with each other just as we do,” said Uncle Cockroach.
Suddenly, the sound of four words filled the room: HOW. ABOUT. SOME. COFFEE.
“There!” cried Uncle Cockroach. “Did you hear that?”
“Incredible,” said Colin.
“There is something else remarkable about them,” said Uncle Cockroach. “They have three eyes. The third eye is inside their heads, so we can’t see it. It sees things that happened in the past and things that might happen in the future.”
“Oh,” said Colin, “I wish I had a third eye like that.”
“No, you don’t,” said Uncle Cockroach. “It makes them miserable.”
“Why?” asked Colin.
“Well, nephew,” said Uncle Cockroach, twirling his antennae and waving his mandibles from side to side, “take a look around. What do you see? Look at the lovely cabinets, lemony white, with their pretty little green knobs. Listen to the sweet, melancholy song of the water as it drips into the sink, and look at how the sink shimmers and glistens in the light from the window. There, below us, is the electric range, with its magic circles that sometimes glow like the sun. It’s a beautiful world. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Oh, yes,” said Colin, “it’s the most beautiful world in the...” He wasn’t sure how to finish his sentence.
“Go ahead, say it: It’s the most beautiful world in the world,” said Uncle Cockroach. “There is no other way to describe it. But they,” he gestured at the humans, who were now in different parts of the kitchen, noisily opening and closing things, “they think the world is ugly and boring.”
Colin shook his head in disbelief. Below him twinkled and glimmered the blinking lights and glowing buttons of the appliances. “How could they? The world is so wonderful.”
“The problem is that third eye of theirs,” explained Uncle Cockroach. “This world seems ugly and boring to them because they compare it to the worlds they see with their third eye.”
“But those worlds aren’t real,” said Colin.
Uncle Cockroach nodded and then, looking down at the humans, sadly shook his head.
“Poor things,” said Colin.
“Now don’t go feeling sorry for them,” said Uncle Cockroach. “Since they think the world is ugly and boring, they like destroying it. And guess who is at the top of their list?”
“Who?” asked Colin.
“We are,” said Uncle Cockroach. “We, the cockroaches.”
“Why us?”
“They hate us because, not only can we speak, like they do, but because we can see The Great Web and they can’t. When humans look up, all they see is the ceiling,” said Uncle Cockroach.
Uncle Cockroach and Colin devoutly raised their eyes upward.
At that moment a radiant white moth descended and hovered above the freezer door.
“It’s an angel!” cried Uncle Cockroach and Colin. They raised themselves up on their rear legs and waved their front and middle legs. “Welcome!” they cried. “Hallelujah! Hosanna!”
“Hosanna,” said the moth. “I’m sorry, but I have some bad news for you. The Great Arachnid has decided that it was a mistake to give cockroaches the power of speech. (I’m afraid you might have been talking somewhat loudly a little too close to the ceiling.) She sent me here to render you forever speechless, you and all the other cockroaches in the world.”
“Them too, I hope,” said Uncle Cockroach sulkily, motioning towards the humans.
“There’s nothing anyone can do about the humans,” said the moth. “Not even The Great Arachnid has any power over them. Only when the last crumb has fallen behind the breadbox, only when the last dab of honey at the back of the second shelf up, middle cabinet, has evaporated, only when the last droplet of spattered grease is absorbed into the sheetrock above the stove, will that third eye of theirs close. Until then, the humans will remain outside The Present Moment, the realm of The Great Arachnid.”
“At least,” said Colin hopefully, “maybe from now on they won’t hate us so much.”
Because these were the last words ever spoken by a cockroach, they were prophetic. From that moment on, humans found lots of other things that they hated and wanted to destroy more than cockroaches.
Discussion Questions (Leave a comment!)
Uncle Cockroach says that humans have three eyes and that their inner eye allows them to see (or remember) what happened in the past and see (or imagine) what might happen in the future. Do you think that is true? Do other animals have a “3rd eye” too? If so, which ones?
Do you think having a “3rd eye” is what has made people successful animals? When is it useful to be able to remember the past or imagine the future?
Is the cockroach right, is our “3rd eye” the reason we are sometimes unhappy?
What is it about remembering the past, or imagining the future, that can make us unhappy? (The past can’t be changed, and the future hasn’t happened yet.)
Assuming our “3rd eye” is a source of our unhappiness, but also our success, is it better to have it, or not have it?
Check out the podcast discussion video!
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